One wall stripped… only a little bit more to go!
The one full wall of wallpaper is 98% done. There are a few spots that need some clean-up, and the wall still needs to be scoured with some mildly abrasive pads (I use ScotchBrite because I think it works well and doesn’t actually damage the plaster) to remove some adhesive residue, but the wall is bare. I’m tackling the next-biggest area next, which is the front wall with the big window. This should hopefully be at least a little bit easier, as there isn’t nearly as much square footage here as there was on the other wall. There are some challenging areas, though, that might make life a little interesting. I’m really hoping that I might be able to get most of that wall done tomorrow. This is the wall that has some of the roughcoat plaster behind it, though, so I may find that I have to work more slowly to avoid gouging that plaster. We’ll see. I still don’t know exactly how extensive that patch (or whatever it is) is, so tomorrow should be an interesting day. After that is finished, there are two short wall areas that are going to need stripped, and then we’ll be ready for finish cleaning on the walls. After finish cleaning the walls, it will be time to turn to dry-scraping the ceiling to remove loose pieces of wallpaper. Then we’ll fill cracks and holes, and I think I’m going to install some plaster anchors in one section of the ceiling that has a crack and some noticable drop to it (about 1/16th of an inch). I can’t tell what happened there to cause that bit of movement, but I’ll take a wild guess that some of the plaster keys may not have held in the lath. The ceiling around it is all in good shape, and it isn’t a huge area, but I figure that this will save us from any potential problems in the future.
After the walls are all prepped and clean, and the ceiling is dry-scraped and the scraped edges sanded, we’ll start on the woodwork. Actually, Jenny said that she’d help with cleaning the walls, so I might start working on the woodwork while she’s cleaning the walls, and we can multi-task a little bit. I don’t want to do the parts by the carpet until we pull-up the carpet, and it will be easier to work on the walls before we pull-up the carpet, so I will do the trim work, doorways and windows first. Jenny and I bought some respirators for ourselves last weekend, so we can both work in the room while I’m stripping paint.
I’m thinking that maybe next weekend will be a “work break” on the room, and I’ll start to work on the wooden screen for the front of the fireplace. I can spend some time evenings this week designing that.
It was a good night. After working on the room, I took a quick shower, then Jenny and I met up with a bunch of my old friends from Duquesne. It was cool.
Time to go relax with some World of Warcraft. 🙂
jonathan
