Stripping the Walls

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 Wallpaper everywhere

This house has been more work than anticipated - and I mean, a lot! From ripping out carpets to stripping walls and everything in between, it's a trip and then some.  That's not to say the work isn't rewarding.  Putting your own personal touch in an old farmhouse just creates a unique sense of joy.  

The transformation is coming along, the bathroom being the fastest of all the rooms.  Some ideas had been tossed around in terms of color and for some reason, we went with a grey color scheme.


Giving the bathroom some love

You might recall seeing some brazen pink underneath the wallpaper.

I present to you the upgrade!

The wallpaper, installed in 1979, had aged to the point that most of it came off in large chunks.  The original color was some kind of off-white and the years were a bit unkind to it.

Priming!

It's amazing how much wall there is to work with.  The goal for the bottom half was to install beadboard. 

And here it is!



What a difference the paint made!

There's still more to do, like putting in the pedestal sink, installing the new showerhead, and getting some new shelves and other things put in.  I love the color scheme and can't wait to play around with string lighting! Yes, I'm obsessed with buying white Christmas lights and hanging them up everywhere.  I did that in my old bedroom back in NJ.  But now that we have all this house to do things, I'm always looking for ways to create country-like ambience.



Out with the old

The bedrooms are slowly becoming livable.  And I say slowly because of the floors and walls.  My sister's floor was a bear to deal with.  Due to the amount of dust and gunk from the underside of the carpet, the wood will be painted instead of stained.  Meanwhile in my room, I've been dealing with stripping 4 layers - yes, 4 layers!! - of wallpaper! It was looking uneven, so I figured it would be a quick job to just even out the bubbles and spackle it.  Nope! The paint and wallpaper came off in massive chunks - a simple job turned into full-on war.  

Underneath all these layers appears to be cement or plaster walls.  They really built things to last as there have been very few cracks to contend with.  All I have to worry about is just getting the wallpaper off.  The steamer works wonders and has definitely sped up the process.

There were a lot of rough edges above the window.  Still have to get those as my main goal is to get the larger part of the wall stripped, and then tackle the little tasks

I'm not sure how they did this, but the wallpaper and paint in the corner just came straight off 

This is as far as I got with the walls.  That patch on the ceiling was where paint had bubbled due to water damage.  I set to tearing that off...

and I found...

2 layers of wallpaper on the ceiling!!

No joke! This stuff peeled off so easily.  The pattern itself is nice, but visible water stains are an instant no for me.  I can't wait to get the ceiling fixed up and give it a fresh coat of paint.  Still ruminating on what color to do.  Maybe a nice beige tone?


Looking like home

This house certainly feels like a puzzle with how much needs fixing.  But that's okay, because I like puzzles - and my artistic brain sees things like this as a canvas upon which I can make art.  Somehow, I've managed to have energy to work full time and devote a good chunk of my day to home improvement.  Am I tired? Yes, but it's a good tired.  

I'm hoping to show off my sister's room and the final updates to the bathroom in the foreseeable future.

See you in the next post!

~Gigi


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