Wallpaper Woes

Because I now have the joy of repapering the bathroom (yes, I needed one more project --*rolls eyes*) it also means that I have to strip the existing wallpaper.

Man. The sh*t I get myself into. These walls are awful!

On the plus side, stripping the walls is like unlocking a time capsule. I DID remove the vinyl wallpaper that had been up prior to this pattern, but I didn't put that stuff up. So I had no idea what awaited me.

I took down the shower curtain rod that has been up since we bought the house. Somehow, I managed to get the thing down -- something we couldn't accomplish the last time I wallpapered the bathroom. So that was a plus. And there was a piece of the time capsule: the brackets to the rod each concealed tiny swatches of the horrid blue floral wallpaper that was in the bath when we bought the house. Funny. Between the horrid blue (and accompanying blue accessories and the floor ... we won't go there. I'll have nightmares.) in the bathroom and that absolutely disgusting green floor in the kitchen, we sure looked past a whole hell of a lot to buy this place!

Luckily, I had the foresight to pick up some DIF wallpaper remover while I was at Wal-Mart on Friday. That helped me to remove the two or more layers of adhesive that was beneath the wallpaper. I found more "time capsule." Apparently, there was a tan vinyl wallpaper on the walls at some point in the past. And a long time before that, the walls were pink!

The sad part, is that after working part of the afternoon and all evening, all I managed to accomplish was removing the old paper, removing the layers of wallpaper adhesive, wiping down the surface, and applying the first layer of skim coat -- to one wall. (The largest wall, to be sure, but just ONE wall.)

I ought to be finished with this prep job around Christmas ...