Walls!

In a 100 year old house, painting projects are not just painting projects. In our case, painting involves stripping, washing, patching gaping holes and floor to ceiling cracks, priming, patching again and then finally painting. Good quality paint seems to make a huge difference, too. It provides better coverage and fills in some of the imperfections as opposed to highlighting them.



This past weekend was devoted to getting the walls ready for painting process. This is the former strange brown pre- wall board wall (you can see it to the left). There is some sort of plaster powder between the paper. Maybe this is early dry wall? Maybe this was some sort of crazy creation of past owners? It has certainly complicated the process.




I troweled on compound to create a smooth and paintable surface (you can see it to the left). Mr. Ham House sanded it smooth before the troweling because it was covered with textured brown paper. The visual improvement to the stairway is amazing. The dark brown paper made you feel like you were entering a cave. I'm thinking it should take one or two more sandings and coats and we should be ready to prime and paint. Wow!



The other big project was washing walls and finishing off the never ending wallpaper stripping. Washing paste is thankless, but so important. I wanted to avoid the mess paint makes when it softens wallpaper paste that I thought was fossilized on the wall in other rooms....


A few walls unearthed between seven and eight layers of wallpaper! It was like tracking the history of the house! Ham House Mom was unfortunate and lucky enough to have this messy job. She was the resident archaeologist for the weekend, which meant strange mess of disintegrating wallpaper and the amazing patterns below. We were able to catch a glimpse of what the bottom layer looked like.

Wood Work Stripping Update

Way to go Mr. Ham House! Progress on the wood work! I don't have a photo from today, but this newel post is actually ready for sanding. Hoping to sand, prime, and paint the hand rail and newel posts before installing the beautifully dipped (by a pro) and painted (by the heroic Ham House Father) spindles. I can almost begin to imagine life with a working staircase...

Progress is Progress

After another hiatus we were back to the entry way project. What better way to celebrate our independence then by stripping paint and wallpaper from every inch conceivable in our modestly sized foyer.


Here's an idea of the magnitude of the wallpaper situation...A photo taken during our inspection before purchase.... The perspective is from the floor looking up. It's all covered in a sad shade of mauve with stripes of pale beige. I'm sure it was lovely in the 70s but is now sad and dirty.

Now I'll make an admission...

We started this projects MONTHS ago and have been living with the remnants of Victorian paper, wallpaper glue, shades of green paint, and huge cracks in the plaster. This weekend the goal was to get the remaining wallpaper down and begin to fill some of the cracks. Maybe primer? How about just living with something less scary...

Here's where we are today...

Pieces of backing paper stuck to the ceilings...beginning to patch plaster....and more stripping to go. Sigh. Notice in the photo that tall Mr. Ham House is able to strip the terrible inclined ceiling over the stairs without a ladder. What luck! And what pain he'll have in his arms in the morning....

I have to say one of the biggest challenges is certainly getting through all the layers. The bottom layer, which is a disintegrating brown paper has two coats of paint, one in a fun turquoise that might work in a bedroom, but not an entry. Over this, lies a coat of paintable (I am guessing) wallpaper that seems water impermeable and the lovely paper you see above. I know it could be worse, but it sure isn't fun...

Did I mention it's messy, too? Thank you Ham House Mother-in-law for once again coming over and demanding we live in a civilized home. The nagging is actually appreciated.