A Gross Life: The Gross Family vs Wallpaper

We've been homeowners for 18 days! Hooray!

After signing all the papers and officially became homeowners, we bought the cheapest champagne you could buy and enjoyed all 1850 square feet of happiness.

I'll be honest (because what's the point of lying in my own blog?) I never understood when people expressed anything but ridiculous enthusiasm for home owning. Unless you live in a New York City style city, where you have a beautiful rent controlled apartment and Mr. Big is coming to pick you up for a night on the town, apartment living is the pits.

But Sharon, home owning brings its own frustrations! You don't have a land lord to call to repair appliances at no charge! You have to pay property taxes and worry about a roof and you can't just leave when you are ready for a new place!

Yeah, but you also can't always decorate the way you want, have more than one pet, or do laundry without hauling bags out into public and praying you don't drop any unmentionables on your way to and from the laundry center.

That all being said, our house is in need of quite of bit of work (and we still don't have a washer and dryer hooked up. Sigh.)

We don't officially take residence until just before Thanksgiving, so we've been using the weekends to accomplish some messier projects before we take up space with our stuff. My project list includes:

Remove the popcorn ceiling from the living room, dining room, and back bedroom.
Paint the ceilings in the living room, dining room, and back bedroom.
Remove the wallpaper and paint the back bedroom.
Paint the living room.

Let me tell you what, after years of reading DIY home improvement blogs, I was chomping at the bit to get started on some projects. I had watched YouTube video after YouTube video, so I practically kicked down our very pretty door armed with a bucket, spackle knife, and spray bottle filled with water.

I plopped my ladder down in the living room and just as I was about to start saturating that stipple ceiling, Matt goes, "Why don't you try the back bedroom first, in case this is, um, too ambitious for you?"

And while his lack of faith could have pierced my heart and shattered my exuberance, I instead barreled into that back room ready to show him how I could totally do this.

Look at that earnest face. So full of hope.

So while Matt ripped English ivy off the outside walls, I started spraying the ceiling with water. It didn't come off quite as easily as in this video, but it I started getting the hang of it after about an hour.

Gah. That wallpaper.

So, I should have put a drop cloth down, and in my eagerness I clearly didn't. I scraped most of the ceiling into that red dry wall box thing (see? I'm learning about tools... kind of.)

Progress! Note the lovely circle around the fan since I didn't know how to take it down.

I'm really trying to focus on one room at a time so I don't get too overwhelmed with all the work that needs to be done, so after scraping the ceiling, I started in on that wallpaper.

Now, I know I groan and moan about this wallpaper quite a bit, so I tried imagining why someone would actually choose to put glue all over their walls and slap some paper on it. Maybe the room was dark purple or red and the previous owner didn't want to do two coats of paint to cover it up?

Who wallpapers their OUTLETS?!

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that under that wallpaper was BEIGE PAINT.

Beige. As in the neutral to end all neutrals.

I did do some homework (aka blog surfing/YouTube watching) on how to remove wallpaper and I know there are a billion different opinions from eco-friendly vinegar, to steaming, to special sprays. I ended up buying the little Tiger Claw thing that makes all the divets in the wallpaper, and then spraying on a wallpaper removing gel called Dif. And while the big long strips came off fairly easily, it left behind all those thin strips of paper, like when you rip a sticker label off the bottom of a glass, only you don't get it all and you have to pick at it with your finger nail and even then there is still a little bit of residue on the glass?

Imagine that ALL OVER THE WALLS.

To get all that junk off the walls, I did a combination of hot water and vinegar... Only we didn't have hot water... or even running water for a few days because our utilities (not including electricity) weren't on yet.

But did I let that stop me? Of course not! (Remember, I was SUPER EAGER.)

I purchased a bunch of bottles of water, and even filled up a bunch of water bottles at the apartment with tap water, and simply ran them through our coffee maker.

Boom. Hot. Water.

Two days later- the ceiling and the wallpaper-free walls were primed and ready for painting.

And I even put down drop cloths. Look who is slowly learning?

Matt and I ~~argued over~~ discussed paint colors during the week we spent back at the apartment. It's not like I want to go color crazy, but I don't want every single room to be neutral. Fortunately, after slowly wearing him down, Matt agreed to a pale mint green for the room.

This photo was my inspiration for the room:

Not sure of the source of this photo since I found it on Houzz.

After shoving the pic in Matt's face, he said, "What a brilliant photo! You clearly have amazing taste and I should simply leave every home decor choice to my lovely wife!" (Read: "Yeah. Sure. That's fine.)

Choosing paint to match a sliver on your phone is super stressful, but eventually you just have to go, "It's only paint," and make decision. I may or may not have chosen this shade based off the name "Mystical Sea."

After taping off all the edges, I got to painting. I left the trim for later, since I wasn't sure how much paint to buy and almost the whole house has crown molding and super tall base boards.

BIG MISTAKE.

Matt's parents, Doug and Denise, came down for the weekend, and in addition to bringing some much needed tools, they came to help with a couple of projects. Matt and Doug tacked more outdoor stuff (clearly my lack of knowledge of what they actually did shows how much interest I had in their projects. I'm sure it was very important and necessary.)

When Doug saw how I was painting (walls first, trim second) he ever so kindly pointed out that I would have to return and refinish ALL THAT EDGING, or else there would be a distinctive line.

I'll admit, I was a little discouraged, but I am glad I found out before I painted any more rooms. Fixing one bedroom is one thing, tackling the whole house is another.

We left the back room for now (since I can do that project on my own, and I wanted to utilize all the extra hands we had) and we began on the living room!

This was one room Matt and I agreed on the color: Gray! The newest IT color!

Darker Gray? via DesignSponge.com

Loving the yellow pops of color. via IdeasToSteal.com

Slate gray was the winner! via ABeautifulMess.com

Sadly, I was unable to paint the whole room as I had to get to rehearsal for the play I'm in (!!) but I did one whole wall so we could get an idea of what the room would look like.

In. Love. Look at the bright white trim, too!

While Doug and Matt cut down trees, sawed stuff, hunted bears and other manly stuff, Denise became my own personal Home DIY MVP by removing wallpaper in the dining room.

At least in THIS room I was treated to some hideous red paint under the wallpaper. Hooray?

Under the chair rail, Denise and I were stunned to learn there was MORE wallpaper underneath.

Great.