The Bane of My Existence

Is wallpaper.

Especially wallpaper that has been painted and is now starting to show signs of bubbling. It's everywhere. The only room that has NO wallpaper is the living room and that's only because it's wood paneled.

Small mercies gratefully accepted.

BEFORES:

This is one of the bedrooms that has old wallpaper painted a depressing shade of muddy brownish/fleshy gray. Nice, eh?







DURINGS:









And then there's our dining room which features un-painted wallpaper in a lovely floral pattern glued onto bare, unprimed, 80 year old plaster walls.









Fortunately, Home Depot allows us to rent "the beast", which is the only way we have found to successfully remove all of this old wallpaper. Steam works wonders, and without any harmful chemicals.



Will post AFTERS once the sanding/patching/priming/painting is complete.

So, sometime around June 2010. Optimistically.

And despite appearances, I do actually help with the wallpaper removal...except when I'm taking pictures.

Hot, Wet, & Sticky

Wallpaper Removal.

Anyone who has enjoyed removing decades old wallpaper, say "Aye!".

*crickets*

Remember how I told you about, and showed you, all the freaking wallpaper in our house?

Exhibit A


Exhibit B


Exhibit C



Previously, we (Daniel) had attempted to remove it using the heat gun. It worked so well on the contact paper, we thought we'd give it a shot. It did not work well on the old, old wallpaper stuck to original plaster walls. So, then, we (Daniel) attempted to use a water and fabric softener solution to remove the wallpaper. This method also, did not work well.

So, on Saturday we went to Home Depot (our new hang-out) to rent a wallpaper steamer.



This thing actually worked pretty well. It was still a hot, wet, sticky, messy process that required considerable patience, but we managed to remove all of the wallpaper in the entire kitchen (even the little strips above the cabinets), and in the hallway and in the pink bathroom. And it was only $32 to rent for 24 hours.







So, now instead of dark blue wallpaper with little columns of pink roses, or pink paisley wallpaper, we have lovely old water stained plaster walls which will require patching, sanding, priming, and painting.

One step at a time...