We have a nice little guest room which we'll convert to our baby girl's nursery. It's small, but full of character. I love the ceiling (which is also throughout the upper floor on that side of the house, including the boys' room) and the exposed brick from the chimney. This section of the house was part of the original farmhouse built in the 1880's.
It had been wallpapered, and I initially thought we'd leave it as is for the time being. It was most likely 80's (1980's) wallpaper, but still had some charm and with me having a rough pregnancy and all, it's left little motivation for room renos. But nesting got the best of me and since the wallpaper was not really in the greatest condition, I decided walls needed new paint!
Since I dreaded pulling off wall paper, I was going to paint over. Except I read a little bit about that and asked a friend who had recently done it as well and these are the reasons I decided to expend the sweat and tears of removal:
1) It was already peeling - so we would have had some major tearing and sanding down work anyway.
2) It was textured - meaning the texture might show through the paint.....awkward.
3) I wanted an eggshell finish - My friend's experience was that flat paint worked better on wall paper than shinier finishes (Thanks Shelley!)
4) The room is small - i.e. not TOO much wallpaper to remove.
Armed with my reasoning, I began spraying and scraping. It really wasn't that bad. I only used warm water spray and plastic putty knives. There were a few trouble spots but the rest came off easily. It still took me three days....because I run out of energy pretty quick.
4) The room is small - i.e. not TOO much wallpaper to remove.
Armed with my reasoning, I began spraying and scraping. It really wasn't that bad. I only used warm water spray and plastic putty knives. There were a few trouble spots but the rest came off easily. It still took me three days....because I run out of energy pretty quick.
We had to prime in order to seal up the drywall, then texture, then prime again. The double prime was the advice of the guy at the Lowe's paint center, in order to give it a good seal.
Finally, the paint!
We chose "Dreamy White" by Sherwin Williams. It has a slight pink tint to it, although it reads more lavender in the photos here...maybe because it's a little overcast today. I'm not ready for a full reveal, so here's a sneak peak :)
Initially, I was worried that the paint color wouldn't contrast enough with the trim. The trim is an off white too, a little dingy looking really, but it's oil based paint and I DO NOT feel like priming and re-painting all the trim in this room right now. I'm happy with the color contrast. It's enough for me.
The inside of the closet has bare wood, which I may white wash and different wallpaper, which I left, because I actually think it's really cute.
And up close...
Beautiful, bright and cheerful... Gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteYou got lucky with the wall paper removal. Soooo sweet when it works that way... Ugh trim, I still can seem to do mine.
It seemed like it was already coming off...part of the reason I decided to go ahead. I bet the boys' room would be a LOT harder to remove. I will probably just paint over that one, whenever they decide to let me!
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