Wallpaper is a Pain

We bought the house because we loved the wallpaper... well, some of it.

The rest, while still beautiful in its uniquely patriotic way, is smelly and splotched with age. Our Master Bedroom, for instance, was covered above the chair rail in red and white New England themed toile, with a Quaker House, a Town Hall, and other revolutionary meeting places, all dappled with brown mildew spots. Beneath the chair rail was a tiny red almost paisley print, which had turned pink with age. Needless to say, it was sexy.

 

Like all virginal wall paper removers, we blindly believed that it would be a simple process, led to such conclusions by propaganda from HGTV. But no, like all things in life, it was not as easy as scoring, wetting, and peeling. Justin slaved over the tedious task of stripping the wall paper little inch sliver by little inch sliver for around two weeks. Then he spent another week mudding and sanding, his art for precision never failing him, only slightly lagging as curse words would fly through the house. I helped a little.

It was during this maddening period of our life during which we lived out of our den, mattress in front of the fireplace, that we came to realize just how similar we are to the old owners (now passed).  Apparently, he had an air for the meticulous as well.  As we uncovered more and more wallpaper, we discovered the pencil marks he had made on the dry wall to make sure every piece lined up correctly.  All of the little red buildings were alined exactly, and nothing was out of place at all.  Absolute perfection.  Each day we live here, we find more and more exhibits of this attention to detail, and we praise the designer/builder/owners of this house for all the wonderful gifts they've given us. 

Anyhoo, sappiness aside, Justin was able to finish the dirty work. Then came the hard part: choosing a paint color. My mind sees the grand scheme. My husband's only sees pieces, when it comes to interior design. So apparently, a very dramatic and halting minnow gray would not suffice. Tan it is, then. As if choosing a tan were any easier, it took another two weeks just to decide on which shade of tan would be best. I did, however, get the final say after realizing that all of his choices were merely shades of my own skin tone during different times of the year (can't handle that, as I don't want to be a chameleon in my own home). So my darker choice won out, and now we have a dramatically... tan master bedroom. It doesn't scream high fashion, but it's a cozy place to sleep.