Friday, July 20, 2007

So how does one spill beer on the ceiling, anyway?

Floridacracker's recent post about painting the textured ceiling had me thinking about the inconveniences of what seemed like a good idea in the '90s. You know, that textured popcorn like bumpy ceiling stuff. It's difficult to paint, and melts away if you try to clean something off it. Like beer stains.

It all started when we were newlyweds, a year or two, and decided to get into making beer. We were living in this split level, semi rural development house that was very cookie-cutter like. And, it was too close to the freeway. Way too close. But it was on a pond with a wonderful view, and there were loons nesting outside my dining room window...So.

Anyway, we had recently discovered beer beyond Busch, and discovered that we could even make it at home! We invested in a "starter" beer kit, and followed the instructions to brew our first attempt, a stout. I proudly poured it into the primary fermenter, basically a six gallon bucket with an airlock on top. The day I first brewed, The Hermit had to head out for a business meeting, so I spent the first night as an anxious first time brew mistress alone.

At approximately 5 AM, I heard a loud BANG from the kitchen. I dragged myself out of bed to investigate. In the kitchen I found the fermenter, sans lid, and the lid several feet from the fermenter. Somehow the airlock had plugged up, pressure had built, and...BAM. There was a prominent dark brown stain on the kitchen ceiling, and dark beer splattered all over the kitchen.

The beer turned out okay. Very good, in fact, for a first time effort! The ceiling, well, I tried spraying bleach on it, with some success, but there was always a little spot there.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Someday we ought to share a few dozen glasses of beer!

The "varnish" on the woodwork in our "new" house (new 20 years ago when we moved it) was sprayed on: cabinets, door trim, doors). The lout who did the spraying wasn't very careful and got a lot of this finish onto the popcorn ceiling. Over the 20 years, this finish discolored (and those light wood cabinets are now an uglier darker color). So I ended up painting the ceiling in the kitchen (also in the front hall). It wasn't so difficult using the special sponge rollers designed for the job, but the prep work was immense since this ceiling paint is glopy and drippy. No more popcorn ceilings for me!