Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Dining in Blue?

See the interesting orbs captured on a photograph
taken with disposal camera.
Here is a photograph of the dining room before its makeover.
Blue! That is the word for this room. I stripped off three layers of wallpaper. The latest layer was blue with small white dot. The paper made the room look dark. Fortunately the wallpaper had never been painted. I used a product called Wallwik® that when wet, stuck to the walls like a wet towel, holding moisture on the paper to keep it damp. It made stripping the wallpaper much easier.

I stripped about one wall at a time (only an area one package of Wallwik® could cover). Before using the Wallwik® I scored the wallpaper with a wallpaper-scoring tool, which is specifically designed to score wallpaper. This tool has notched teeth that perforate and lift the wallpaper as it rolls along. I added a chemical used for stripping wallpaper into the warm water in a bucket to sponge or spray on the wall to keep the Wallwik® wet. Plaster over lath in old Victorians handle water better than wallboard in newer houses. Patience is important in this process. I kept spraying the wall with a spray bottle from time to time as I saw it drying out especially near the ceiling. In the meantime, I worked on another project. After a couple of hours the paper was well soaked, and I was able to peel most of it off the wall.
My handyman tore up the fake-brick linoleum, pressed wood and also installed crown molding.
Under the linoleum was asphalt tile, tar paper and gooey tar. I expended a lot of effort and time to remove as much tar as I could. The tar paper was nailed down with hundreds of nails. My daughter came to my rescue by helping me with the tedious chore of removing tar and nails. I chiseled away tar. I heated some tar with an old iron on top of a metal cookie sheet until it was soft enough to scrape off. What a job!

My favorite, but now retired, dry-waller skimmed coated walls and installed wallboard on the ceiling. I painted the walls a cream color and the ceiling, door and moldings white. The paint on the walls changes as the light in the room changes. Sometimes it looks pinker then other times it has a golden hue.

The wood-burning stove hearth was built from bricks taken from the old Manti Store after it was torn down. The dark wall paper overpowered the brick.

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