Friday, March 3, 2006 at 7:11AM It's like Trading Spaces, except we had to do our own house with no help
The last room to be unveiled to the public is the bedroom. Let me preface this by saying I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I WAS DOING. We knew that the previous owner(s) had painted over wallpaper, and we knew that wallpaper was peeling itself off the wall. We then discovered that the entire north wall (an outer wall, incidentally) was covered in mildew, because water had gotten trapped between the plaster and the wallpaper. Fun! So we (I) decided to take it off. Which led to scrape, scrape, scrape.
Some destruction pictures:
See the large rectangle on the right? THAT USED TO BE A DOOR. We don't know when, we don't know how, but somebody, at some time, decided they didn't like the door where it was and MOVED IT.
All the little brown spots are actually adhesive. I cannot thank Judy enough for the use of her steamer - it was a lifesaver. Took that adhesive right off (with, of course, scraping.)
To the right? Clean! To the left? Not clean!
It was a very long process. It took about, oh gosh, I can't even remember how long. We got the house on a Wednesday and I think I scraped until Saturday. Then Justin spackled (I think he entirely rebuilt a wall with spackle) for 12 hours on Sunday, and then washed the walls with the horrible acid-y stuff that killed anything on the wall.
I had this wallpaper crap stuck under my fingers for days.
But we did finish. Oh yes. We did. Luckily, we just had those two walls to do - we left the rest of the painted wallpaper up because it was holding to the walls quite steadily, and as they weren't outside walls, we weren't worried about our friend the mildew. We did scrape a wall in the craftroom, though. Luckly, it was a short wall.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the after:
See that green wall? That was the scraped one! The blue is only on that one wall, which is angled into an overhang. Justin really wanted the room to be blue, and that was my concession wall. I adore the green in the room - it's just a really lovely, soft, spring color, but not pastel.
You have to understand that this room is HUGE. It just keeps going. Turn a corner from the bed, and here's the reading area:
It's also very good for painting your nails. We'll eventually get it set up like a little library.
The piece de resistance - the closet.
This closet is bigger than my dorm room. And yes, that's a ceiling fan in there. It's THAT big. It could easily be a fifth bedroom. As soon as Justin brought his clothes in, one of the shelves fell down, followed by another a few days later. He fixed all that, and our clothes are now safe and sound. I could have a barn dance in there.
Reader Comments (6)
Oh you guys are brave - we have some "wallpaper painted walls" in our house too...didn't even attempt to scrape them...they're holding up well though! the room looks amazing! Our bedroom is that same green color! ha!
I have such closet envy. SUCH envy. ;)
drooooooling over that closet you mean person! How dare you share images of such beauty when all I'm stuck with is a teeny tiny postage stamp sized bedroom and closet? what's that?
looks great though...grmmmble
Oh my goodness! Such alot of work - but it turned out SO well. You guys have great taste in color. That can be tricky.
And closet envy. Oh yeah. I live in a 1924 Adobe-style duplex. It has a walk-in closet - but you can't turn around once you're in there :)
Um, I was attempting to reply to your email and deleted it instead. Would you mind sending it again? Thank you!
Actually, we had help from a bunch of people. Thanks! We owe you.