Do you know what's behind YOUR WALLS?
The second part of our whole house redo was the masterbedroom. Pretty good size for a small ranch the bedroom measures 11x14 feet. Here was the bedwall with the wall lamps inplace for next to the bed.
The carpet and wall paper are old. We have had issues with cold spot in this wall. Part of the redo will be finding out why. Cold as in frosty and sweating? on a half/interior/exterior wall. About dead center is where the exterior window wall in the living room ends at the edge of the buffet. To the left the jog is where the furnace exhaust pipes go to the roof.
Opposite wall is our closets, which we did quite sometime ago, but never finished that little nook above the far left bathroom door. The doors were a splurge they were custom and solid wood, after some homemade ones didn't succeed.
Hardest part was removing all the furniture and finding a place for it in the dead of winter. Most ended in the extra bedroom, on the screened porch and the living room. My trunk from when I was a kid, somewhere down the line ---will be a redo. Don't you think the decals are so 50's adorable.
My bed wall---before---really was the country look of the late 80's. The carpet was pale peach and I was really glad to see it ripped up and gone. But on the sub-floor were water marks along the wall.
Ripping out drywall wasn't hard, just messy. Here is a problem....behind that patchy spot in the middle is a void area betweent he 2"x4" a 3"x3" hole floor to ceiling uninsulated. The insulation to the right is only rated an 8...so Hubby planned on replacing it all.
I'm going to miss the wallpaper---I still love it.
The uninsulated area actually backs up to the buffet in the living room. That all seemed okay. But there were stains on the subfloor indicating water issues(sweating?) around the furnace corner.
Hubby braved the small walls around the furnace. When the dust cleared, this is what we found.
The furnace flue was askew and not connected to the furnace...merrily pumping hot air into the uninsulated space that went directly to the 20 degree attic. This created our own little weather system. Very hot meets very cold equals condensation, not too mention carbon monoxide? Which apparently escaped through the well ventilated attic.
When did this happen? 2008 or so we had a near miss with a tornado and roof damage---which could have lifted all the connected pipes...? Or it wasn't properly installed when we got a new furnace a year or so before that.
This took three of us with straps to lift the insulated pipes, juggle a flash light and get the stack reset. Hubby contacted our furnace maintenance guy (not the original furnace installer) to find instructions on what to do and what not to do.
With the exhaust pipe reset and properly taped, and the go-ahead to insulate the space with foam between the studs. Hubby began the overall insulation project. I wasn't any help here. He did the complete wall as we saw other water marks along that wall from condensation.
Canned expansion foam was used to fill the exterior corner to the far right. Too many cans though---because most oozed out onto the floor.
Around the furnace corner thick foam insulation was carefull cut and fitted between the studs.
Hubby's plan was to make access doors on the one side...so if anyother problems occur with the flue...we can check on it.
Next Hubby and a friend applied drywall, and screwed it in.
The foam insulation took a bit of jiggering before measurements for the access doors could be made.
Next came taping and plastering.
Hubby is a super plaster man---with the proper corner tools he made short work of the three coats necessary to get a smooth surface. Forgot to mention the electrical was all updated and moved before the drywall went up. The outlets are now in the far corners and an original in the lower center of the wall.
With the furnace wall and the old bedwall being a new surface...we decided to remove the rest of the paper. It was expensive paper---highly washable, but with a flat finish. Turned out not easy to remove.
Removing Wallpaper
I tried scoring the surface, even beat it with the needle sharp paddles of my antique wool carders. Nothing really saturated the smooth but tight surface of this washable paper. Finally by saturating the edges of the paper, we peeled the top layer off when you could get an edge. The under paper (the dark tan you see), came off with multiple soakings and lots of scraping.
Hubby did above and I did below...working in about two square foot areas at a time.
I was successful at getting the initial peel off and he was better at scraping. So we worked together, but this wall took about three hours.
Finally all the paper was scraped off and then I had two scrubbings, and a vinegar rinse to finish it off.
Here is the patched bare wall---with the peach original paint ala 1988 maybe?
And the window wall.... another day and lots of team work.
The wallpaper bagged up for the garbage men. Six bags of gooey wet mess.
While hubby painted the blue, I painted white trim...everywhere---everything needed new paint. The blue---is Flemish Blue from Pittsburgh Paints. We use satin as I really like being able to wash my walls. The blue and peach had me wondering if I would like it...cause together they were YUGH!
And, then there was all the unfinished moldings, trims, etc. Here Hubby frames out the trouble spot over the door.
More painting, eventhough there was primer in the paint most areas took two coats.
More molding and trim. One day I painted all the pre-primed baseboards, and primed framing trim that were new. LOTS of trims and they all took at least two coats.
When the windows were finally all completely white I was ecstatic. LOVE the blue---it changes so depending on the light. This is a south facing window and is 86" wide, so there is plenty of light in this room.
This part of the redo---took about three weeks, because of all the waiting time between coats of plaster and paint. Curing paint between coats is a very good idea. The fitting of all the pieces, cutting the trim, and painting multiple coats everywhere.
Next....the flooring, furniture, and hopefully the chandelier. I'm still playing with accessories and moving things around, but later this week!
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Thank you for your cooperation, Sandi Magle
Sandi
