lesson #1 -- wallpaper removal

wallpaper, oh wallpaper, come off those walls! well, we have A LOT of wallpaper - not only on the walls, but on the ceilings, too - maybe two-three-eight layers! this is bringing back memories for butter -- when she was a kid the family moved into an old house in philadelphia that had a lot of wall paper, paneling over said wallpaper, and a bullet lodged into the french doors. (she loved that detail!) but anyhow, momma insisted that all of the wallpaper be stripped before the family moved in....so off it came from both ceilings and walls. and then one night maybe a few days after they moved in, the ceiling came crashing down in butter's bedroom, giving the sleeping girls quite a start -- and giving grown up butter plenty of reason for caution this time around.




so after some research on the information super highway we've found that fabric softener and water is the way to go. experience this weekend has taught us that the water needs to be HOT HOT HOT and one needs to use LOTS of it. butter went in there double fisted -- two spray bottles blasting the walls like in an old western. then, after soaking the walls and waiting (waiting is the most important part)the scraping began, and off came the wall paper -- from both the walls and the ceilings.





the walls need one final scrub to remove the glue residue, some spackle, and some plaster buttons* to secure one part of the ceiling that butter left a piece of wall paper tacked on because we are pretty sure that part will probably be on the floor when we go back.

*plaster buttons! more on those later