Life By Kristen

It’s a wallpaper miracle!

When I purchased the house in 2009, there were four rooms wallpapered. We immediately took down the wallpaper in the dining room and the bathroom because those walls were in the worst shape ( and the bathroom wallpaper was black and gold flies on it. WEIRD). It was always on the list to get the hall and the bedroom done, but never quite happened until now.

When we did the other two rooms in 2009, it was horrible. My 1930-built house with horsehair plaster walls took to the wallpaper glue like, well, super glue. Taking the paper off becomes a two-step process- taking off the top layer of paper to expose the backing, which is the real bear to get off the wall. In 2009, it took five adults a whole weekend to do the dining room. It took my dad and I a week to get the backing and glue off the wall in the bathroom. Needless to say, we were definitely not looking forward to the prospect of many weeks worth of wallpaper peeling for the hall and the bedroom.

After I had stripped the top layer off in both rooms on my own, both of my parents came over on a Saturday morning a few weeks back to start with removing. What we all thought would be a full weekend of frustration and swearing at the walls became a wallpaper miracle.

There are a number of wallpaper removal gels and solvents and we tried numerous ones in the de-wallpapering in 2009. When my Dad went to Home Depot to pick up plastic to cover my floors and bed, he picked up the magic wallpaper removal product: M1 Wallpaper Remover ( neither me or anyone in my family has received anything from this company- I am literally just singing its amazing praises). IT IS LIFE CHANGING. Seriously, if you are a home owner or know someone who is and has wallpaper to remove, you have to share this product with them. After spraying the product on the wall and letting it set for 2 minutes, the backing paper and glue literally came off the wall in sheets. If we had a dime for every time one of the three of us said “This stuff is amazing,” we could have bought dinner that night.

After finding the miracle spray, the work went so quickly. Both the bedroom and the hallway are completely stripped and this week I’m working on washing the walls and fixing any holes or cracks with compound. Next week my dad and I will paint the ceiling and moldings in both rooms and then finally get some paint on the walls.

We were working so quickly through the wallpaper and wanted to badly to get done, I forgot to stop to take photos!

The before.

The middle.

That’s my amazing Dad. My mom helped too but I promised I wouldn’t take a photo of her.

Finished bedroom- looks a little sad at moment.