I don’t think I would ever wish wallpaper removal on anyone. When I mentioned this project (see parts one and two) to family and friends I got a lot of sympathetic looks. No one likes wallpaper and most homeowners have suffered through it’s removal (and it’s coming back into style!) All that aside, I achieved my goal and finished stripping my bathroom of wallpaper. I took things a few steps further than just the wallpaper and took down the big mirror, replaced the light fixture and repainted the room. I did have some help with the mirror and light fixture though - I wanted (needed) some extra hands and eyes. The bathroom looks like a whole new space! I am not surprised at what I learned from the internet, but I am surprised at the vast number of resources. Finding sources online to assist me with this project online was not hard at all, especially as the “DIY” trend has grown. There were a number of options available on Youtube and articles to read through via Pintrest. I could have spent a whole day sorting through different articles and Youtube videos reading about wallpaper removal and techniques. In the second update post I mentioned how I had read up on what I needed to do, but also was learning on the fly and being more patient. It’s probably always good to be patient with home improvement projects. I am very happy with how my bathroom turned out and proud of accomplishing something out of my comfort zone, all on my own! While, I don’t plan on putting up or removing wallpaper anytime soon, the renovation of this bathroom has inspired me to take on a few other projects in my house before going back to school!
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I'm back with an update on the purple bathroom! I’m halfway through removing wallpaper in the bathroom right now and hope to see the full bathroom stripped of wallpaper within the next day or so. While researching for this project, (see my first post here) I watched some Youtube videos and then pinned a few different resources on Pintrest. From my initial impressions, removing wallpaper didn’t seem to be all that difficult, but would be more time consuming and potentially frustrating. The main takeaway from the different “how tos” that I read and watched were that I wanted to mix equal parts fabric softener and water and would need to spray the wall copiously and then use the scraper to get the wallpaper off. Those were the basic steps in every source that I used. After surveying my resources, I have found the explicit instructions on to do lists to be the most helpful to me. I like to read content and I went back a few times and referenced the Pintrest pages I had saved when I was in the middle of my process. To me, that was easier than pulling up the Youtube videos and trying to find the exact time I needed and rewatching that portion. I started this project with essentially no home improvement skills, so I think it is safe to say my wallpaper removal skills have improved. However, I am definitely not an expert by any means. The first wall I did in the bathroom is pretty rough, comparatively to the one I just finished. There are a lot of dents and nicks in the wall from where I hit it with the scraper. If you look at the other walls, the marks are less and less as I got better at the scraping technique. One thing I initially found challenging was that when I was pulling the wallpaper, it was coming off in such small pieces instead of these big long strips were being talked about online. I was working around the middle of the wall and just going through a lot of my spray mixture on one section instead of making it last longer. On the first few sections It was frustrating that I was using up the spray mixture before I was done with the chunk of the wall and effectively felt that it was taking me forever to get anything done. I took a break and literally stepped back from the wall to assess the situation and decided that working from the top down would serve as a better course of action because as the mixture runs down the wall, it would coat everything else. By the time I would reach the bottom of the wall, I wouldn’t need nearly as much spray because it would have been soaked through many times already from the runoff from earlier, higher up sections. That logic served me soundly and it has been a lot easier getting sections of the wall cleared - some of them I don’t even need to use a scraper on! I have included some before pictures and some after showing the middle of my progress. The stop motion video is when I started to use my “top down” technique for the spray and wallpaper stripping motion. As you can see, it worked! I’m not exactly someone you would consider handy around the house. I have painted a room once in my life, but never actually tried to “redo” a space. My husband and I recently just purchased our first home. We are lucky enough that no major work needs to be done, aside from a few cosmetic updates that we would like to do. The house has a lot light and lighter colors, with the exception of one bathroom. Immediately, the bathroom seemed “off” to me from the rest of the house, because it doesn’t match the aesthetic and it is not my personal style. Upon further inspection, what I thought was deep purple paint, was in fact, deep purple wallpaper with a snakeskin pattern. For my networked learning project, I plan on redoing this bathroom. I’m excited to tackle this project because for me, is it something that is both fun and practical. My goal for the networked learning project is to successfully get the purple paper down without too much of a mess and make it a nice space. I’m also very curious what will be underneath the wallpaper once I get it down. There is a very good chance there could be more wallpaper or even a more bizarre wall color. Typically, I would call my dad for a project like this. He is a property manager and has remodeled and renovated many houses in his career. While I’m slightly nervous, I’m mainly excited that this project will be something I am doing completely on my own. I have already been on Pintrest looking at various resources to use for this project and have found a few different internet guides that people have written after their various experiences with wallpaper removal. I also plan to turn to Youtube and plan on watching a few videos to visually see people do the actual removal and see if there are any techniques that I need to know. I would qualify myself as more of a visual learner. I like to see someone do an activity before I do it or like specific instructions to feel more comfortable as I embark on something new. However, with “do it yourself” projects like this, I tend to favor more written instructions and guides that I can go back and reference quickly throughout whatever I am doing. |
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