A New Project. . .

I tend to get myself in trouble and begin things that I’m not sure I have the time for.  I have several of those laying around. . . and this may very well be one of those.

My friend Erin, who got married last week,

yes, the same one I made all the cookies for, came to work and was talking about how she was removing wallpaper from a couple of rooms in her house getting it ready to sell. . .
Wallpaper, what a pain to remove!

I vividly remember the daughter doing the same thing to her room. . .

but she wasn’t selling her room, she just wanted to give her room a facelift.  

I’ve been wanting to do the kitchen for a couple of years now, but was. . . 

well. . . simply. . . dreading the project.

okay. . . you probably get the idea I didn’t want to begin the messy project. . .

so I will go on with the story. . .

Anyway, Erin said it wasn’t so bad because her sister loaned her a steamer and the wallpaper was just coming right off.  Erin’s problem was that someone before her had painted over wall paper in one of the bedrooms, but the steamer had become her lifesaver.

My brain went into immediate action, remembering that I wanted to remove wallpaper. .  and of course I was all about making the project painless. . . so I asked Erin if her sister would mind if I borrowed the steamer too.  She obviously said yes because now I had approximately two weeks to get my wallpaper off before Erin’s Wedding, and she would be moving away to another state and I wouldn’t know how to get the steamer returned. . .

Sweet. . . A deadline

. . . I love deadlines!

It took a couple of days to get the courage to begin, 

because I knew once the project was started. . .

there was no turning back!  Cautiously one day I loaded up the steamer with water turned it on just to see how it worked. . .

at last my project had begun. . .

only to be interrupted by a flooding basement that the genius and I quickly resolved.  

I went downstairs to get a few supplies for my newly begun wallpaper project only to find a river forming in our storage room!

It is not normal, nor is it a good thing to have a river forming there.

Come to discover, the raingutter had filled up with leaves and debris causing all the rain to not drain but overflow right over onto the patio and puddle into the the window, which wasn’t sealed very well.  The genius called “the friend” (who has greater knowledge than either myself or the genius on how to go about correcting such a problem) and within a few hours later we were drying out.

Thank you “friend” for saving us!

oh the hazards of living in an older home with windows placed at ground level right off the patio like this.

Now back to the wallpaper. . . .

in the end the steamer was AMAZING. . . I was kind of glad the daughter didn’t see how easy it was or she would have been pretty jealous wishing she would have had such a great little device to remove her own wallpaper!

steam. . .

scrape

&

peel

                            

                                                       and on it went. . .

steam

                                        scrape & peel

repeated for quite some amount of hours. . . I didn't keep track

but all in all, not to bad of a project. . . 

except. . .

that I don’t know what I was thinking with this color that was underneath my wall paper!

I was into pastels at that time. . . 

about 12 years ago. . . that seems sooooo long ago!

as the genius said, “what an ugly color”

the part he didn’t know. . .  I worked hard for that color. . 

in fact I had my paint re-tinted three or four times to achieve just the perfect peach color. . .

poor Martha at the paint store. . . 

Martha, the master of color. . . 

an amazingly patient woman! She always made me feel like my projects were among the best out there. . .

I love Martha!

One wall completed

Now that my wallpaper from the kitchen is in little shreds in these bags which have been deposited into the big blue garbage truck and are resting in the local landfill. . . .

my walls are barren. . . 

remember how I love deadlines?  

I finished this project at 1:30 am of the morning of the wedding!

I had to be there at 9:30

I was tired. . . but. . . 

I had completed removing all the wallpaper I needed to, so I was happy

Now, I need to paint. . . this will need to be done before the end of March when I take Florence (my bicycle)outside and the training schedule picks up using even more time than it already does.

. . . oooohh, goodie, another self inflicted deadline!

I am sure I will let you all know when I finally get to this part of the project!

I have the color already picked out. . .

the same color as the livingroom and the ceiling in the bathroom. . . 

so that part will be easy. . .

I think. . . 

                                                            I hope. . .

.