Stripping Wallpaper

And so the fun began. Only a couple of hours after closing, we were stripping wallpaper…in our dress clothes!

Tools we used to remove wallpaper:
-spray bottle with warm to hot water
-paint scraper, both plastic and metal worked fine, but the metal gouged marks in the drywall if we weren’t careful to approach it at the right angle
-big yellow sponges
-a couple of large buckets filled with water that is as hot as your hands can bare!

We thought about using a chemical-based wallpaper glue remover, but in the end, good old water and patience did the trick. And it’s safer.

  
There were 2 layers. Thanks to the seller’s cat, the job was already started for us on some walls :-) We picked up where it left off!

The backside remained glued to the wall after we easily pulled the top layer off. This is where the warm water in a spray bottle came in handy. We sprayed sections at a time, letting it soak in and loosen the paper. Five to ten minutes later, we would return to that section and use the scraper to get under the paper and lift it off.

The kitchen wallpaper was an older type (if you couldn’t tell by the pattern)...it didn’t want to come off in layers like the living room and hallway.

 

 

We had a much harder time removing it. LOTS of patience was needed here!

When all the paper was removed, it was time to wash the walls and get rid of excess glue.

Hot water and a big yellow sponge did the trick...and repeatedly washing sections at a time. And, any hidden glue that was left was eventually either sanded away or covered with primer.

We attacked it ferociously, and finished removing all wallpaper in the living room, hallway and kitchen in about 3 days!

Home Tour: The Before Photos

Our 1962 Ranch home has 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, an eat-in kitchen, living room, 1-car garage, a full open basement (lots of storage space!), and a huge yard!

Bedroom 1


Full closet and 2 windows

Bedroom 2

Full closet and a double window

Bedroom 3


Full closet and 2 windows; pretty much a mirror-image of the 1st bedroom

Hallway

LOVE the 2 closets! We have so much storage space.

Bathroom

The bathroom was refinished in 2004; not our style, but it’s functioning and I love the white tile aside from the floral accents. Just needed paint and some of our own personal touches. What you can't see is a closet which is on the left when you walk in. Again, loving the storage! And having a window in our bathroom was a necessity.

Living Room
(by the time I took the “Before” pictures, we’d already furiously stripped some wallpaper off!)

The front door is off to the right of the window.

 
Full bay window = lots of light.
Not sure if you can tell in any of these photos but the kitchen, living room and hallway had popcorn ceilings.

Dining Area

We like the concept of open kitchen/dining area

Before closing, we’d been sitting here in the dining area waiting for the inspector to finish and I was staring out these windows. The seller was telling me how her parents built this house and how her Dad took such care of the property. I’d spotted a round bush and she went on to tell me it was a blueberry bush. And there was a pear tree over to the left…and a beautiful stone wall. I started to get teary-eyed thinking of how homey this place felt; one of my grandfathers (whom I never met) built his own home (which is still in the family), had fruit trees and took pride in maintaining his property. I could relate. It was a nice feeling. Just really feeling meant to be for us!

View from dining area into the kitchen

That door leads to the garage. You can see how badly it’s placed…I can’t imagine walking into the kitchen next to a hot stove. And that black appliance next to the door is a dishwasher: a free-standing dishwasher. We’d never heard of or seen such a thing. But it served as extra countertop space. And that sea foam green phone: we saved it when we renovated the kitchen. We scored some other gems too. More on that vintage goodness later! The fridge was huge and oddly-placed, but newer and functioning. We ended up moving that into our garage as a second fridge.

And a close-up of that sexy wall paper


That’s a wrap for the inside Before Tour!


Up next: Stripping Wallpaper and Knocking Down Walls

In the Spring I’ll be showing landscaping before and after photos, and if Mother Nature didn’t mess with my tulip bulbs so far this warm winter, I’ll have growth results from my first time planting bulbs in the Fall!   

Welcome to the Rhody Home blog!

A new year = new adventures.

The backstory: I started blogging in July of 2009 when we began planning our {what turned out to be picture-perfect, amazing} wedding. After we were wed in May 2011 and returned from our honeymoon in June, I slowly lost interest in blogging about wedding "stuff". After June, I really put some thought into what I wanted to blog about, if anything at all.

Then it hit me: February 18, 2012 will mark ONE YEAR of home ownership for my husband and I. Where did that year go? How did it go by so FAST? We were busy renovating, getting married and settling in!

I'll be showing you before and after photos of our home renovations, decorating projects, some fun paintings I'm working on to deck our walls, and some fun in between...maybe some meals I/we have prepared, or a great pillow or lamp at Pier 1! Does your husband just not understand the female obsession with throw pillows? Mine doesn't either :-) What this blog will not be: a daily re-cap of our everyday private life. I might only post every few days. The goal is to have fun and share what we've learned with others.

We've done a ton of work on our 1962 Ranch. Luckily we had lots of family helping out. This all took place in 2.5 months before our wedding day. Yeah, we were exhausted!

So, here's to a new year! I look forward to sharing our home styling projects with you. I have a lot to share!