quand même

i hate wallpaper

I HATE having wallpaper. But I have determined that the only thing worse than HAVING wallpaper is REMOVING wallpaper. But we're done that step.

You see, we've been working on re-decorating our bedroom. Actually, re-decorating is not exactly the right word. It started with the need for a closet. Our entire flat has no closets--it's built for those who have armoires, and I don't like them at all. Plus, the idea of buying a huge piece of furniture when we're relatively sure that we'll go back to the states in the not too terribly distant future seems ridiculous. And furthermore, we think that the flat will rent much easier if there's even just a bit of storage space. In other words, since we first looked at the place and decided to buy it, we've known that a construction project was in our future.

So it started with the closets. And we figured that as long as we're tearing stuff up and creating construction dust everywhere, we might as well replace the carpets at the same time, right? They were pretty yucky anyway. And heck, if we're changing the floors the walls will look really silly still being their old blue wallpapered selves, right? And if we're painting, we might as well hit the ceiling too, right? You see that? In thirty seconds of questioning we bought into weeks of work.

And it gets better.

We started on Saturday, tearing down wallpaper. We did it by hand...soaking each piece with a sponge and then tearing it off in strips or (in some cases) bit by bit. The border proved to be VERY trying, and Samy spent a lot of quality time with the scraping knife. He loved that. Not. We found out yesterday that a friend of Samy's from work has a steam machine meant for removing wallpaper. So that was at least welcome news for when we tackle bedroom number two, and the kitchen.

Saturday evening, we took a welcome break and had dinner with some friends, then went for a walk on the bank of the Seine (near the Jardin des Plantes) where there is spontaneous dancing everywhere--tons of different styles--and lots of people! It was the first time we'd been there in the evening and we'll definitely be going back!

We woke up bright and early on Sunday (actually, 11am) and got back to work. While Samy continued to attack the wallpaper border, I started filling holes. When the first ones were dry, I started sanding a bit...and then stopped after about ten minutes...because I remembered that the old paint was lead-based...meaning that sanding is...well...let's say...stupid.

Granted, we were wearing masks for this entire ordeal...but I decided to check out some more details of lead-based paint on the web. About 2.4 minutes of that convinced me that sanding it was definitely not the wisest of activities, so we spent a decent amount of time deciding what to do from there. The current thought is that we'll put up a fiberglass-like paper that is paintable--they call it structure paper...whatever that is.

Bottom line--we had no materials to continue working for the day, but hey, we're resourceful individuals! So what did we do, you might ask? Well, we decided to rip off the baseboards, of course! It wasn't part of our original plan, but hey...we were bored (or is that board?)! An added bonus is that the baseboards have the highest concentration of lead in the whole house, so by removing them we're probably doing ourselves (and future residents) a big favor in the long run.

And naturally, this too turned into a bigger ordeal. Just on top of the baseboards was the electrical conduit (on top of the walls, not *in* them...I think there is a decent chance that this building didn't have electricity when it was built). That bedroom's electricity hasn't been re-done since...well, since EVER...so there is obviously no ground in there. So...you guessed it...we're re-doing it.

We ripped out the lead-laden baseboards and the old, crappy electrical wires and called it a day.

Now the walls of our room are totally naked.

Posted by amy at June 29, 2004 07:58 PM