Stripping till I dropped
It was one of those weekends and I had a lovely extra day to work on the house, what I was going to get done was extraordinary however I’d not remembered how painful removing wallpaper could be. Anyway Friday morning and I was full of cold, nevertheless I was made of sterner stuff and despite a late start at 10am I still managed to put together a full day of work, working late into the evening to make up for lost time and basically wallpaper stripping till I dropped.
The first jobs were simple, get the house thawed out and the fire on, get some chores done too and before starting on the house move the kitchen units upstairs and put all the superfluous tools away before the dust starts flowing. The kitchen move proved to be a bit of a trial, there was rather a lot more than I thought, but hey it was mindless work and was soon out of the way.
Now to test the angle grinder, I knew it was probably screwed, but hey there was a chance that it may just work after having time to cool down. Previously upon breaking the grinder I’d been party to a rather acrid plume of fumes that had jollied around the house all evening. As I didn’t want to hack and cough all day I put the grinder in the garden, stood back, lit the blue touch paper and was greeted by tiny pyrotechnics and lots of smoke, my faithful little grinder was officially badgered.
Angle grinder now disposed of the next job was to find my Karcher steamer for some wallpaper stripping and within double quick time I found it lurking in the attic. By the way the attic looks fab, I forgot what a good job I did insulating, half-boarding and loft laddering it. Sorry I couldn’t help myself there, but it does look flipping good.
Anyway the steamer was found but where the Dickens was the steamer wallpaper stripping head, the Karcher had taken me minutes to find, unfortunately the steamer head for wallpaper stripping took me another hour or so to pin down. Darn-nabbit.
Anyway all I had to do was strip the ceiling wallpaper – in what was going to be the kitchen half of the family room – then strip some walls in there too, followed by a few more simple strips in the living room area. Hey how difficult could this be, a lot of the walls were fresh plasterwork specifically around the chimney breasts, it was half the job it appeared.
Anyway Karcher charged and steaming I decided the ceiling wallpaper would go first, it should only take the day and tomorrow I could crack on with the filling and sanding. Well that was my idea but the ceiling had ideas of its own, yes the flipping stubborn ceiling was on a different schedule and it wasn’t going to give up its multiple layers of paper easily.
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Instantly there was a problem, this paper was waterproof and multiple layered and painted and fixed with superglue bonded with gummy whatzit nasty gum, it wasn’t going to be easy. Actually it wasn’t going to be easy was rather a large understatement, it was going to be blinking super-difficult. Just teasing off the first bit of paper was a major achievement and in order to continue with the stripping it involved lots and lots of steam. Steam that bore very hot water drops, very hot water drops that would drizzle along your forearms and make you curse under your breath, drops that would plop onto your head and make you jump and drops that once dripped onto my top lip and made me yelp. Not good, but once you got used to it it was just part of the job.
Anyway I pressed on and late into the afternoon, I was moving slowly across the ceiling and I reassessed the progress with an expected finish to the ceiling by the end of the day. Well the end of the day came and I seem to remember at 1am the next morning I ran out of steam (literally, this being about my fifth tank of steam) and decided to call it a day and went to bed.
The next morning despite my raging man-flu I started early and had cracked the ceiling before the morning was out.
The walls next, well the walls were mostly a pleasure as each layer of wallpaper came off with a sweep of the magic wand of the steamer. With a bit of luck and some dexterity one could slowly move the steamer head down the wall while following on with the scraper, immediately removing the wallpaper with one flick of the wrist.
Things were moving well, but despite the simplicity of the new wallpaper removal there was lots of walls to do and lots of nasty twists and turns to negotiate.
By 6:30 I still hadn’t finished the job, but 6:30 was time to see my daughter and time for a Chinese too, so not even having finished job no. 1 that weekend I had to retire beaten.
The next day was a full day with my little girl at my folks home, but hey what do we do when we don’t have time, well we find time don’t we.
Getting back home that evening at 9:30 I quickly donned my overalls, the steamer already loaded and turned on, once charged I set about the paper that needed finishing. This new paper languishing above the dado rail looked tricky and proved tricky too. Not as difficult as the ceiling but harder than the paper I’d tackled the day before.
My intension was to at least finish off the wallpaper stripping but once the steamer puffed its last puff of steam it was getting rather late and being a school night and all I had to succumb again to defeat. The wallpaper got the best of me, never underestimate wallpaper.
Nearly done though, there is about five square metres to tackle of the medium nasty stuff. The wall finish is a tale of two cities though, the bits in the kitchen area and the ceiling are rather nasty, there’s a brown glue that’s been employed in there to adhere the paper and that’s proving difficult to remove, it’s probably easier to leave and then smooth out with a skim coat, the walls are pockmarked too. The diner/lounge area is much much better and should prove a doddle to do apart from around the bay window which may need insulation and will definitely prove problematic when refitting the panelling.
Knowing what I did, again I did a lot, looking at the work done though, it looks like I spent most of my time feeling sorry for myself on the couch.
P.S. disappointing moment of the day was getting to the middle of the kitchen and finding the original ceiling rose was made of polystyrene, bah humbug, at least the one in the living room is enormous and made of plaster… well I think it’s plaster 🙂
P.P.S. the Karcher steamer and stripping head is still a thing of small wonder, I may moan on about how hard it was to take off the paper and how I got a couple of warm dribbles down my arm, but without the Karcher this job would have been impossible. The Karcher is a thing of wonder and awe, it is awesome…