You know how you’re supposed to caulk around woodwork and stuff to make a nice clean seal between the woodwork and the wall? Well, for once, the previous owners of this house did something right and they did apply a nice bead of caulk way back when. But that was like a bazillion years ago and with the house settling and stuff, a lot of that caulk has chipped and cracked away. I’d like to remove it anyway so I can get paint right up to the woodwork and then apply a new seal of caulk when I’m all done to tidy it all up. The caulk they used a bazillion years ago hardened into a stone-like substance and the only way I’ve found to get it out is to chip at it over and over and over and over again with the pointy edge of my scraping tool.

I’m not really expecting any better answer than “Nope, that’s what you gotta do,” but if I’m wrong and there’s a faster/easier/less painful on my knuckles (from scraping against the wall repeatedly) way to do this, I’d love to hear it.

And don’t say “Have your husband do it!”

To sweeten the deal, here’s some pictures:

I used the heat gun to strip the paint off the top of the baseboards first. Between the baseboard and the plaster wall is caulk. It’s brittle and breaks pretty easily when I chop it with the scraping tool.

Like so…

Sound effect for this picture: “chop.”

Also, just to remind myself that I’m still a girl, I painted my toenails. See? Yeah, I spent the whole afternoon chopping at caulk, barefoot with pretty red toenails. It’s the little things that keep me going.