The Monstrosity: Day Three... Really This Time

This actually counts as Day Three because we actually went to the house to work. Actually. :-)

I spent the first half of my day developing a very strong conviction that people who wall paper straight to sheetrock and then wallpaper on top of the first wall paper and then paint over all of that... should be drug out to the street and shot.

I spent the last half of my day trying to figure out a way to see this imperative justice put into action.

Yes, Day Three of working on the Monstosity has done it's best to bring me to my knees screaming out, "WHAT WERE WE THINKING?! Why in the world did we buy this giant house with sooooooo much work to do???" It didn't succeed I'm glad to say. I'm holding off until Day Four before I actually consider sitting down to cry. I sat in this living room and cried once a couple of months ago because the house wasn't ours. All is fair in love and war and house remodeling.

Truthfully, I have felt perfectly balanced emotionally throughout the day in spite of the unfriendly twists I have encountered. And despite my desperate sounding rant above. ;-)

James went to pray for Sister Hoffman in the hospital this morning. She was having surgery on her neck and it went well, they say, but are concerned because her blood sugar is high right now. Do remember her in your prayers.

After that he headed to Collinsville to attent the funeral of one of our deacons who passed away this week, Vester Jackson. Unfortunately, the Interstate was closed and James was unable to actually get there! He wasn't on to do anything at the funeral, just going to show love and support, but he was still disappointed that he couldn't get there.

In the meantime, I loaded the kids up and headed to the Monstrosity. We got there and had our devotions, then I got them going on school while I took the wall paper steamer into the half bath on the main floor. Some of the wall paper was bubbled up and not attached to the wall at all, so I expected an easy stripping job. HA. Nothing is easy when you expect it to be easy, have you ever noticed that about houses? They always sneak up on you like that. I have no idea how long I was in that itty-bitty room working on the wall paper a tiny little bit at a time. The paper had been painted over with a thick, high gloss faux finish and it came off in layers. Paint first, then the top of the paper, then finally the back. Crazy.

Finished up in there and took the steamer to the master bedroom to start working on the border that went the entire way around the ceiling. To my surprise--and great joy--the border just ripped right off nice and clean with no steaming necessary! It was a 60 second job. Wa-Hoo! Almost made up for all the time I'd spent in that little bathroom.

I was hoping for the same easy job in the master bath since it had no wall paper, only border. There I go again, expecting something easy. I should know better. I discovered a tacky seashell border underneath the tacky elegant-swirly-flowery border. That means stripping one layer after another again. And I never could get it all off. There's still papery feeling stuff on the wall. I'm going to try to scrub it off tomorrow. If I can make myself go back to the house again after today. HA!

I opened the door to the basement and saw the horrid wall paper going down the stairwell. I figured that would be a real nightmare, too. I managed to find and edge and peel it up... and the entire sheet peeled right off as I pulled! I had to pull hard, but it came off perfectly clean in one piece!!! WHOA! I was sooooo thrilled! It was a different kind of paper, much heavier and almost looked like linen on the back. Joe came to help and the two of us ripped down one sheet after another and had the whole stairwell done in about five minutes. Wa-Hoo!!! Another happy surprise like the border in the master bedroom. :-)

Then. Oh, then. It was time to take the steamer to the foyer to meet the peacocks. I didn't dare to hope for an easy job this time, but I surely wasn't braced for how bad it would be. For starters, the peacock paper was NOT original to the house. Can you imagine somebody SINCE 1969 thinking that wall paper like that actually looks good?! It was bad enough thinking that somebody 42 years ago thought it was attractive, but much more difficult to make excuses for anybody since that time. What was underneath was a dark, heavy print of red and gold. I've tried several times to upload pictures (I did remember to take my camera today), but Blogger isn't allowing it tonight. Anyway, I worked for a very, very, very long time... stripping just the peacocks off of one wall. Then I went back and started stripping the original wall paper off. It was NOT easy and the results were, oh, let's say "less than desirable." When you scrape wall paper off of sheetrock (when there is not a layer of paint in between--just the paper straight to the rock) it also scrapes up portions of the sheetrock itself. It tears it and punctures it and sometimes rips a whole thin layer off the face of the sheetrock, leaving it sort of fuzzy feeling. NOT a surface that can be painted, or even wall papered.

