This is the slow part of the ceiling project: taping and filling the joints, covering the recessed screw heads and then the sanding. It’s not as slow as it was when I first started out at this sort of thing thirty years ago, but it’s still slow. And it has its ugly stage, too. About halfway through, it’ll look like some preschooler’s clay project. There’ll be humps and bumps and bulges and such.

The hanging part went pretty quickly, all things considered. Once Jay and I had fastened up the furring strips over the old, heavily textured and badly peeling ceiling, putting up the new went well. Using the twelve-foot sheets, we had the new drywall installed in about sixteen hours or so. We set no records and impressed no one but ourselves and our wives, but the dining room/living room and hallway were done.

Even without being filled, primed or painted, it looked better than the old ceiling.

Well, it did before I started taping the edge joints last night. Now it’s got those long jagged white stripes running along the length of the rooms. And it’ll look worse after the next coat and the one after that. But, if I don’t give up or get kidnapped in the next week or two, it’ll get done. Every dip, gouge and seam will be covered and sanded smooth. Priming and painting will leave a nice expanse of flat white ceiling that will look as if it had always been part of the house. Visitors will have no idea, unless we tell them, how ugly it used to be. They’ll just see what it has become and not even think about all the work that went into it.

Just like the folks who will one day only see what we have become by the grace and shaping of God’s good hand. They won’t see the humps and bumps and bulges and such. They won’t know about the old cracks and seams and rough edges that took many years of soothing and smoothing. They’ll not see the long jagged joints and they won’t know or care about our ugly stages.

They’ll just see those fine white robes and figure we fit in just as well as they do. And we’ll all give glory to the One whose work has made us something we could never be without His finishing touch.

H. Arnett
3/2/16