Wallpaper Gone

This evening I started the kitchen + breakfast room remodel with something simple. Just make the wallpaper go away. 3 1/2 hours later the job was done. I think part of why we got lucky was because whoever put the stuff on primed the wall first and went easy on the glue.





What worked was starting near the bottom to get things going, then hold one hand on each side of the wallpaper palm to palm a foot or two away from the wall. When my hands got about two feet from the wall I moved in closer again. Pull with the wallpaper at about a 30 degree angle to the wall. Really you're pulling a lot more out than up. This is what really worked for me. When I pulled on opposite ends of the wallpaper it would tear. Anyway that took off the outer layer. To get the inner paper layer just mix some Dawn (blue) dish soap with water in a spray bottle. Squirt the paper and about 5 minutes later the stuff is ready to almost fall off the wall without a trace. As an added bonus I won't have to prime the walls since that's in good shape.





Tomorrow the baseboards are coming off, I'll patch small nail holes and start emptying out cabinets. With any luck we'll be finished with the plaster in the breakfast room before the weekend is over and I'll maybe start working on removing tiles. Because of schedule with someone I know with a trailer it may take too long to get the machine that removes thinset from concrete in. I may give the air chisel at Harbor Freight a try instead... just need to make sure it would survive the job. With a 4in blade it'd be a lot faster than going it with the 1" air hammer and I wouldn't be on my hands and knees the entire time.

I'm still working on it, but I'm hoping to donate all the old kitchen stuff (cabinets, sink, countertop, appliances minus the fridge) to Habitat. They have a group that can come in and remove everything. It's a total win / win because they do all the heavy lifting and do it a lot faster than I ever could, they get stuff for their store, and I get a tax writeoff. And it's the most environmentally conscious option since everything gets reused. I emailed the person on their website this afternoon. Hopefully they'll reply tomorrow.

Done Painting

I managed to finish up painting this weekend and put the final touches on this afternoon. Here's how it came out.



I'd have pictures from other angles, but the new mattress is leaning against one wall and the mirror for the bathroom is against another. That stuff will go away once the new furniture comes in and the glass company does their thing.

So what did I figure out:
Using the sprayer - it's way too slow. I kind of already got into that earlier, but this weekend I confirmed it... a roller is MUCH faster. Two people with a roller are even better, especially if one of them is my wife because she paints faster than I do.

Two coats are better than one. Even if the color comes out pretty solid, you'll still notice where you had to go touch up a few thin spots. However if you have to touch up after two coats you won't notice anything.

If you mess up and get paint on some trim you can still wipe it off the next day - assuming you're using latex paint. I don't know where you get oil based stuff anymore anyway, but this one is good to know just in case you thought you'd have to paint over any of those kind of mistakes.

I'm glad this is the last room I plan on painting aside from a little touch up stuff here and there. Did I mention anywhere that I still don't like painting?

Today was one of those quiet days right before things get crazy again. The pictures are all taken of the way the kitchen looks right now, and tomorrow baseboards come off and we get to work on the wallpaper. I could've started a couple of days ago but this is kind of the last chance I had to take care of other non-house related things before starting another big project. More to come tomorrow!

Why I Hate Painting

We all have something around the house that we avoid doing at all costs. For me it's painting. What looks like it will take just an afternoon takes all week, and coats that look like they should be perfect coverage wind up too thin or spotty. Not to mention masking everything... It's annoying.

The bedroom has been all sorts of colors. White with forest green on the chair rail and crown molding (?!), bright apple red, and then sort of an olive color which is different from the rest of the house. The green really wasn't working out, and since it was dark it made the room feel smaller than it really was. Darker colors are a major commitment - make sure it's really what you want if you're considering doing it.


Yes, I'm redoing the blinds with white fabric instead of forest green so they'll look normal.

