Eating Area and Wallpaper...ugh!

Today we started on the 'eating' area of our little house. I took a break from removing wall paper as I'd gotten to Rich's corner and stared at his stuff.

What on earth would we do with all of that stuff?

It is piled in broken down boxes and no matter how I tried over the years, I could never get him to totally clean up and put away the Stuff.

Of course we live in a Tiny House and when stuff accumulates, it needs to be weeded out and put somewhere.  However, this tiny house has no extra storage.  
For the remodeling, I started last year packing away any extra Stuff that I could.  
I stored it in a shed in plastic tubs.

Yesterday I handed Rich a large plastic tub and let him go at it.
He cleared just enough Stuff so that I could move the table and get at the wall.

You are looking at an area where the flooring will be replaced, ... we are pulling up the old tiling as we go along.  The brown wood will we replaced with a very light colored almost blonde wood.
The windows of course will be replaced and ... AND! No wallpaper!
I'm considering colors for the walls now.

The Stuff will reside somewhere else and I am thinking of getting a corner cabinet of some sort for Rich to put all of the paperwork Stuff that he keeps [and rarely looks at] into and out of sight.

We are doing a wood laminate floor and there will be so much more storage once the remodel is done.

So there it is.  Ugly as all get out right now, but perhaps cute as a button once it is finished.

The cabinets will be hickory and I would like a very very light light green for the walls.

When I was a kid we rented a house that had a putrid green paint on the kitchen walls and white cabinets.  I recall washing those walls and wishing the paint would fall off.  It never did.

So why would I even consider it again?  I think I can find a nice light green/grey color.  I don't think I want white in the kitchen section.

Maybe off white in the eating section?  That sure would brighten things up!

Well off to peel more wall paper and sort through more stuff.

Oh Yuck Wall paper ~

Wall paper on drywall that was not primed is a royal pain in the ... -ss to remove.
I however did find a secret weapon that helped.

I watched YouTube Videos on 'How to Remove Wall Paper' and it all looked easy.
Just wipe with hot water, spray with hot water, use Dawn, and it will just peel right off and then you wash with hot water and vinegar --- or Dawn Dishsoap and get the glue off.

Easy Peasy.

Wrong.  All the walls shown had been primed.

Suggestions for taking wall paper off from un-primed walls?

Take down the drywall and start over.

Wow, that was not helpful and not what I wanted to hear. Another person wrote, get a steamer and it goes really well. The trick is hot water.

I started thinking about the Dawn Dishsoap and how it breaks down the water surface tension and allows the water to soak into the material.

This paper was nasty grungy.  After taking down the wall of photos I was grossed out completely.

Yuck.

Above the small closet door that is under the stairs:

Super yuck.  Why hadn't I seen it?  
In truth, I wanted to get rid of the wall paper years ago, but Rich didn't want to start a project like that.
So I began to ignore the ugly stuff.  I thought...one day I will get the chance to remove it!

And ... now I do.

Morris is on the stairs supervising the stripping.

And it doesn't come off very easily.

So I decided to take some Oxyclean and dab it onto a cloth, then wipe the surface of the wall paper and spray it with warm water.

Well not only did it help the water absorb into the wall paper, but it took some of the grunge out too.  Of course I sprayed up towards the ceiling and then wiped with the Oxyclean cloth and found that my ceiling was going to need a very good cleaning also.  

Insert a large groan ... however I am prepared for that and I figured it would be coming next.

Meanwhile, back to the paper.  Sometimes it would come off in larger strips and sometimes it wouldn't.

Between chores and errands, this section took all day. I'd be really discouraged if I had larger rooms to do.  But this is such a small house that I only have two partial walls left.

I was extremely surprised at how much cleaner and brighter the wall was after the paper removal.

Considering that it wasn't a primed wall, I didn't do too badly. Some of the dry wall finish came off but hopefully we will be able to repair that fairly easily.

Meanwhile Rich has been working on the bricks that had been put in the living room when Glen owned the house and had a wood burning stove on it.

Before the work started

All of the brick will be removed

After one day of removal.

This is a dusty and very noisy project so hubby has been doing it a bit at a time.

He will also be removing the very very dark paneling and replacing it with light colored 'car siding'.  He wants to retain the 'cabin' look with wood and I wanted bright and light walls.

This will be our compromise.

So onward.

Morris?

He is getting accustom to the work now.  He still dislikes the shop vac but it doesn't freak him out anymore.

I might take a day or two off from the wall paper peeling.  I'd like to do some hiking now that the outdoor temps have risen above the zero mark.