Step one~upstairs bedroom

One of the first things we noticed about this house that was not glaringly obvious the few times we were in before we bought it is that all of the walls are covered in wallpaper. Some are painted over, some are bubbling, but all are done poorly.

I have only removed wallpaper once in my father's restaurant, and it was easy. We used a scoring tool to make the holes, wet it down and it peeled off. Life could not be that easy here.

When we moved in I decided to move my daughters belongings into the spare bedroom, and just put her bed and other necessities in her actual bedroom. This gave me the opportunity to work in her room with minimal ankle breaking mess. Being that my daughter is a teenager, she wanted her room black. Being that I am a normal self respecting home owner, I wanted her room, um, not black. So we compromised. She choose blue and black. Since she likes to draw we decided to paint the lower portion of the room and the trim the brightest blue she could find, and the upper portion black, but with chalkboard paint so she can draw, and inevitably write all of the vulgar things a 16 year old can think of all over her room. We started here:

From *~*D.I.Y. Dreamhouse*~*

I began with a scoring tool, some enzyme wallpaper remover and a scraper. I found there to be wallpaper placed directly on drywall, that was painted over. This was not a fun project. I spent hours all summer slowly peeling away the top layer of painted wallpaper that the remover would not penetrate, only to find more work underneath.

From *~*D.I.Y. Dreamhouse*~*

Areas of the wall crumbled, sometimes i removed too much and ended up damaging a part of the drywall.

From *~*D.I.Y. Dreamhouse*~*

It was not a pleasant experience. The project finally ended early September, after 2.5 months of stripping. I was able to strip all of the wallpaper with the exception of a small area around her built in desk. This is the same area where I damaged the drywall. So I am anticipating a lot of work there too. I opted to finish the rest of the room so she could move into it before school started, and worry about that corner later.

We invested in a laser level that will work around corners, which was a great investment to say the least. We marked the walls, and Kris and I completed the painting of the room.

And to think, I have an entire house left to do still.

The usual suspects

In July 2008 my husband and I bit the bullet and purchased our dream house in disquise. Don't get me wrong, it's a gorgeous house, it just REALLY needs a hug and a kiss. Let's start with the usual suspects:

My husband and I will do most of the work ourselves:




Our Daughter will likely skip out on most of the work:



Our dogs, Katie and Bakari will likely make more work.

Bakari:



Katie:



My Mom, who lives ONLY a few miles away will likely be a frequent helper. She's excited about our new house too. Maybe a bit TOO excited:



And finally, my dad. He is likely to be the one showing us how to do a lot of this, and fixing our "oop's":



This list is subject to change, pending the suckers offering to help. we hope you'll join us in this process. We need all the help, advice and love we can get!