MrsDrPoe: House Progress, Week 6

Welcome to the Mr. Poe-Birthday-Edition of Foto Friday!  Sadly, we're celebrating with more housework.  This was our sixth week of work; although, it feels like we've been dealing with these projects for much longer (I guess that's what happens when you only have free time on the weekends).  Here's what we've accomplished this week:

Living and Sun Rooms: continued laying hardwood (only the to-be-ripped rows left!)
Stairwell: one coat of paint (except in places I can't reach)
Upstairs Hallway: second coat of paint
Master Bathroom: continued to remove wallpaper and paint
S End Table and Wood Shelf: one and two coats of paint, respectively
Upstairs Carpet: areas measured; new carpet and pad purchased


If you're frustrated that I don't have any "finished" pictures to show you yet, just know that I am too!  To add to the frustration, I'm also interrupting our three part painting series to talk about...

Removing Wallpaper

I hate wallpaper.  I honestly cannot understand how anyone who has ever painstakingly removed it can put it up again, but there are several folks near and dear to me who have.  I mean look at this: 

Ugh...hours of work, and it's still there.  Here are some techniques we've found useful in our wallpapering endeavors...

Water is your friend - spray the paper, spray it again, and then spray it some more.  Water helps the glue release from the wall easier, even though it's not the 'cure-all.'

A straight edge is essential - the first week I removed any paper, I was scratching at it with my fingernails to get a good "pulling edge" up; this wore my nails down to the skin. (Ouch!)  Make sure you have a straight edge to help you get the paper up: a used gift card, a spackling trowel, a spatula, anything.

Two is sometimes faster than one - when I first started removing wallpaper, I thought I was failing if I couldn't remove the decorative layer and the sticky layer of the paper at the same time.  But the longer I worked at it, I found that it took much less time to rip off the layers however they would come off (sometimes together, sometimes not) than it did to finagle the paper to try and get everything off at once.


Patience is a virtue - last week I shared with you that I've been praying for practice with patience...wallpaper-pulling definitely fits the bill.  It will take you much longer to de-wallpaper a room than you would have ever thought possible.  But "slow and steady wins the race" (and leaves you with fewer gashes in the dry wall)...sing along with a good comfort hymns if you get too worked up.