Interior
Prep & Strip
Over the last couple years we've noticed that the wallpaper in the living room was starting to show a little wear, mostly at the seams. It still looked pretty good if you weren't paying attention, but not noticing was getting harder. Time to do something about it! Let's get into it.
What's Coming Down
The wallpaper went up back in 2004, when we feel in love with everything Tuscan, and decided we wanted a kind of Tuscan feel for the living room. It didn't take long to find just the right wallpaper for the job... so we went with Wallquest's Sunny Tuscany
Which gave us a beautiful, if not sometimes dark, cozy living room for a quarter of a century!
Awww, and there's ol' Linus, we sure miss him still!
Down it Came
The first order of business was to take as much as we could out of the living room. Some went out on the front porch, and some into the dining room.
I kinda missed not having a big indoor project, so this was fun! Anyway, once almost everything was out, for only the second time since we've been at 173, a bit of echo could be heard in this space!
Queue Burlesque Music
And just like that - it was time to strip! I went in thinking wallpaper removal would be pretty straightforward: score it, soak it, scrape it off.
Painting your home isn’t just about changing the color of the walls... it’s about reshaping the way you feel when you walk into a room. - Anonymous
Armed with a scoring tool and a bottle of wallpaper stripper, we tackled the first wall with cautious optimism. We started out by scoring the wallpaper...
Then spraying wallpaper stripper and waited for it to do its magic.
At that point, I fully expected the paper to come off easily and the process to move along at a steady pace. BUT...as is always the case with stripping wallpaper, the process is tedious: soak, wait, struggle with removal, soak some more, wait... Frustrating!
And by the end of the first day, we almost had one wall finished.
However!
What started as a slow, frustrating project quickly turned into a lesson in working smarter, not harder. That first wall alone felt like it took forever, and by the end of it I was already dreading the rest of the living room. It was messy, tedious, and honestly a little discouraging.
However, in a moment of desperation (and procrastination), I watched a YouTube video that completely changed my approach. Instead of relying on scoring tools and chemical strippers, the video showed how to use a simple razor blade scraper to peel off the outer layer of the wallpaper first.
The difference was incredible. What had taken hours on the first wall took less than half the time for the remaining three. The process felt manageable, even satisfying, and definitely not something to dread anymore.
From there, a bucket of water and a damp sponge - wiping down the walls and letting that soak for just a few minutes, the glue scrubbed right off. No must no fuss!
Oh, and here's Charlie, looking out the window for an excuse to bark. Make good decisions Charlie!
Now that we’ve cracked the code, we’re no longer intimidated by wallpaper removal, which is perfect, because we have two more rooms lined up for updates. Instead of dreading the work, we’re actually looking forward to it.
In the next post - wall prep and painting. Here's a sneak peak:
Hey, thanks for stopping by - see ya' next time!
