This particular story began about three weeks ago, but I
couldn’t begin to chronicle it until I’d rested a bit…wait a minute, I just
slept five hours on the couch waiting for a timer to ring so I could put
another coat of paint on the ceiling before the tile guys arrive at 8:30 a.m.
Anyway, this story begins, as most home improvement stories
begin, with a simple desire to receive more enjoyment from a room. The room in question is my kitchen, which has
way too many things wrong with it to fix all at once. However, I decided to make an investment in
new tile (installed by others) and freshly painted walls (prepared and painted
by me).
It’s important to note that at some stage early in the
planning process, I failed to secure the cooperation of my husband for this
project. I must have forgotten to say
"Simon Says" or something, because it quickly became apparent that he
had no interest in the kitchen or its relative beauty, and was intent upon not
helping me with it in any significant way.
So I began stripping off the dorky flowered wallpaper and
border in the kitchen, which went extraordinarily well! That is until I realized that the paper
wallpaper backing that had been left behind would have to be removed, too. Some of it came right off with a little picking
and peeling. The rest was tenacious to
an extent that I would never have imagined. In fact, if I had imagined, it, I might have foregone the entire project
then and there.
I went online to research the best methods of wallpaper
removal from sheetrock. The most
traditional thing to do involved scoring the wallpaper with tiny holes, then
spraying a wallpaper remover gel on it, after which the paper would just let go
and you could scrape it off with a plastic scraper. Okay, no.
The next thing I thought of was a steamer. I had rented one years before when I redid
our bedroom and removed multiple layers of wallpaper. Luckily a friend offered to lend me her
steamer and save me the rental fees. I
unpacked and filled the steamer, waited forever for it to heat up, then began
steaming and scraping the wallpaper. It
proved very ineffective, and I ended up gouging the sheetrock with almost every
scrape.
Someone online had the idea of just spraying plain water on
the wallpaper backing, then scraping. We
had a winner! That turned out to be the
absolute best way to loosen the wallpaper for scraping. After a while I discovered that sanding the
damp paper with a drywall sanding block worked even better than scraping and
did absolutely no damage to the sheetrock. Now keep in mind that this process involves a tremendous amount of elbow
grease, so it’s really only possible to do about a square yard at a time before
you have to stop and rest (there are frequent naps involved as well).
I was about 1/3 of the way through the wallpaper removal
process when my husband informed me that he had talked to our tile guy and told him
he could come the next day. Needless to
say I freaked out and told the guy not to come. It sounds so quaint and amusing now, but at the time I had expected to
have all the wallpaper removed and the walls (and ceiling) spackled, primed and
painted before the tile went in.
Let’s skip ahead to last weekend. After redoubling my wallpaper scraping
efforts, I eventually got to the point where the only wallpaper remaining is
behind the refrigerator and in one little alcove by the door. I was resigned to the idea that I would have
to paint – carefully – after the tile was installed. That left two tasks to be accomplished before
the tile crew arrived on Monday (keep in mind that they’re contractors, so of
course they’re really coming on Tuesday).
We had, in a moment of temporary insanity, agreed to move
the stove and refrigerator ourselves. I
purchased some scrap carpet to cushion the hardwood floors and we decided we
should move the stove first, since it would end up further into the living
room. We managed to scoot it out about a
foot, only to discover that it is firmly hardwired somehow. Maybe all stoves are like that, I don’t
know. As a special bonus, the power
cable was not plugged into an outlet as you might expect. Instead, the cord goes down below the floor
level – an arrangement that would probably make the fire marshal blanch in
terror and flee the property.
We decided to leave the stove for the time being and appeal
to the tile crew to help us. ("We
are yuppies with no practical skills. How much can we pay you to do this useful task for us?") I vacuumed underneath and discovered that
every toy mouse I have ever purchased for the cats had made its way under the
stove to be preserved among the dust bunnies until now. Believe me, the cats had a par-tay last
night.
That left the refrigerator. We tipped it onto a dolly, which promptly made the door open, raining
bottles of 7-Up and Honey Brown all over the floor. I fetched some duct tape and taped the doors
shut and we continued, but not for long. As soon as we got to the doorway we could see that the handles made the
fridge too wide to fit through the door. I fetched a screwdriver and began removing them, but the screw heads on
the lower handle were stripped. On to
Plan B: removing the doors. I won’t bore you with the details (I know,
you’re already bored – sorry), but we finally got the doors off, put the
refrigerator in the living room, put the doors back on (almost correctly) and
then tried to plug it in. Turns out, we
have no grounded outlets in the living room.
By now the level of quarreling had reached personal levels
that had nothing to do with the task at hand ("Why don’t you go brush your
teeth or use some mouthwash or something?!") I fetched an extension cord from the garage
and rigged it from the kitchen to the living room for the fridge. I dismissed the hubby so I wouldn’t have to
look at him anymore, and proceeded to festoon the kitchen with dropcloths so I
could paint the ceiling.
And that’s how I ended up sleeping a few hours on the couch
last night between paint coats. I still
can’t tell whether it looks good or not, but I’ve rinsed all the painting
equipment, so it’ll have to do for now.