This weekend, I decided it was time to tackle the wallpaper situation in our house. Outside, the skies were gray and overcast, so it seemed like the perfect weekend to start an indoor project. I chose the bathroom in our back hallway, as it is relatively small, and I thought, "How much work can it be?"
While Tim dutifully occupied the kids with movies, snacks and some ice time with Jack, I grabbed my trusty scraper, wallpaper removal spray, and scorer, and headed into the kids bathroom. This bathroom boasts two different colors of textured wallpaper with a sun and moon border circling above. It was probably very trendy in the early 90's. After a couple of hours, I had a system down: Peel the top layer with my fingernails, score the underlayer, spray, scrape, peel, repeat. Jack even helped out with the peeling for awhile. I've always enjoyed repetitive projects, especially if there is a rewarding finished project, and as I scraped, my mind started envisioning a fresh coat of paint, and perhaps a new shower curtain and towels. How lovely!
Then I noticed the outdated ceramic hurricane light fixtures, the blue and white tile work with mismatched blue grout, the outdated vinyl floors, and the pocket door which divided the bathroom into two separate, small areas. Maybe scraping wallpaper wasn't the only update needed? This project was beginning to take on a life of its own, and I was excited!
Later on in the evening, I called my mom to catch up on the weekend, and get her opinion on the bathroom updates. Her response: "Slow down! They make movies about people like you."
What?! How dare she! This is our new house, and finally we can do whatever we damn well please! If I want to tear down a wall, I'll tear down a wall. Sure, there's a new homeowner learning curve, and we did just learn a very hard lesson about contractors contracts, but I have watched enough episodes of Design on a Dime to feel fairly comfortable with choosing lighting, tile and a vanity. As for demolishing a wall, not so much. And as far as tiling anything, well, I never have. Hmpf. She might have a point. I went to bed grumpy and determined not to let her rain on my parade.
This morning, after the kids are off to school, I will head back into the bathroom, no less determined, but with my mom's words ringing through my head. One thing I have learned in my 32 years is, mother's are almost always right, and always have our best interests in mind.
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I love that you have a blog! You're such a good writer. Good tiler....that remains to be seen. ;)
ReplyDeleteI would think that getting the old stuff off the walls would be the hardest part. There are 'how to'books out there. We just picked out tile for the laundry room. That was hard enough. No one answered my call for help on picking out a wall color so am going with the same color as the upstairs bathroom. I looks good with the slate like tile. A tiler will install. You've seen Tom's cracked tiles in the basement.