New Tricks in an Old House

We finally got the internet line installed in the new study/office, and have moved all the furniture in.  We put in a new light fixture, painted the walls and trim, and then just put in all the old furniture.  It is not intended to be a "great design."  If we were doing that, we would probably paint the shelves black, put up some floating shelves, but new drapes, etc.  Right now, we're happy it is painted, and that we now have extra room in the office for both of us to work.

This is Scott's workstation, with the new light fixture.

I have a desk!  I have not had a desk or a place to work in the office since we got married and I moved it.  It is nice to now have the option to either sit on the sofa and work, or sit at a desk and work.

 Now that we've cleared the old office, we can turn it into the baby's room!

It is always interesting what you find when you begin to update an old house.  Ours has been full of wonderful surprises...and moment when you wonder, "What was a previous owner thinking?!"  Sometimes you try to fix it...and sometimes you just cover it up for the next homeowner to possibly discover.  We aren't planning to live in this house forever.  For example:

• In the bathroom, we discovered that the odd laminate on a couple walls was covering the old brick chimney.  We made sure it was secure, and painted over it:  See This Page
• In the laundry room we discovered all kinds of "innovations:" from jar lids as curtain rods to wallpaper over cardboard.  See this page
• In the new study we did figure out (after primer was already up) that the 3 walls that weren't wood paneling had been wallpaper, which was painted over by a previous owner.  That explains the mysterious seams on the walls.  We followed suit and painted over it.

This brings us to the new baby room.  Sometimes I like to imagine what a previous owner was thinking when they did something.  For instance, "Hey, a gap between the wall and the door jamb.  We'll just wall paper over the gap!"  We found some gems in this room in the process of wallpaper removal--some not so bad, and some real surprises!

Here is a before shot, with all the furniture moved out.  I will not miss the pink roses and stripes.

Here I am, just getting started.  I did not use any chemicals or buy wall paper removal stuff or score everything.  First, I peeled off the wall paper, which left the yellowish back layer of the glue part.  Then I sprayed that with vinegar diluted with water.  Let it sit for about 5 minutes, and the glue scrapes right off.  Since I didn't score it, sometimes it even came off in large chunks or strips.  Yes, it did take some scraping, but it wasn't that difficult.

On 3 walls we found pretty much what we expected: they had put a thin coat of primer over the sheet rock, and wall papered right on to there.  Not a huge problem...we will be doing another coat of primer before we paint.  Note:  I did not feel like standing on a ladder, yesterday, so I just scraped as high as I could reach.  Today, Scott did 1/2 the top, and I finished off the rest of the room, including some ladder time doing the top.

An example of "nice wall" after wallpaper is removed.

The small section of wall between the door and the window (on left) is the REAL GEM.  When we started to peel the wallpaper off, we discovered something crazy...unbelievable...really quite confusing and strange.  We found some chunks of even OLDER and UGLIER wallpaper underneath...and multiple layers seemed to just be peeling off.  What in the world?

This was the biggest chunk of old-old wallpaper.  It's pretty faded now, but it looked like some sort of brownish/pinkish flower pattern.

 Upon close inspection of this section of wall, here is what I surmise:

• The really old wall paper was put directly on to sheet rock.  It was mostly scraped off, but some chunks remained, so they...
• plastered over the remaining chunks of old wall paper.  However, they did no bother to sand or smooth the plaster, and did not do the old wall, causing a "wavy" look on the wall.  They they...
• painted a quick coat of primer on the sheet rock/plaster.  Then, before the primer was completely dry, they...
• put up the lovely rose/pink stripe wall paper.  Then, when I went to remove the pink rose wall paper...
• the paint peeled off, some of the plaster came off, some of the really old wallpaper was exposed, and part of the wall is just plain sheet rock!
• And for a special surprise, the area around the light switch has some black mold.  That has not spread anywhere else, so we will be bleaching that before we attempt any other repairs.

This is one occasion where we will do a little more than just "paint over it and let the next homeowner deal with it."  We're very thankful just this small section of wall was weird, as we will now be spending a little more time repairing before we can get to painting, moving in baby furniture, and decorating.  This is where "House Crashers" or Mike Holmes would be welcome in our house...