I could tell we were in big trouble. I know it's just a foyer, but it's still a big room--and it extends all the way up the stairs to the second floor. That's a lot of peacocks. Hundreds and hundreds of peacocks. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH THEM??? I can't paint over them and have wall paper seams showing through, besides the places where the wall paper is peeling up off the wall--you can't paint over it when it's like that! But the peacocks must go. They simply cannot stay. The situation was desperate and I tried momentarily to imagine that maybe it would be possible to get attached to the peacocks and not hate them so badly if I gave them all names. But I would never remember THAT many names. No, they've just got to go. What to do, what to do, what to do...

James was still traveling back from almost making it to Collinsville when I picked up the phone and called my pastor. He's not only my pastor, but rumor has it he's a fantastic sheetrock man. I was hoping that perhaps he would know of a cure for my wall disaster. Maybe once all of the wall paper is gone the torn up sheetrock could be mudded and sanded and smoothed and then painted??? I had done the math on how long it took me to clear the tiny percentage of wall that I worked on today and figured it would take me well over a week to get all the paper off the walls, but if they could be smoothed out and used I guess (???) it might be worth it. NAH. Is there anyway to sand down the seams of the wall paper and smooth things out and paint over all of it??? I didn't know what I was expecting him to say, I just knew I needed his advice.

"Brother Hopkins, are you busy tonight? ...Do you have a few minutes that you could spare?... I have a problem... It's a bit of an emergency, but it's not urgent--it could wait if tonight is not a good night... It involves sheetrock and peacocks... hundreds and hundreds of peacocks... You'll just have to come see--please don't make me explain..." And so on.

Being the generous (and perhaps curious--ha!) man that he his, he showed up at the house just after James did. We brought him through the back door and talked about our plans for the kitchen and dining room, then asked him if he wanted to see our real problem. :-) We walked into the foyer and he laughed when he saw the peacocks, though he seemed relieved that my emergency didn't involve REAL peacocks. Though they would probably be easier to get rid of, now that I think of it.

He took one look at the wall I'd been working on--the wall that had no peacocks, but was still mostly covered in the red and gold paper with a section across the middle where that too had been removed, along with the top layer of sheetrock. He looked rather horrified for a moment, then began sharing a story about a young wife who called him in tears one day because of the very same thing--removing wall paper and discovering the sheetrock was destroyed when she did so. The short version is that her marriage was about to be wrecked over the situation and I figured I might be in the same boat soon enough if we didn't get help. HA! James hadn't said a word--he was just hoping, as I was, that Brother Hopkins had a secret cure-all fix for our predicament. He explained that you CAN'T resurface the sheetrock. When it gets torn up like that it just bubbles up anytime to you try to put mud or anything on it--it simply won't work. In other words, your only options are:

1. Keep the peacocks.

2. Sheetrock over what is already there.

Number one just isn't a possibility. I just can't. Peacocks??? Hundreds and hundreds of them??? If only I could add a picture here you would understand. They simply must go.

But number two... whoa--that's a lot of sheetrock! And that adds up QUICK. And that was NOT in our budget when we bought this joint. The words "money pit" kept clanking around in my head. Ha! But Brother Hopkins said that he could just put 1/4" sheetrock over what is already there and that it is actually pretty cheap. He added up how many pieces we would need and we were relieved that he was right. And I can guarantee you that the price is we-e-e-e-e-e-e-ell worth it for me to just be DONE with the peacocks and not have to work on them or worry with them anymore!

So that's the new plan. It wasn't part of the plan, but James handled it amazingly well (he doesn't generally find joy in unexpected expenses) and I am just so, so, so relieved.

Though I wonder if I'll think about the peacocks when I walk into the foyer or come down the stairs. Will I still "see" them there and wonder if they're looking at me through the 1/4"??? They won't actually be GONE like I wanted. They'll always BE there, just covered over. They probably won't be very happy.

I can live with that. :-)

Have I mentioned lately that I love Brother Hopkins? That he his my hero? That he has saved my sanity and possibly my marriage?