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Do not under any circumstances install a wallpaper border in a house you plan on staying in for a length of time. Especially, if there is a slim chance you might want to change the look of the room where that border might be installed.

such a colossal nightmare!

As with everything these days, we decided to rapidly change the look of our bedroom prior to Peanut’s arrival. Little did we know, the border the previous owners had installed, would be such a colossal nightmare!

Yesterday started with me painting the ceiling in our bedroom; there were a couple of “bad spots” on the ceiling that have always driven me crazy. Things went pretty well, aside from the lightheaded and dizziness from inhaling so much paint fumes, but I managed. Now I hadn’t really planned to remove the border yesterday, but since our bedroom was in shambles (mattress in the hallway, etc.), we decided to see if we could get it totally done this weekend. Of course, that meant border removal.

Oh and about six hours worth of scrapping!

Earlier in the day, while we were at Lowe’s, we picked up a scoring tool and Diff wallpaper remover, that has worked well for us in the past. After scoring, spraying and repeating the process for a second time, we took a break for dinner.

Let’s just say the Diff didn’t work as well as we had hoped; I’m not sure if it was because the border was so old, or if this is the way the process always goes. In the end it took removing the first layer (the decorative side) with a putty knife and then using our clothes steamer to heat up the paper/glue layer. Oh and about six hours worth of scrapping!

Yeah, I said clothing steamer. Funny thing about using a clothing steamer to remove a wallpaper border at the ceiling level: the hose doesn’t quite reach. We had to set the thing on a storage tote and a file container to get it up high enough. That was Lynnette’s job, to make sure we kept moving along and it didn’t fall over.

Let’s see if we can get the painting done today…