The bedroom as it is this morning:





So what doesn't work? Power sprayers - the kind you see at any big box store. It took 2 coats during the first round of spraying, then coming back for a second round the next day to do this. About the best thing I can say about them is that they use far less paint than a brush or roller. I think the problem is, the smaller homeowner type aren't strong enough to give broad coverage with common latex paint, and the larger ones are too expensive for just doing a few rooms once every few years. I have a feeling these things work out much better for thinner oil based paints or stains. Maybe I'll find out someday.

What I'm trying for the remaining 2 1/2 walls is going back to a roller with a thick nap. It's intended for use on stucco type textures, but hopefully it will also work on the knock down texture that's been common in houses in the area for the last 20 years or so. The problem I had last time I used a (cheap) roller was that it did a great job getting the top of the texture and a horrible job getting the lower areas.

More later on how well it does or doesn't work...

Bathroom - nearly complete

The bathroom is basically done now. At this point we still need shower glass and countertops but there isn't a whole lot that I personally do with either of those two besides call someone. Both should be in sometime next week. Countertops and backsplash go in, then the mirror and shower glass can come. Since the mirror will basically sit on top of the backsplash it has to go that way.



This picture still shows the bathtub with a lot of spacers in the tile, but you get the idea. It'll look a lot better on the after pics that are coming soon...



Right now I'm still working on the main bedroom. At this point I'm really not sure if the airless sprayer is faster than using a roller. The first coat is faster for sure but then you have to come back and do a second, and sometimes 3rd and at that point I think any advantage is gone. Color is hard to describe... it's a very light grayish blue. I am doing this now before the bedroom furniture comes in because it's a lot easier to paint a room while it's empty. I also need to rework the blinds to change the cloth webbing from forest green to white.

And the kitchen... we're still preparing. I'm not sure if Habitat will take all the old stuff but hopefully they do. It's a lot easier than dealing with strange people on Craigslist and a tax writeoff is always a good thing. The tile is in and this afternoon someone called to let us know the cabinets are in. The oven is in, other appliances are on order. Everything will be here soon so the only thing holding us back will be doing the actual work.

Last but not least the living and family room stuff I ordered came in. We're still waiting on two pillows but can get an idea for what it looks like now.





And now for something totally random, a tropical storm came through and dumped a bunch of rain here. Seriously it was like a foot of rain and winds were around 50mph from what I read. Fun times!

Shower complete (almost)

Most of this weekend I've been working on the shower. Here's how it came out. The gap on the right side is where I will cut 4 bullnose edge pieces to equal sizes to fill the space. I'll do that tomorrow. Also on the agenda - tile the bathtub surround already.

It seems like work may have been moving slowly, but it's taken a lot of effort to get here. The shower floor had to be built and sloped, drain installed, tiles cut to make the shower floor, assemble the curb (much more cutting), and get the shower walls going (more cutting on the bottom row). Here's how it looks so far.









Things are moving quickly now since the hardest cuts are behind me. The shower should be finished or close to it by tomorrow evening and I may be able to put some work into the bathtub surround.

Granite will also be on order tomorrow, and I'll be able to put in for the shower glass since I know exactly what the final dimensions of each wall are. My work for this project is almost over.

Sunday update

Not a lot of words this time - mostly pictures. The floor is almost in. It would be all the way in, but we were short tile from our order and now I have to buy another box. Moral of the story is if the boxes don't have a coverage area printed on them, figure out how many square feet there are in whatever they deliver and compare it to the invoice before the delivery guy leaves.

So here's what it looks like today.





Cabinets are in. So is the toilet but no pic of that.



Everything is nice and level.






After I finish up the floor it'll be time to start the shower. In the meantime I'll work on getting 3 estimates for granite because that's ready to go now. Even without a countertop it's finally starting to look like a bathroom again. Right now the goal is to be done installing the shower by the end of the week so the only thing I have any control over will be simple trim work by the end of next weekend. Then I get to start working on the next project.

The oven should already be here sometime this week...