August of 2003: Mike and I had seen so many houses that either weren’t the right size, didn’t have the things we were looking for, or required far too much work for it to be worthwhile. When we finally saw “our house” we had to overlook the many strange cosmetic flaws that it had because, beneath the quirky decor, it possessed almost everything we were looking for. It had a garage, an open floorplan, new windows, a quiet neighborhood, and a nice yard, as well as other things that I’ve now forgotten.
Among it’s quirks, the previous owners decked one wall of their guest room with a lovely circa 1960s wallpaper: yellow, lime, avocado, and white, groovy, geometric flower motif — tres chic among Marsha Brady types. At first, I thought, “Hey, it’s mod, I can work with this.” After living there for a year, I dropped that idea, and resolved to rid myself of it’s hideousness. Especially, since it’s one of the first things you see when you walk up the stairs, and it doesn’t really go with my eclectic/Pottery Barn decor.
At first, I was afraid it would be difficult to remove, but a gentle pull to a dog-eared corner revealed that there was a layer of paint behind the paper. Phew. So after many months of wishing it away, I finally got off my lazy bum and did it. On Sunday, I borrowed a wallpaper scoring tool, the Paper Tiger (just say it like Dr. Evil would say it, Pay per tie ger) and went to work! It took all afternoon, but it’s finally gone!! The worst part of the whole process was having to smell the damp paper releasing the stale musk — the same scent that the house had when we first moved in and tried hard to dispel as soon as we could. But the odor was outweighed by the gratifying sensation of peeling off large strips of ugliness — not unlike the peeling of sunburned shoulders. Behold, the beauty of a blank white wall. Now all I have to do is paint in there :)
Check out these pictures! OK, maybe the office is a bit of a mess, but being the only room we haven’t worked on, it’s become a dumping ground of sorts for all the stuff we haven’t created a place for yet. Note the appearance of the evil bunny in both pictures.
