Day Three of Wallpaper Removal

Well, there's nothing like a big home improvement project to keep those blog posts rolling in.

Today I began work on Jacob's room. I still have lots of work to do in the kitchen and by the front door, but since we're coming up on a weekend of football, that will be a good thing to do while there are games on.

Jacob's room was the first place that I tried to take off any wallpaper, all those many weeks ago. In fact, we bought the wallpaper remover spray mere days after we moved in. It was one of those "Let's Get Everything We Can Think Of So We'll Have It When We Need It" trips to Lowe's. When we got it home, we watched the instructional video, which showed a dressed-up, overly cheerful woman spray the product on the wall and then peel a large, perfect piece of wallpaper off as if it were - magic.

We decided that we would have to see this wonder for ourselves. We rushed into Jacob's room, which is by far the most wallpaper-covered room, and sprayed it on. We waited the required 20 minutes for the magic enzymes to work, and then...nothing. When we finally got some scrawny little pieces off, it pulled off a good layer of the brown drywall paper, as well.

With this in mind, I knew it would not be a fun job. And indeed, it is not. Here is the first wall I've done:

Be sure and note the large, uneven portions where the drywall paper layers have been brutally ripped off (shown below). All of these walls (and ceiling) will have to be sanded down, with any exposed gypsum sealed, smoothed over with drywall compound, primed, and painted. Woo hoo.

Of course, here is the comparison between the naked wall and the wallpapered wall:

Which is more unattractive? You be the judge.