Saturday, June 14, 2008

Slow boat to China

Right now I am enjoying a much-needed tall limoncello and tonic. Why do I need it, you may ask? Because I spent the day stripping wallpaper, which can be found somewhere in Dante's sixth circle of hell, I believe....

Today I worked on the dining room. First interesting discovery was that there was only one layer of wallpaper. I had expected to find at least two. Nope, just one, and it was on top of bare plaster. That means, at some point, this room probably had heavily textured or flocked wallpaper, which had to be removed before this second generation of wallpaper was put up. It has never been painted, which made it that much more difficult to strip. Thankfully, it was put up with flour paste--so at least I didn't have the double whammy of commercial wallpaper adhesive PLUS bare walls. That might have been enough to convince me that the existing wallpaper wasn't so bad at all.

At long last, after about 12 hours of spritz (fabric softener and water), wait, scrape, repeat, I'm happy to say I have three of four walls finished. Woot!!

Befores:

















And afters!













6 comments:

Christine said...

I have several rooms that I've decided aren't so bad after all! Have a drink on me. You deserve it.

Anonymous said...

I found your blogspot when I was on old house web forum. I LOVE renovating my 1800 something house and have to applaud you for making renovations that fit the house! Did you ever do anything to your kitchen? I just finished gutting mine and starting over. I'd be interested to see what you did.
Susan Flood - saflood@sbcglobal.net

Anonymous said...

Great Job
interesting topic , I would like to read more on this topic and interior painting .

G said...

Have not yet done anything to the kitchen. It's on the ever-growing list, LOL. I've been working on DIY projects to the extent I can, and beyond demo the kitchen will not be much DIY for me, I'm afraid!

Anhoki's Place said...

I absolutely love this house. She is beautiful and you deserve her. Good job.

eeniemoni said...

You are doing such an incredible job, Gina. I'm so proud of you and how this gorgeous house of yours is coming along.