Wallpaper Project I (Part 1)

A week or two ago I hinted at a project Tim and I were working on involving wallpaper.  Doing this project has been my highest priority since we moved in, but it seemed so daunting that we didn't start until now.

Our upstairs hallway was wallpapered.  The wallpaper was not very attractive, although I will admit that it could have been much uglier.  But the wallpaper was peeling.  And it was stained.  Ew.  Yuck.  Gross.

These pictures don't even begin to capture what it was like.  Tim took them and didn't get the "nasty" angle (standing on the landing by the window).

This one kind of gives you an idea of the stained and peeling aspect.  Look very closely by the steps.

This picture offers a little bit of perspective on the light fixtures and ceiling tiles.

And a closer look at some of the stains.

While we don't do a lot of "living" in the hallway (except for Jynx), I do walk through it every time I go upstairs or downstairs.  And every time I go to the bathroom or go to bed.  I see this paper frequently enough for it to bother me significantly.

We put off the "ripping it down" project because we were afraid of what we would find underneath.  Our house is 100 years old, so there could be 100 years of wallpaper over the 100 year old plaster.  We had decided to tackle it two weekends ago, and the Thursday night before we were talking about it at dinner, surmising about how bad it could be.

After dinner I was sitting at the computer downstairs and Tim went upstairs.  Suddenly I hear "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrip."

Me: Was that wallpaper?

Tim: Maybe.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrip

Tim: You should probably come look at this.

He had definitely started ripping the paper down.  And it was coming down!!!  In large sheets!  It turns out that before this layer of wallpaper things had been properly stripped and primed!  AND the wall was not crumbling to bits and pieces before our very eyes! Who knew?  Thank you, Lord!  Finally, this house has given us a break.  The wallpaper was down in about 15 minutes.

However, the glue was still on the wall.  Tim went to Menards to get glue remover to use the next day, and I figured we were done for the night.  After he got home, I heard him in the hall again.

"Um, Steph?  Can you come help?"

He was tearing down the trim around the ceiling.  

After that he ripped into the ceiling tiles.  What in the world is under them?

Furring strips.  I'm saving them to build my raised bed garden :)

Jynx, of course, was right there to help.

This is how our hallway looked when we went to bed that night:

The next two days were spent tearing down furring strips, washing the glue off the walls (more details on that later), tearing down the woodwork (don't worry, it's still in tact) and peeling wallpaper off the ceiling (it didn't come down quite as nice as the stuff on the walls).

We finished all of that last weekend.  Tim now needs to patch the walls so we can get painting!  The painting part should be easy since there's no trim, so there is little to no cutting in.  Score!

I'll do my best to keep you posted as the project unfolds...