Which Stunned Her.
For my birthday this year, instead of the earrings that I wanted, I got a newly remodeled bathroom. Wait, let me rephrase that: I got the stuff to remodel the bathroom.
When we moved in here, we did almost nothing to the house save from starting to live here. When I got pregnant with Alex, we painted the previously Disgustingly Pink ™ room a nice shade of yellow, and because we kind of had to (and really, we enjoyed it) we bought furniture to go in there. Then, in a fit of maternal guilt, we bought most of the stuff to decorate Ben’s room, but because I was hugely pregnant, no progress was made on it. This weekend, we finished Ben’s room. This makes 2 (almost) finished rooms (I still have to hang some stuff in Alex’s room).
After we had bought the stuff for the bathroom (read: beginning of July), Dave set on the nasty task of removing the 3 (!!!!) completely different wallpaper + ancient glue. No easy task. He promptly got sick of it (honestly, who could blame him?) and stopped working on it.
Several weeks ago, I decided that I was sick and tired of living with it, and rather than pay someone (read: I’m cheap), that I would finish stripping the glue and paper myself. I knew it would not be an easy or pleasant road.
Yesterday I began work on it and I’m guessing that it will easily be another month before it’s even remotely completed. The old glue has bonded to the drywall in certain spots, which makes me glad as fcuk that we bought the industrial sized can of spackle.
I supose that on the bright side of things, at least my best and worst quality will play a factor in finishing this project: I’m damn determined.
I must correct myself for a moment. The worst job in the world IS NOT taping for painting. It is removing old wallpaper.
Dude, that’s like trying to decide whether the worst disease in the world is typhoid or syphallis.
They both suck major ass…just in different ways.
I am going to come over when you are sleeping one night and put up new wallpaper in that bathroom. I found the perfect stuff. This will be the border http://www.stevesblindsandwallpaper.com/p-248-14026-X33URUR9F.aspx and then this will be the rest http://www.stevesblindsandwallpaper.com/p-536-75954-X6EWGSW0.aspx.
You love me.
I prefer taping, myself. Though I am curious why you didn’t decide to just prime the wallpaper and paint over it at this point.
This sucks. A lot.
And the reason that you don’t paint over wallpaper is that it was both peeling and would make a bigger mess. Right now I’m respackling the walls and getting ready to sand them. I may weep, though if it doesn’t look good.
See, the thing about HANGING wallpaper properly is that you need to paint with a latex paint (any color will do) BEFORE hanging the thing. Done properly, it’ll pull right off. But, if you, say, put wallpaper on drywall, you’ll rip huge holes in it.
As I have noticed. Luckily, it’s not hugemongous holes, it’s just teeny patches of drywall on the outermost part of the drywall (the integrity of the wall is still sound). If I were a good homeowner, I’d rehang the drywall just to err on the side of caution, but as it were, there’s no way in hell I’d actually do that now. Period.
[…] celebrate that my birthday bathroom circa July 15, 2007 is nearing completion (only the medicine cabinet to go!), I have decided to […]
For future reference (or in case you are still working on removing the wallpaper) hot water is the best thing in the world. Wipe it on, walk away, wipe a little more on and start peeling (or scraping with a putty knife.) I tried every product available including chemicals and heat guns and the best thing was seriously water. If you have a burning desire to smell something foul while you’re working to convince yourself that you’re accomplishing something, feel free to add white vinegar to the hot water. It helps dissolve the glue. I’m really enjoying working my way towards today through your blog :).