Wallpaper is the bestest ever!

I don't know who invented wallpaper (a quick search of the Internet reveals early forms were used in China but printing began in Europe) but it has to be the greatest thing ever. It comes in so many colors and patterns--from stripes to floral--and if it was good enough for my mom then it has to be good enough for me, right?

Okay seriously, does anyone believe I'm being for real right now? I hope not, because after this week wallpaper, in my mind, should only be associated with Satan, Hell and 6's. Yeah, yeah, it may not be as bad as the devil, but there's a reason people started using painter's tape to create their own stripes and different sponges and brushes for various textures and designs. It's because removing wallpaper is a huge pain.

We've been painting (I'll post soon about the work we've done that I've failed to write about), and we've done every wall except the one with the fancy mural. See picture:

My friends and I have joked for a year about the origins of this mural. You only get part of this because my iPhone doesn't have a wide angle lens, but part is more than enough. My thoughts? Someone with some serious ADD* had various stencils and sponges and began creating a masterpiece. S/he began with one stencil, got bored and switched to another one. Despite the creation origin, this wall is something special.

The bottom half was covered with the fun green paneling, and after it was removed, we found some great textured wallpaper. I researched several ways to cover this, mainly through talking to Larry, the guy who works in the paint department at Lowe's and deserves as many raises as corporately possible. He's about the only one who really knows what he's talking about in the whole store. Anywho, my initial thought was, textured wallpaper to textured paint. I had tried to peel it off, but that didn't work so well. So we moved into researching textured paint.

The lady at Sherwin Williams told me I needed to first use an oil-based primer to seal everything in. Then I could put the paint over it. I've always wanted to use textured paint somewhere, but I wanted to do a small room. Our kitchen will mostly be covered with cabinets or appliances (especially this mural wall) so it seemed like a good shot. Bathrooms are small, too, but the whole moist situation can sometimes create problems depending on the home.

Sherwin Williams amazingly has very few options in the textured paint world. And they cost a ginormous amount. Yes their paint is good and all, but $150 was my estimate for the two products I needed--and that was only one gallon of each. With textured paint you definitely need to do two coats to achieve a finished look. Our kitchen is way too small to justify spending that kind of money. So we moved on.

Our friends have used textured paint from Lowe's and Home Depot in their kitchen and bathroom so we decided to give it a shot. While picking up color samples one day I found Larry and asked his advice. He encouraged me heavily to try and remove the wallpaper with a steamer. Renting one would cost $55. I didn't want to spend that so I asked what else I could do. He said I should do the oil-based primer, then skim coat it. We have a ton of joint compound left over from the drywall escapade (to be written about in the near future) so that would be fairly cheap. Once I did that, I could use any kind of paint I wanted, Larry said, giving me lots more color choices. 

I left with my plan in mind. 

Then I talked with our friends Pat and Kim who build houses. Pat said oil-based primer is a huge pain to deal with, and they both encouraged me to remove the wallpaper. I decided to go that route, only because they had a steamer we could borrow. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I have the steamer, ready to use:

You plug it in and wait for the coil to heat up the water and create steam. Then you run the black rectangle part over the wall, peeling as you go. I read up on it, and the longer your wallpaper has been there the more difficult it is to get off. Larry also said that if it was done poorly (ding ding! our house!) it would take awhile. We've done about half of the wall, and it does take time. We've had to steam each part multiple times to remove the wallpaper and glue (and I think there may be a couple of layers of wallpaper...I can't tell because everything is old and gross).

We also have to use a scraper to remove it in bits and pieces. It's sort of sad when you experience excitement pulling a large scrap off--it doesn't happen often with our wall, so rejoice when you can. Our floor is currently littered with paper bits. I could have cleaned it up, but I want to take a picture once I'm completely done. Hopefully that will be tonight. Then we can prime it and paint it.

I still wanted to go with textured paint even though we're removing the wallpaper, mainly because if we don't get it 100% clean we can cover up a few mistakes. There's also a noticeable delineation between the top part and bottom part, and I really don't want to tape and mud again, even for a really small portion.

Here's a picture of Andrew. He came home and rescued me from my steaming mess. 

I'm not ambidextrous so steaming with one hand and scraping with the other didn't work so well for me. I had to lay the steamer down after each pass--which caused really hot water to build up and get everywhere. The following is a list of tips I've learned from my one day of steaming:

1. Don't wear flip flops. The steamer will drip and burn your foot.

2. If you do wear flip flops, think really tough thoughts in your mind.

3. Hold the steamer to each part for 20-30 seconds before trying to peel or scrape. The more saturated the paper gets, the *easier* it is to remove. Again, ours is pretty bad, so we still have to make multiple passes, regardless of how long we steam each section.

4. Cover the floor with something. We have the subfloor showing right now, so I covered it with plastic to protect it from water build-up. When I was working alone I had to set the steamer on the floor to scrape, and water would spill on the wood. Get a dropcloth or something before starting.

5. Make sure you turn off the electricity to the outlets/switches where you will be steaming. Water + electricity = bad idea. 

*Disclaimer: I realize attention deficit disorder is real and real people suffer from it. I am in no way seeking to offend those in that category. If you were offended, write me for a list of ailments I suffer from, contrived or real, and I will allow you to make jokes at my expense.