Day 3 & 4 - Hidden Treasure and Wall Stuff

It took day 3 (Tuesday) and day 4 (yesterday) to finish my to-do list for day three partially because day 3 I had to go to town to do some errands and shopping, which always eats away at my “real” plans. Also, I forgot (when making my to-do-Tuesday list) that Jay and I had dance lessons that night. That means that in the afternoon I had to: 1 - Take a nap and 2 - Get cleaned up. So between running to town and taking care of 1 and 2, there wasn’t much time for my empty nest project.

Anyhow, I started by punching a bunch of hammer holes in the wall between Amon’s and Esther’s rooms. This time I made nice neat lines. As before, this was fun and in a way cathartic. This might be the only chance in my lifetime to put holes in walls so I need to savor it. I ripped away the drywall on the one side of that wall in no time at all. I’m getting pretty good at it.

AND.. I found more hidden treasurer. This time it had obviously been deposited from a repaired hole on the other side. This is the last wall that I’ll be seeing inside, and I have to say I’m a little relieved that I haven’t found anything “illegal”. This time there were three crayon pieces, a blue lego, a spoon, a little stencil thing, scissors, a diaper pin, and a little yellow barrette. It’s been a long time since we’ve had diaper pins or any of those tiny barrettes in the house. (Hey, do any of you kids claim responsibility for these?)

The hole repairs were interesting to see from the back side. (The one below was directly above the pile of hidden treasure.) Sometimes I was the hole repair person, other times it was Jay. Mostly it was me. I had my own methods and they were much faster than Jay’s. (He did it the “right way” by patching in a new piece of dry wall complete with pieces of 2x4 to support it and dry wall mud to blend in the seams of the repair. When I repaired holes it was usually just preparation for putting up new wall paper and I figured that the wall paper would cover the repair anyhow. Sometimes I used duct tape… sometimes that foam insulation stuff that you squirt in… and other times, like the one below, I just left the hole and papered over it! This time (below) I had repaired it with clean packaging tape. What you see in the hole is the back side of the wall paper on Esther’s side of the wall. Hey, it worked fine… and no one would have even known the hole was there if I hadn’t ripped down the drywall.

After I cleaned up the mess and hauled away the drywall pieces I called it a day and moved on to nap-taking.

Yesterday, I succeeded in finishing my to-do list for the day before which included stripping the wall paper off the two walls which would remain and removing all the nails from the pile of 2x4s. I planned my attack carefully. The wall paper stripper had to be put on the walls (a section at a time) and let sit for 15 minutes… then another coat and another 15 minutes before starting to remove the paper. I chose the easiest wall and put on the first coat of stripper. Then I set up my nail removal clinic in the living room on the floor in front of the TV. I worked on nails and watched TV while I was waiting out the 15 minutes between applications of stripper.

Nail removal wasn’t as hard as I feared, but it did take some muscle. The nails were mostly the three inch variety and almost all of them were bent over from Jay pounding the studs sideways to get them out. I had to hammer them up straight and then pound them from their tips through to the other side where I could use the pry bar to pull them out. It was a nice challenge and I loved seeing the stack of nail free studs grow… as well as the pile of old nails. This didn’t happen all at once, only between trips to the wall to fiddle with the wall paper.

The paper from the first wall came down fairly easily, although not as simply as I’d hoped. As in most past experiences with stripping paper, it came off in two layers.. first the vinyl-ized colored top layer, and then the under-paper part. And… it’s not like it came off in nice big sheets for the most part either, …especially the under paper part, but it did come fairly easily. Not so with the other wall.

(above) You can see the different layers... the blue vinyl top layer, the paper layer (it's yellowish because it's wet) and the bare wall behind it.

(below) All of the blue is off, but part of the paper layer is there. Finally, the finished wall, complete with hole (compliments of Amon on a really bad day).

(I was trying to put these two pictures NEXT to each other but after several tries gave up. Blogger sure has a lot of quirks to figure out... someday.)

The other wall is the outer back wall of the house and I've always had trouble getting wall paper to stick to it over time. Possibly because of moisture or temperature changes or who knows what, it has tended to come loose a the ceiling, seams, or around the window. The last time I put up paper (the current blue stuff) I guess I used some super-stick type of glue, especially on those troublesome areas. Getting it off wasn’t easy. Even when both layers previously mentioned were off, I realized there was another strange white layer of something. I don’t know if it was primer, glue, or remnants of one of the past wallpapers. The later, I suspect. It didn’t come off easily at all. I could barely tell where it was because of the poor lighting (due to the electricity being disconnected and the drop light not working). In fact, I gave up and part of it is still there. I’m not sure if I’m going to hassle with it further, or just call it “good enough”. My only concern is that when I spray on the bumpy plaster “knock down” stuff that it might not stick well. I’ll have to research that.

When I removed the wall paper I discovered splotches near the floor of past wall paper from when the older girls had that room. This is the wall paper that we bought the “dusty rose” sheets and comforters to match. (See day 2) I remember that I couldn’t get it removed last time I tried, and just left it. It still didn’t want to come off, so I left it again.

I also found a tiny piece of the very first wallpaper from when we built the house. It was stuck up near the window ledge.

AND… under the baseboard I found a little strip of a dark blue paper that I barely remember, but must have been when we converted the girls room to the boys room.

Getting glimpses of family/house history through wall paper, sheets, and hidden treasure has been fun.