Well, its going to be difficult changing the name on this one. I’ve already put Gerard’s name in the blog a few posts ago, and I know that both he and his wife read The House, so… I guess it’ll just have to be out there for everyone to see.
Gerard got to work here right away, taping and mudding the drywall. I’m going to assume that everyone knows that the gyprock on the walls doesn’t come in one big sheet the size of your wall, and that all of the seams need to be covered up, for that smooth look. This involves putting a tape over the seams, and applying a "mud" in a thin layer over that, and any imperfections (such as nails and screws), and smoothing and sanding it until it looks like one seamless piece.
The mud comes premixed with water, but it needs to be stirred up to use. We use a large paddle that goes on a drill. You stick the paddle in the mud, turn on the drill and voila. Now the paddle is stirring a very thick liquid, so the power of the drill is toned down significantly. Not so much with water. Gerard decided that the quickest, easiest way to clean the paddle was to stick it in a bucket of water and turn it on. The result was that water flew everywhere as it quickly rose up and over the sides of the bucket.
Now that in itself would not be enough to make a crew story, after all it would seem like a logical thing to do… once. But yesterday, the memory of two days previous already fading, Gerard did it again. Only this time he used a little more water. Now he claims that he only held the paddle over the water, and that the paddle caught the side of the bucket, causing it to spin out of control, but the result was the same.
I’m keeping him around to wash the floors, he does it faster than anyone I know.