Here was my kitchen wall with the lovely 80's blue flower print:
Just to let you know I don't have all this clutter and mess usually. I had moved everything to the table to prep to remove the wall paper. And I did not think to take a picture until I started.
Here is a picture of me starting. It really was not hard. It came off pretty easy, but it is still time consuming.
Here is what it looks like now. This is why I am frustrated and why I HATE WALLPAPER. When I started peeling away, I realized the lovely, previous owners got lazy and put a light coat of paint over wall paper (instead of removing it), and then put the blue flowery wall paper on top of that. So not only do I have to remove the first layer of wallpaper that took about 10 hours (with my VERY SWEET helper Cecily--love you! She stayed by my side all day! She is such a great helper. I wish I could clone that girl. She is so sweet.) I had another problem---another layer of wall paper with paint on top which has proven to be a lot harder to remove. Much more tedious. For those of you who have ever peeled skin after you've had a sun burn. Think that... no kidding. Sorry for the gross analogy, but it is the closest thing I can think of. After spending about three hours and only getting about an area the about the size of 24 inches by 12 inches done, I'm rethinking the whole removing the other layer. I've been doing some research. The bottom layer of paper is pretty tight on the wall. I think they may have sealed it. I'm thinking of resealing it again with an oil base sealer, sanding out the rough spots and then painting over it. Mike and I are going to have to talk about it.
Which leads to another point. When Mike got home Thursday, he was not in a good mood. I think he knew we were going to be in for a huge ordeal once this got started, and he was not quite ready to deal with it. When he came home, it was a mess, big bags of old wall paper, everthing moved everywhere, the floor was sticky from the Downey mixture (this worked great, thanks Lisanka). The house smelled like Downey (which Mike hates) PLUS---NO DINNER. Well, I called Mike and asked him to bring home Little Ceasars--which he hates too!
Anyway, me being me, made us have to deal with it before he was ready for it. I just didn't want 10 years to go by and we still have blue flowery wall paper, but now I'm thinking....What was I thinking? I guess I just thought, we'll get it done. It won't be that bad (or hard) and we'll be so happy when we do. Again, "The Best laid plans of mice and men often go awry..." Are you seeing a pattern?
AHHHHHHH!!!!!!I HATE WALL PAPER!!! OH and I still have removing wall paper from the front bathroom to look forward to. Yeah for me! UGHHHHH!
4 comments:
Just think how pretty it will be when you're all done=)
Andrea, I have removed so much wallpaper in my life because I never seem to have a new home!!LOL You are right...there should be a law against it. I learned over the years that Diff (I am pretty sure that's how you spell it) which is a wallpaper remover works great with a sponge, spray bottle and paint scraper. Tell "Big Daddy" to put some muscle into it and get it done cause noone deserves to live with the blue flowery print from the 80's...we've all had that wallpaper I think at one time or another..lol. Also tell "Big Daddy" if my snacks go missing in my office I know where to find him..lol
I know what you mean about wallpaper. I hate it as well, but I think there is a generation of "wallpaper lovers" and my mom, I believe is the president. She puts it everywhere and I hate it. When we moved from Mobile we moved into an old house with AWFUL wallpaper in the bathroom and we decided to take it down and had the same problem you are having. Layer after layer after layer....we ended up texturizing the wallpaper, putting primer on that and then painting. It would have been nicer to keep peeling the wallpaper, but I got tired of it and it was a rental....Good luck and be sure to post pictures when you are done....And Mike should be happy. Tell him we have Little Caesar's a couple times a week so he's lucky he doesn't have that!
Andrea,
This is Cindy, Mike Phillips' sister, and hubby Mike's buddy from work.
My mom lives right around the corner and I can pretty much assure you that first layer of wallpaper is pasted directly to the sheetrock without any paint or wallpaper primer between. When we took the bathroom paper down in my mom's house we peeled off so much sheetrock we basically had to re-mud the ENTIRE room. That is a huge pain.
My mom, God love her, still has the same wallpaper in the kitchen that was there when we moved in back in the 70's. (She's not the decorator I am!) If and when she ever gets around to changing the kitchen, we've already decided we're going to prime and paint over the orange and yellow flowers (yuk!) and then either paint or put up more wallpaper/borders, whatever. So my advice is to step away from that primary layer!
Good luck!
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