The Bedrooms and the Wallpaper

Our first objective when we took over the house was to update the bedrooms as quickly as possible so we would have somewhere to live. That meant ripping out all the carpet, removing the carpet padding and staples, painting the walls, painting the trim, painting the closets and getting new carpet installed. We were also hoping to update some of the windows but for now that has been pushed to the fall.

Below are pictures of the master bedroom, guest room 1 and guest room 2 as we received them.

The master bedroom had one yellow wall and the rest were white (as pictured). It also had a terrible carpet that was full of the smell of cats and dogs. Guest Room 1 had a beautiful pink carpet and blue wallpaper. Oh the wallpaper. Guest Room 2 was a beautiful neon green color which we came to learn was actually painted over wallpaper.

Our first step was to get rid of the wall paper in the guest rooms.

Which turned out to be a long process. We used WP Chomp which we found at Home Depot along with metal scrapers and pure arm strength. We found that if we could get off the outside layer of the wallpaper, the WP Chomp took away the glue and allowed us to easily peel off the other half of the wallpaper. Marc and I decided to share the removal of the wallpaper, he tackled one room, I took the other.

I have to admit I had the easier room because (1) we had already learned from Marc doing the first room how things worked and (2) I think the paint had dried out the wallpaper which made it easier to pull from the wall. After endless hours of work removing the wallpaper and ripping out the carpet this is what we ended up with.

It turns out that the beautiful blue wallpaper was actually over red paint and a brief moment of excitement about wood floors revealed wood linoleum, not exactly the look we were going for. But at least the rooms were wallpaper free, the floor was clean and the trim had been painted for the carpet installation. 

The master bedroom felt relatively painless in comparison because all it needed was a coat of paint and carpet removal. 

Since these pictures have been taken we have had the carpet installed, but I'll have to save that for a different post as it is time to head back to the house.