All Hands on Deck

As Jess and I often do, we make sarcastic comments like, "What the (insert your favorite four letter word here) did we get in to?" As we take it day-by-day and room-by-room, sometimes you need a little help from your friends family. You know you've married into the right family when they are willing to put in a full days work, 9-5 on a Saturday, and come and help you do whatever you need. Jess' step father called me a few days ago and said, "Just have something for us to do." We decided on wallpaper. Suckers.

The paper was old and, as it turns out, was put on in 1976 as evidenced by the writing on wall by the hanger himself. It reads, Dan Mallet, May 1976, Oradell, NJ. Could not find much about him, but there was only one layer, thank bejebus.

Our task was to have enough scrapers, tools, etc., to make sure we didn't have any down time and/or idle hands. We've never done wallpaper removal, but we bought five scrapers, two gallons of Chomp!, two spray bottles, a scoring tool and extensions for the scrapers. Well, on the way to our house, we stopped by the small independently owned Ace and picked up DIF and a garden sprayer. The latter two items was a great move. Chomp! goes back since the DIF concentrate was way more than enough. Sadly, so does her family, and we are on our own again (with Norm Abram, my brother, the new favorite brother - I have 4). So sad. No really, I tried to bribe them with food, beverages, etc., but they only wanted money. Blasphemy.

For some reason, however, we did not think to use the DIF via the sprayer until someone insisted that we try it BEFORE we scrape. We used the scoring tool for just a bit and then started spraying only. We found that if we even just left the DIF on for five minutes, the paper would come off easily and quickly, even without the scoring tool. DIF worked wonders and even the us noobs became pros by the end. We saturated the paper and the plaster was no worse for the wear. Rather than pick up all the paper, somewhere along the lines we decided to cut up the carpet and get moving on that front, too. With the dumpster coming Monday, we want to get a bunch of stuff into it with roof (future post alert!).

After paper removal we now know why the previous owner - the only owner - decided to wallpaper. There are some nice cracks in the plaster - see the pictures below. While we are going to likely re-wallpaper, we are going to mud (still need to research the proper stuff we should use for plaster, so suggestions are welcome) and properly fix the cracks, primer, and then get someone to professionally hang the paper. We figure that although there might be better ways to spend money than on wallpaper, we feel it is an art and don't want it to look like poop. This is for another day. Removing the remainder glue residue, stripping paint, electrical, etc. has to continue before we can get to that. 

It turns out there was a bit of damage in the front hallway wood flooring. Rather than fix it with new oak pieces, they just put any wood they could find and carpeted. Pretty dopey if you ask me. We are now tasked with either repairing properly or letting the floor guy do himself, whomever that might be down the road. Not a huge deal from what I am told. But of course that's more more money. 

For this weekend, however, mission accomplished and the house already looks better.

The walls here are free of glue and ready for compound. 

Serious cracks are found around near the door as they are throughout the house. They are a bit daunting, but even if we are going to wallpaper, we want the walls as smooth as though we would paint. 

This is what gets us excited. The inlay and attention to detail is just something we couldn't get elsewhere but in an old house. 

The excitement continues tomorrow with the new roof going on. Hope to see you then!