We vigorously deprived the beige grasscloth wallpaper on three walls of its grip on the plaster -- which turned out to be in excellent condition. We were being excruciatingly careful, as our DPOs had suggested there might be another mural in this room, similar to but larger than the Lady of the House.
The final wall, which as you may recall, looked like this:
was more difficult.
When we'd first moved in, the black floral wallpaper came down. Ah, but not easily. The outer layer came off, but the inner layer, a nice light brown-paper-bag color, clung resolutely to the wall. We now challenged that layer, and oh, was it ever a challenge.
We picked up a bottle of Dif gel, the blue-green stuff that's supposedly specifically for removing wallpaper. You're supposed to use it with the Paper Tiger for maximum penetration of the paper and best dissolution of the stickum. When we sprayed it onto the paper, though, it happily soaked through. We let it sit for a few minutes, and then began to scrape.
Well, okay, it sort of worked. We scraped. We cursed. We struggled. And after using up most of the $10+ spraybottle of Dif, we had each managed to clear a patch of wall about the size of a Shetland pony. We both had migraines from the stink of the Dif. There was still a considerable amount of wallpaper stuck to the plaster, even in the cleared areas. Our arms and hands ached from hours of plying our scrapers. We retired that evening, discouraged and headachey.
The next day, however, we realized that the Dif was going to be an expensive matter. So, on a whim, we pulled out our $3+ bottle of Sun and Earth Orange Cleaner and sprayed it on a patch. The wallpaper soaked through cheerfully and nearly leaped off the wall.
This made us Very Happy.
We used up the entire bottle and half of another (still cheaper than one bottle of Dif, you note), and inside of about two hours, the entire wall was clear.
It even removed the remnants of the (we think) 20s-or-30s-era wallpaper, an off-white with green spattery streaks, that was adhered by mildew under each of the front windows. Apparently, the 70s-era wallpaper hangers had given up trying to get it off, but ha ha, WE RULE.
Lesson learned in time for challenging the Master Bedroom: Sun and Earth Orange Cleaner strips wallpaper three times faster and easier than the expensive junk from Home Despot.
We discovered two interesting things once the wallpaper was off:
1) There had once been TWO doors between the front parlor and back parlor, flanking the fireplace. (The fireplace is a modern installation, and may have once faced the back parlor, or, quite possibly, there were two fireplaces, each facing into a parlor, back to back.)
2) There had been a mural on the wall next to and slightly above the fireplace. In the course of removing the second door and rearranging the fireplace, they destroyed it. All that remained was a single, horizontal line.
Long ago, we'd decided on blue for that room. From our local independently-owned paint store, Economy Paint, we obtained not only a plethora of blue chips for both Benjamin Moore and California paints, but also some sample-size Benjamin Moore paints. After much perusing of the chips, we just walked into the front parlor and slapped three different blues in swatches on the walls. One that we had thought was promising ended up being pale lavender, rather than blue. Another was too green. And then there was the one that was just right... but too dark.
We took a risk and popped up to the lightest color on that chip, something called Breath of Fresh Air.
Well, on the walls, it was fabulous.
So we painted.
Do you know how hard it is to see pin and nail holes in 130 year old plaster?
We only discovered after the first coat of paint.
We spackled. A lot. We found pin and nail holes in places up close to the ceiling and down close to the floor. What the heck were they hanging or pinning or nailing there? We don't know. Perhaps we don't want to know.
Two walls took two coats of paint, one wall took three, and one took four and a half. But at last, we were done, and could start on transforming the trim from coffee-mustard brown to Superwhite.
Only one problem: the window paint was hideously blistered and flaking.
The solution? I slapped a mask on my face and began to scrape. Scrape, scrape, scrape.
There were three layers of paint on the windows: the coffee-mustard color, a bright, clean cream color, and a pale dove grey (which had a gloss finish, so was not a primer). Mostly, the peeling was the most recent color, but occasionally it went all the way down. If I must say so myself, the windows looked marvelous when I was done with the scraping. It just took forever, and my hands will never forgive me.
Baseboard, doorways, crown moulding, windows all received two coats of Benjamin Moore Superwhite.
But what to do about that hideous pinky-beige fireplace?
We decided on a dark blue to make a change as a temporary measure. In the long run, we will tile the fireplace in an attempt to make it less... boxy. We have the basic design in mind, and have selected the store from which the purchases will be made -- it's just a job for a time when we have a bit more money and fewer other rooms screaming for change.
The final result was this:
Note: the color values are wonky on these images. The closest to the "real" wall color seems to be, to me on my iBook, the first image.
What's next on the agenda, you ask? The Master Bedroom. As soon as I recover enough from the chicken pox (ah, holiday diseases) to wield a scraper so we can remove the pastoral horrors from our midst.