Week 4: Holy Wallpaper

WEEK 4: HOLY WALLPAPER!

This week started with a layer of wallpaper and continued with another layer and then another and then another and another. At first glance there were only a couple rooms that had it: kitchen, dining, hall bath and the master. Of course you only see the top and then you peel back flowers, stripes, Navajo patterns, swirls and even grass cloth. Yes grass cloth from way back when it was cool to have textured walls. Whoever said wallpaper is coming back in style needs to come visit the Hawkins Homerama. Word to the wise if you do choose to wallpaper in your household, pay it forward and don't wallpaper over wallpaper. Always start with a nice clean slate :)

Matt and I along with the very much appreciated help of my mom and dad got all of the wallpaper down. Well at least the kitchen, 2 bathrooms and a layer or two in the master and dining until we had to make the decision to drywall over top of those 2 rooms. We tried water + fabric softener and a couple different steamers and it just couldn't do the trick. You would scrape and scrape and globs of glue would only come off. It was terrible and very messy. We didn't want to have to do this but the condition it was in we have to. We don't need any extra insulation so we will simply apply the thinnest drywall we can and start fresh.

Lonnie and his crew came back to finish framing in all of the new closet doors. My dad (Mr. Foreman) and I went through all of the existing doors that were taken off during demo and figured which room they could be re-used in. A little measuring and some simple math and turns out we only have to purchase 1 new door with all of gutting we did. All of the door trims and base boards were salvaged as well so they can be re-used too. Every little bit helps when doing a remodel. This is also good for us because all of the interior doors in the house were the same: flat door, no raised panels or details. Boring yes but the key word is all the same.

Hall Bathroom: The pink monster. I have been pondering about this room for weeks now and secretly wishing the numbers in our budget make room for this to be a complete gut.... only in my dreams. I know that you can paint tile so I am looking into that as an option. I know I can make it work with the pink but it is the black trim that is throwing me off. As for what we can do now the mirror is great so I can just swap in a new light fixture. We took down the built in shelving unit and removed all the layers of wallpaper.
I also decide to go ahead and rip out the linen closet door and trim and make it into a nook. The walkway is pretty tight so I want to open it up as much as possible. This is the closet that shared a back with the kitchen pantry we got rid of so the new cabinet I will put in here will be able to offset making it feel more open.

 Before: Hall bath, pick tiles with stripes and flowers

 Before: Hall bath

 Before: Hall bath, lovely frosted sliding door

 Before: Hall bath and all of it's layers of wallpaper

 

 After: Wallpaper no more! The pick actually doesn't look as pink with a neutral solid wall color..... hmmmm..

 After: No more door, this enlarges the space too

 

Master Bath: This room is in great shape and most importantly the tile is a color we actually like. We removed the mirror, light, built in shelving and wallpaper. I am keeping the full height built in cabinet put in a new vanity and mirror with a fresh coat of paint and this room is good to go.

 Before: Master bath

 

 After: Master bath wallpaper no more!

 After: Master bath

 After: Master  bath

 

Kitchen: We did have some fun this week.... we picked out our new kitchen cabinets! We got a couple quotes from some great places and were very satisfied with the proposed options. We had to weigh the pros and cons while keeping in check with our budget to make a final decision. We ended up going with Chris' Custom Cabinets and couldn't be more excited about it! A fantastic product that will last a lifetime which was one of our top priorities. I got my roll out shelves and soft closing drawers even though we now have to cut back on something else in the kitchen, probably be the tile flooring, but it is going to be well worth it. We wanted to put in the right stuff that is going to stick around in this house as long as we plan to. Now I just have to patiently wait for their arrival.

 Before: The peach color is the plaster wall

 After: Wallpaper no more!

 

 

  After: Dining room, the peach color is the backing of the flower wallpaper and underneath that lies traditional strips and then a colonial leaf like pattern