The Sound of One Hand Scraping

Since The House Museum is on coast mode this summer, I have the opportunity to do some additional repairs and fix-ups around the house that would be impossible if I had visitors in and out. My first project is to get Dan and my bedroom in a better state of repair.

When we bought the house in 2002, it had been sitting empty for about five years, and previous to that, it was serving as a woodworking studio for the owner. The space we use as our bedroom was the area used to do the woodworking so the walls and floors are quite dinged up. We managed to clean up the years of sawdust and put back in a wall that used to divide the space into two rooms (originally a dining room and bedroom if previous wall coverings are an indication). Other than that general clean-up we left the room as it was because the more public spaces of the museum demanded my attention. So it was that, six years later, that our walls were still full of holes and covered in peeling wallpaper and paint.



A couple of days ago, I moved our bed and much of our accumulated stuff into the dining room. May we take a moment in our narrative to show a picture of the colour story in our dining room. It makes me weak at the knees it is so beautiful. Just look at all those colours!



Ok, I'm recovered now.

Yesterday, myself and my two able helpers got out the warm water and scrapers and started scraping off the old wallpaper. There were two layers. The first was a vinyl coated paper that peeled off quite easily but below that was an older wallpaper that was not quite as kind. Actually, I really love the older paper but it was in such poor condition that it had to come off.



Isn't it sweet? I wish I could have kept it. Actually I tried to see if I could find a new wallpaper that would be reminiscent of this one but...have you looked at contemporary wallpapers lately? Not my cup of tea and astoundingly expensive. Suddenly, scraping looked more attractive.

The tricky thing is that the walls are not plaster or sheetrock, they are made of a substance called "tintest" which is a kind of glorified cardboard that is almost impossible to repair once there is a hole in it. But I am a true believer in the power of paint to make everything look new again.

Here is our assignment for today: