Ignore that glisten on my brow...it's just sweat equity.

Well, it's finally here...we've returned from our vacation and the house awaits! Not even a travel cold was going to sideline us from getting started today.We had to run a few errands so we weren't able to put a full day in today, but we still made some huge progress. A general contractor came by in the morning to give us some quotes, so while Sean was talking to him I couldn't help but start doing what I've been itching to do since we first set foot in the house...peel wallpaper!

There it goes...

I had already started peeling a little corner in the entryway, so I let it rip...and voila!  Paper came off easily AND I could see the plaster wall underneath.  Only one layer?  Piece of cake!

Peeking through the dining room into the entryway...this is going to be a breeze. 

The previous homeowners had put white trim on the edges of some of the walls, presumably to protect the corners of the wallpaper.  I think it's awful, of course, so I carefully pried it back and found that the trim came off very easily.  Even better, it started taking off the wallpaper next door in the dining room...

Hmm...something not right here...

Oh...crap...

There were not one...not two...but FOUR layers of wallpaper in the dining room.  At least, that I could count.  Two of which were infinitely better than the current top layer...but anyway.  After a little more excavating, here's what was underneath:

Pretty...

In that photo, you can see the pretty gold and white wallpaper, as well as the bottom floral layer, which I'm guessing is original to the house.  Missing are the top two layers, something pretty that was blue and white and then the decidedly less pretty current stripes.

So, of course, I did what any sane person would do...I attacked.  A few minutes (hours?) later the small piece of wall in the dining room looked like this:

It's totally shabby chic, right?

I was feeling pretty proud of my work.  I used vinegar and warm water, and bought a really fabulous scraper at the local Ace hardware, and with some elbow grease I was on my way.  But then reality set in.  This was definitely going to take a lot longer than I thought.  And, with our moving date approaching, the dining room and entryway are not exactly the highest priority for wallpaper removal right now.  After a consultation with Sean, we decided it would make more sense to work on the master bedroom so we can get that ready for move in first.  The entryway and dining room we could easily work on after we move our stuff in.

So, upstairs we went...again, I'd already pulled back a little of this wallpaper and it looked like only one layer, easy breezy...

...beautiful Cover Girl?

Just kidding!  How about another four layers of wallpaper?  Only this time, let's throw a layer of PAINT in there as well!  

As best as I can tell, the layers in this room go something like:

• Top: Beige stripey wallpaper
• Blue and green stripey wallpaper
• Baby blue paint
• Hot pink floral wallpaper (not seen in above photo, the paint adhered pretty well to it so we only got a glimpse now and then)
• Bottom: Original blue and pink stripey wallpaper

This was going to require some extra equipment, so after a second trip to Ace, we were outfitted like this:

I...can't...breathe...

The good news was that everything above the bottom layer was coming off VERY easily...almost too easily in some places.  We were able to just peel most of it off by hand and then attack the tough parts with the scraper.  So we decided to just get rid of the top four layers first, and then we'll go back and score/wet/remove the bottom layer afterwards.

Attack!

I even got Sean to help with the peeling...heh heh heh.

You can run, but you can't hide.

The original wallpaper underneath is actually kind of cool, and because the very top layer of it was coming off as we peeled, it ended up with sort of a neat, textured look:

Of course, not SO neat that we'd want to keep it or anything.

The house was built in the 1930s, so it was kind of fun to do a little archaeological dig and see a glimpse of what the house might have looked like when it was first built.

We finally had to stop, as it was getting late and we'd run out of tarp.  I made a huge mistake in only picking up two tarps at Ace.  We're going to need about 35 of them.  But, we did manage to get one side of the room pretty well stripped!

Check out the wallpaper carnage on the floor.

And tomorrow, we shall attempt to finish the rest.

We learned two other exciting things today at the house.  First...we don't have vermiculite in the attic!  We were worried that we did (because it can be contaminated with asbestos), but the contractor pointed out that no, it's actually something else that I guess can look sort of like vermiculite when you're far away and can't see it very well.  So we're not going to die of lung cancer...yay us.

Second, our windows are double hung, which is super cool.

Tomorrow, we continue on the quest towards a wallpaper-free home...

(Side note: the photos for this post were taken with my iPhone, hence the smaller size/lower resolution.  I'll probably keep taking in-progress photos with my phone since it's dusty, dirty work and I don't want to destroy our good camera.  I'll save the Canon for the finished "after" shots.)