Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

I had a teacher who loved this expression, and it seems quite fitting for this post. While I was off having fun last weekend, this is what was going on at my house. (Thanks to my mom for housesitting while we were gone.) I arrived home to find this...

Oh yes, it really is as bad as it looks. Remember the little project I started this summer? Well, it wound up whipping me! After reaching a stumbling block with the wallpaper, we decided to research our options, meaning, see if we could paint over the wallpaper. Because it had a texture, we removed the top layer, and left the backing paper. Everyone we talked to and everything we read indicated that yes, you can successfully paint over wallpaper, if you use an oil-based primer. So, that's what we did. However, when we reached the point of trying to do some repairs to the wall, we decided it was just more than we could do, and decided to hire someone. So, the guy came last week to start on it. He thought he could apply a skim coat of joint compound, then sand it and paint. Well......that seemed like a plan, until the wallpaper underneath started to bubble and turn loose! We couldn't believe it. Everybody said if you used the oil-based primer, it would be fine. I don't know if this was some weird type of wallpaper or what, but we sure couldn't get it to turn loose when we wanted it to, and then when we didn't want it to, it did! (I hope that makes sense.)

So, we were left with two options. (1) Skim coat the walls, pray it loosened all the wallpaper like it did in the sample spot, peel it off, and skim coat again. Or (2) tear out the drywall and start over. Since time is money, quite literally when you're having this kind of work done, we decided it would be easier, faster, and therefore cheaper to just tear it out and start over. The demolition started over the weekend, and now this is where we are...

Yes, those walls are purple! We decided to use with the mildew and moisture resistant sheetrock, boy, is it purple!!!!! This has been (actually still is) an ordeal, but I think it will all be worth it when we're finished. We had a problem with the ceiling above the shower mildewing. We had installed a larger exhaust fan and placed it almost right over the shower, but were still having problems. The guy who is doing all this said he was afraid that the mildew might have gone all the way through the drywall. I'm hoping that all we're doing will take care of this problem. We're using the mildew resistant sheetrock, don't have any wallpaper that might be trapping moisture, and we are painting with exterior paint that has had a mildew resistant additive mixed in. If this doesn't work, you'll be hearing me scream!

Another "benefit" of this project is that I'm getting tile on the floor. We had put down vinyl when we built 10 years ago, but had planned to put down tile at some point. Since the baseboards are already torn out, this seemed like an ideal time to go ahead and do the tile. I'm keeping the lights and plumbing fixtures, but I think the painted walls and tile floor will be a really nice facelift! And there will NEVER be anymore wallpaper in my house!

Hope I have more to show you soon!