Anyways, yesterday was pretty productive - I'm about halfway done with wet sanding the master bedroom trim. That's not very visually exciting, so here's something that is.
After cleaning up from trim and having dinner, I was itching to do a little more work. So we went on a wallpaper archaeology expedition. Based on the wallpaper we'd accidentally/on purpose torn off before, we expected 1 layer (the top) that was paper and easy to pull. That's true - for most of the room - 1 layer of cheapo thin-paper, crappy glue stuff right over the plaster. Super easy to get off.
But - in one corner, I had forgotten that the bumped-out wall was old drywall. I should have remembered this from the room next door. This was good and bad news: the good news is that the older 2 layers of paper are super-cool. Here they are:
The big, peony-looking flowers are the oldest, probably from the 40s when we think the second owners did a bunch of work.The bad (but not terrible) news: These 2 additional layers strip off pretty easily, but it's never easy to do a good job of not gouging the hell out of the old drywall. Oh well, we have to skim coat it anyways to make it look plaster-y. And - drum roll please - this is the last room in which we need to strip wallpaper!!!
Interestingly, based on the green & flowered paper, it seems to us that there may well have been a period in time when EVERY room in the house was this color green. We've found it literally in EVERY room. Also interestingly, it's startlingly close to the color we'll paint the room. We keep finding that the colors we pick eerily match at least one of the oldest/original colors in each room. I think the house is sending us a color vibe...
Back to wet sanding - no more fun expeditions until that tedious task gets done. Oh, except that I'm going to buy paint later today :)
4 comments:
I'm pretty sure my grandmother just put that exact same wallpaper in her house when they built one ten years ago.
Well, I guess now I know why she likes it.
Good luck with the stripping. Nothing has made me appreciate plaster walls more than having to strip wallpaper. We had eight layers, but plaster walls, so we could literally soak it off. Drywall is definetly a step backwards.
Hooray for the last room of wallpaper! I did a little dance when I finished stripping the last room. I also promised myself a manicure but that never materialized - that might be a good reward :)
So. Feeling. Your. Pain.
I want to marry our french Canadian skimcoater, Levi.
Then maybe he'd give me a discount.
What are you going to skim coat with? Drywall compound?
(Still trying to convince myself about what will cover a textured ceiling, resulting in a smooth surface, hopefully without having to sand the ceiling. The POs put sand in the plaster or something.)
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