did I ever tell you about the devil wallpaper?

of course I did. Because the wallpaper in my office was sent straight from hell to torment me, mom, and anyone who ever came near it. Not just ugly, but apparently bonded straight to the plaster.

The devil wallpaper, she is off. How you may ask? Well chickens, it's all thanks to this handy dandy little wonder with it's own carrying case:


The black and decker mouse. Fitted with 60-grit paint stripping hook and loop pads.

Yeah, I sanded off the wallpaper of the damned. And it worked! Messy as hell, but I expect no less of a fight from the wallpaper of the damned.

And then JBB and I tackled the double-wall. Some ninnys before us installed a layer of wallboard over the plaster on one of the walls. They'd removed the picture molding at the top of the wall, but didn't bother doing anything about the baseboards, or the window molding. Idjits. One of the corners was loose, so after removing the picture molding again, we just ripped the sucker off the wall, ganked out the drywall nails. What we find? Wait for it...

Painted over wallpaper.

Because the gods of wallpaper haven't already made it explicitly clear that I am not in their good graces, I guess? Sheesh. Interestingly, it was actually painted a decent color, which confirms that it was not the previous owners doing (catty, but accurate). At least this stuff was so old it pretty much flaked off. Flaked off with a lot of scraping and some soaking with an unhealthy concentration of DIF.

At least the plaster underneath was in quite good shape. I ask you, who covers up painted over wallpaper with drywall? How is that easier? You've already painted over it, jeeze people. Think ahead!

Did I mention I did this all in one night? Because I'm nuts? And by the way, there is REALLY bad TV on at 2:30 am on a Friday.

Then, there came the washing of walls. And the repairing of cracked/gouged plaster (I got a little scraper happy. It was 3 am, cut me some slack). I finally went to bed when I ran out of joint compound. Luckily the next morning, my mom came over and primed the ceiling and picture rail trim while I skimcoated the sanded-down devil wallpaper and the entire formerly-covered-over-wall.


gorgeous! and smooth! finally!

Of course, I didn't bother to sand the room until 2 weeks later, when the thanksgiving deadline started to loom. My hair was white from dust, and thank god for the shopvac. But I hit the woodwork while I was at it, so all in all, the room, she was prepped.

I primed pretty much every surface in the office, painted the ceiling (I HATE painting ceilings). By the time the parents came over to help I'd moved on to the white trim just in time for Mom to finish it up--she's awesome with the cutting in--and I could go for the acid green wall paint.

All that was left was scrubbing the crap out of the floor, and taking this:


and moving it all back into the office. Finally the spare room was spare (and ready to act as guest room, once we got the mattress delivered).

Granted, we still have to put the last piece of trim up on the formerly wallpapered/drywalled wall, and I have to organize all my craft crap and yarn stash, oh, and finish painting the windows and doors. But hey, it's almost done!