In my last blog, I mentioned the wallpaper. Layers and layers and layers. In order to remove the wallpaper layers, we had to scrape scrape and scrape. And sand and sand and sand. Hours and days and weeks.
When we bought the house, we knew there was at least relatively nice shiplap under the wallpaper in the living room. Some of the other rooms seemed like they might have nice shiplap.
We went on YouTube to find out how to remove wallpaper in the easiest, fastest way. And, as often happens in our YouTube searches, the answer came back: vinegar. I’m amazed at what vinegar can be used for. Cleaning drains, cleaning countertops, disinfecting, etc. And… removing wallpaper.
Armed with scrapers, pliers and chisels to remove the tiny nails and staples (zillions of them; I’m not exaggerating), we set to work.
As we dove deeper into the rip and tear part of the renovation, we discovered that not only was there nice shiplap under the wallpaper, this shiplap as 113-year old old growth, fir. And while the original workmanship was marginal in places, the more wallpaper we removed, the more shiplap we found.
And virtually all of it was in amazing condition. At least after removing the layers of wallpaper and sanding until our shoulders were sore.
You can see the amount of work it took in the pictures above. I can honesty say this was the hardest, most grueling part of the project. In the living room picture above, we have removed the wallpaper, but haven’t started sanding yet.
But as you will see in later pictures, it was completely worth the effort. And not unexpected, we encountered some areas within the house that had dry rot. I’ll chat about that in the next post.