Archive for the ‘The Money Pit’ Category

I’m a self proclaimed expert at stripping wallpaper. We bought our current house because of its potential, it certainly had nothing to do with nine rooms of hideous wallpaper that all needed to be stripped. When I was preparing to strip the paper I went online and looked for the easiest way to do it. Everything I read pointed to the scorer and stripping gel that you can buy from local hardware stores. I managed one wall with that in three hours so I considered that a $35 lesson learned and a big fail. The next method I used was dawn and hot water in a spray bottle, this method took three hours as well. It was time consuming and extremely messy so another big fail. I would have tried a steamer but we have wallpapered ceilings in some rooms that look really nice and we wanted to keep so steaming was out of the question.

I finally devised my own method that is both cheap and easy. The only tools required are a large paint brush, a bucket and hot water. I boiled water, poured it into my bucket, painted the hot water on over the wallpaper with the paint brush, let it sit for a minute and peeled the paper off. Depending on the paper you can sometimes get lucky and get both layers off in one go. If the backing stays on the wall just paint over it with more hot water and peel or scrape the second layer off. On sheet rock walls it really can be that easy! Don’t make my mistake and fall victim to all the expensive “miracle” products.

Here is a small sampling of the eclectic mix of wallpaper that was in this house when we bought it. I’m sure most of you agree that this wallpaper was well past its use by date and had to go.

When we bought the house I knew I wanted to give the kids fabulous rooms that they could grow with and I wouldn’t have to redecorate for years. Ethan’s room was going to be the easiest to redecorate so I decided to start with his. His room wasn’t wallpapered and he has laminate flooring. I found his bedding at Target at all places and it started evolving from there. I was looking for camping theme bedrooms for ideas and came across the paint by number mural that looked like it was made to match the bedding I had purchased. I decided to give it a go, if I turned out to be a really bad painter I could just paint over it and I wasn’t out much money.

Normally I would point readers in the direction of where I bought the mural from but I can not give a 100% recommendation so they will not be mentioned by name. The mural I received had numerous issues. It had been reproduced poorly and was missing the top border and they edges of the trees on the left had side, there were elements missing such as the birds nest, part of a tree and text. The one that got me was the key that you are meant to be following doesn’t match up to the mural you trace. There are parts of it that are just odd, lines that go to nothing and items in the key that do not exist on the traceable. Me having to draw all the missing elements in frustrated me and caused the project to take a lot longer than what it should have. I am not an artist, that’s why I bought something I could trace and fill in.

In the end I am very happy with how the mural turned out. I can paint by numbers! It looks great with the bedding and I’m happy I persevered with it to get it completed. His room is my favorite in the house right now.

Now on to Georgie’s room…..stripping wallpaper and replacing carpet, fun!!

We are now referring to our house as the money pit and for good reason. There is a large amount of cosmetic work that needs to be done, that’s not really an issue. The issue is the problems we find with each project started. We are having a half bath put in off the kitchen in what was our second pantry. Our plumber (who is gorgeous and does great work) discovered that the sewage pipe from the kitchen to the septic was held together with duct tape. I know duct tape can fix anything but seriously, why would someone do that? The last thing you want to risk is a leak in the crawl space, that is just asking for a whole mess of issues including inviting termites to come and play. We have also discovered that the downstairs shower and toilet haven’t been ventilated so we keep getting a lovely sewage smell in the downstairs bathroom. Thank goodness we got a great deal on this place! This beautiful home on our lovely estate from here on out will be referred to as the money pit.