Now, because the people who lived here before us a) were old so chose very ugly wallpaper, and b) were lazy (more later), this painting has not been the fun-filled activity of accomplishment that I usually enjoy. See, painting is so satisfying. In just a couple of swipes of the roller, look what I did! I made a wall blue! or whatever. In a perfect world, stripping wallpaper is the same. Alas, we do not live in a perfect world. We have two layers of wallpaper in the kitchen (see: lazy). Therefore, the first layer (which is also impermeable to water) must be scraped off, exposing the second (permeable to water) layer. I have put in about 10 hours, and am just over halfway done. It is worth it, however. Check out the "before" pictures, paying special attention to the wallpaper's beauty. Don't pay any attention to the mess. Did I mention I've done 10 hours of wallpaper stripping in two days?
Now, I know my mom "kind of likes" the wallpaper, but I think she was just trying not to hurt my feelings. We'll see if she likes the "after" kitchen better, but since I don't actually have paint yet, and Zane and I haven't even chosen a color yet, well, they may be a long time coming.
2 comments:
I so feel your pain. Two years ago this month we started stripping wall paper in our house and I still have nightmares about it. I did about 1000 sq ft by the time I was done (it was everywhere!) and here's my best tip:
Take a box cutter or exacto knife and cut big diagonal lines floor to ceiling in the paper, in each direction so that you're making a diamond pattern. Then when you get the walls really good and wet the water can soak into even water impermeable barriers.
Plus, I'm no physicist, but this has to do something with surface tension or something because it seemed that the paper tore way less when there was already a path cut into it, so I was scraping off these big fat diamonds instead of tearing off little shreds.
Email me if any of that was unclear. Anything I can do to help someone walking through the gauntlet of wallpaper removal. ;)
Excellent advice! I think once I get the cuts in the paper I need to work on getting enough water on the walls, that's one of my problems.
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