One of the projects which we weren't planning on doing for awhile was the girl's bedroom upstairs. It had wallpaper on the walls which was only peeling in a few places, so that was going to be something that we did down the line. However, one afternoon a certain 3 yr old throwing a temper tantrum changed all of that, when she was having a time out on her bed and discovered the joy of peeling wallpaper off the walls...
This is what it looked like beforehand- classic grandma wallpaper...
Teddy and Anna trying to be helpful and peeling off the wallpaper in little pieces...
Under the wallpaper, there was yellow textured paint on top of the plaster. For future reference, if you are EVER going to put anything on top of plaster- whether it is paint, wallpaper, etc, please remember the following: Plaster is a very dry surface, and also very porous. This means that it will SUCK the moisture out of whatever you put on it (this will lead to cracking, among other things!). You MUST, MUST, MUST first put a BONDING AGENT on the plaster. This is about the consistency of milk and is applied with a roller, and it does 2 jobs. First, it seals off the plaster so that the moisture won't get sucked out of whatever you're applying. And second, it allows whatever you're applying to BOND to the plaster. Obviously, whoever applied the textured paint to the plaster did not know about this. As a result, as I peeled off the wallpaper, huge chunks of the paint would come off too. This resulted in me having to apply drywall mud to even the surface to a LARGE portion of each wall. From there, I had to paint a textured paint on top of the mud to match the textured paint that had stayed behind...
And finally.... COLOR! I had my friend Amy help me pick an accent color for one wall, and a more natural pink for the other 3, that coordinated with the girls' bedspreads. I'm so excited about how it turned out!!!
This is what it looked like beforehand- classic grandma wallpaper...
Teddy and Anna trying to be helpful and peeling off the wallpaper in little pieces...
Under the wallpaper, there was yellow textured paint on top of the plaster. For future reference, if you are EVER going to put anything on top of plaster- whether it is paint, wallpaper, etc, please remember the following: Plaster is a very dry surface, and also very porous. This means that it will SUCK the moisture out of whatever you put on it (this will lead to cracking, among other things!). You MUST, MUST, MUST first put a BONDING AGENT on the plaster. This is about the consistency of milk and is applied with a roller, and it does 2 jobs. First, it seals off the plaster so that the moisture won't get sucked out of whatever you're applying. And second, it allows whatever you're applying to BOND to the plaster. Obviously, whoever applied the textured paint to the plaster did not know about this. As a result, as I peeled off the wallpaper, huge chunks of the paint would come off too. This resulted in me having to apply drywall mud to even the surface to a LARGE portion of each wall. From there, I had to paint a textured paint on top of the mud to match the textured paint that had stayed behind...
And finally.... COLOR! I had my friend Amy help me pick an accent color for one wall, and a more natural pink for the other 3, that coordinated with the girls' bedspreads. I'm so excited about how it turned out!!!
