Current projects

So, preliminary matters out of the way... What are we doing currently?

We bought paint about a month ago for the bathroom and the craft room. Both rooms had less than desirable wallpaper. The bathroom has yellow tile from the floor to chest height, and above that was birds and yellow flowers. Not hideous in the headache-giving sense, but not to my taste. The craft room... well... let's just say my ongoing need to have an "ugly room" was met. There was chair rail until last night - ~D had Daddy Demolition Time. Above the chair rail was a fairly subtle white paper with stripes. Below it was hideous dark green with busy flowers all over.

Saturday, ~J was in her bedroom playing without the need for attention, so I figured I'd test the paper and see how bad stripping was going to be. The green came up really easily - no tools beyond fingers and an occasional screwdriver. The white - I was able to peel the top (vinyl-y) layer off, but the paper backing has stayed. At some point I realized that the wall (horsehair plastic, BTW) will need a skim coat. If we go to the trouble of skimming it, do we want to just knock down the walls and put up sheetrock? Then I wouldn't have to worry about stripping what's left, then washing the walls to prepare for the skim. So I decided to leave it alone while we decide, and direct my attention to the bathroom.

(We have ultimately decided that we'll leave the horsehair and skim it. Sheetrocking would have required removal of plaster, removal of lathe, re-insulating, rewiring - outlets are on the outside of the wall right now, etc.)

So on to the bathroom. I get to play with the steamer! First I peeled the top layer off as I did in the craft room. It's a bit more time consuming, but I think it's better than just scoring it - and once I started steaming, was glad for it because even the dime-sized spots where the top layer remained would not steam off - I either had to steam it until the top layer came off, then steam again for the bottom layer, or scrape (gouge) the wall a bit. I finished all of the stripping in the bathroom on Sunday, and then went to work washing the walls.

I learned in my youth that after you strip wallpaper, you have to wash the paste off. TSP is the stuff we used to use. I don't remember using rubber gloves to do it, but the box clearly says you need to because it can cause burns. So I mix the stuff, don the gloves, get an old washcloth out of the closet and set to work, starting in the tub. Long story short: I think the M's used more wallpaper paste than joint compound on those walls. I went through an entire bottle of Dif just getting the tub above the enclosure and the small bit of wall behind the toilet, above the tile. It's better, but there's still a lot of crap there. So what do you do if you don't want to knock down the wall but your arms won't let you get it all off? ~D's solution, which we have yet to do, is sand, skim, sand, prime.

So ~D picked up a respirator, orbital sander, and other miscellaneous necessities for the job. ~J's nanny's husband has loaned us his trowels, and my boss gave us a bucket of joint compound. I think ~D is hoping he gets to do the sanding, etc. (he's been wanting the sander for a while now). So I moved back to the craft room, seeings as there isn't much left for me to do in the bathroom until it's time to paint.

I started stripping the paper layer last night but wasn't feeling terribly motivated and wanted to get to some new yarn. I got one of the big walls and part of the next wall done. Worst case I'll finish it this weekend. The good news is that the upper part of the wall is actually in good shape so far, so we may not need to skim as much of it as the bottom part (below where the chair rail was).

Oh, so with all of this stripping, what are we doing? The bathroom will be a medium blue with a gold glaze sponged on top - it should go with the celestial stuff. I'm also looking at new light fixtures. I found a hammered copper one that I really like, but it's a bit pricey. The craft room will have yellow walls (it's a nice yellow, I promise!) with medium purple trim. It should be fun and bright. It's the darkest room in the house because it's on the back (west) side, with trees that block a good amount of the sunlight, especially later in the day. Once the painting is done, shelves will go up and I'll really, honestly, try to keep it organized.