The Art of Spackle

See the HUGE gap???

Crown molding gave me a rough couple of days. I looked up one day at my wonky crown molding with gaps galore and thought, "This is going to look so bad." I went home defeated and got on Pinterest. I'm not sure what I looked up exactly, but I found THIS and it has saved my sanity. I've hidden some pretty crazy things with spackle before (giant holes in my garage the day before we closed on our last house!!!) but this is genius. I wish I had taken a picture before I filled it with caulk. But I was desperately trying to figure out what I was going to do with it and all I had was caulk at the time!

I'll back up just a bit... things were going smoothly for me until I hit this long stretch of wall. I thought, "Oh, perfect! I'll hang an eight foot piece and be almost done!" Hung it. Went to hang the corner piece and it didn't fit. Cut a new piece. Didn't fit. I couldn't get the corners to connect. I measured it with my angle finder. 90 degree angle on the nose. Finally, I realized my eight foot piece wasn't sitting correctly on the wall so I took it down. I assumed it was a problem and cut it

There are three joints on that one stretch of wall!

down thinking I'd have more control in smaller pieces. Got to the end—corner piece does not fit. I ripped it all down three times before I decided the integrity of my plywood was in question and not intended to be pulled on repeatedly. On the forth attempt it didn't matter if it didn't fit—it was going to work. Period. I had no choice. So I hung this horrible match and went home. Best I can guess given that my angle is 90 degrees is that my ceiling is not. It happens. I wasted about $25 in crown molding too. It's getting used SOMEWHERE in this house. 

Back to the spackle... My container was a few months old and starting to dry out a little, which turned out to be good so I could roll it up like putty and fill my hole. I then let it dry for a few hours and tried to start sanding it and decided I ought to let it sit overnight. I was actually quite proud when I left after spackling day. 

Day three...Except for the excessive sanding, it wasn't so bad. It finally started to coming together. It doesn't look amazing here, but a little caulk and paint... a lot of caulk and paint... I started to feel less like I had bit off more than I could chew!

Did I mention the caulk? There's a lot.

I find a thick line followed by a wet paper towel seems to be the best application method. Did I mention that the entire house needs to re-caulked basically? It's going to be fun... Buuuutttt... now that it's painted. Look at the amazingness of this corner! It's a tad off, but it's also five feet up in the air.