Goodbye Wallpaper, Hello Paint

Here are just a few photos from last weekend's adventure in de-wallpapering and painting...it was a trying process, that took (of course) longer than expected and tried our patience on many occasions. But thankfully, the swearing that occurred was always at the uncooperative inanimate objects we were dealing with...wallpaper, glue, leaking faucets, holes in walls, spackle, paint, brushes, etc...never at each other :). And we are generally happy with the end result (though we won't get to enjoy it until we move back there, next year!), and with our decision to go ahead and do it this year, as we can't imagine it would have been any easier or less stressful with a six-month-old around!

Here Andy is spraying with de-wallpapering-gunk, to take off the bottom layer of wallpaper remains/glue.


Jess demonstrates her Shrek-ness during a momentary lapse of sanity.


Many thanks to Karlie, who donated lots of time helping us on Friday and Saturday! Here she is about to start painting primer on the kitchen wall (you can see what the kitchen walls looked like underneath the wallpaper)

Thanks also to Liz and Dave who were in town and helped on Saturday! Here they are painting the first top-coat on the bathroom walls.

The bathroom we decided to paint a nearly-white color, as we couldn't really find anything to actually match the beigish-yellow tiles. The lighting for photos never really worked well in the bathroom, so these aren't quite representative, but you get the idea...generally calmer and brighter than the 70's floral wallpaper.

The bathroom, before & after:



We decided to opt for a more sage-like green in the kitchen, with a dark green trim. Again, the lighting here isn't particularly revealing--in the before picture, the trim and green in the wallpaper is like a light sea-foam green. In the finished shot, its a less-blue, more subdued sage green. Like the bathroom, its less busy without all the patterns on the wall, and a bit more to our taste in terms of color palette.

The kitchen, before & after: