Living room wallpaper

I've been working on the living room for the past few days. Here is the last picture I posted of the living room back in june.

Just after this I had done a lot of work on the room but was then diverted off to other things so I left the room unfinished. There were at least 3 layers of wallpaper on the walls and multiple coats of paint between at least 2 layers.

The original plan was to remove all the wallpaper and paint the walls. This proved a lot more difficult than we had originally thought.

The ideal solution wold have been to buy some awesome Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper and hang that over the old wallpaper, but because I'm not made of money that wasn't an option.

The solution I found was paintable wallpaper. The plus is that it's cheap, we got it on clearance for $10 a roll. The minus is that you have to do twice the work, first wallpaper, then paint.

I had gotten as far a wallpapering about 70% of the room before I had to move on to other things  a few months back. Since we spend most of our time in this room I decided it was time to finish it.

First I patched up a few areas of the plaster that needed it.

Then I rolled on a coat of wallpaper primer.

And then I installed the wallpaper.

Once the wallpaper was dry I was able to paint. First I painted all the trim, then rolled on the paint, then cut in. That took longer than I had anticipated because the trim paint took a lot longer to dry than I thought. I think it's because it's semi-gloss. I'm used to satin, which drys fairly fast.

Once it was all dry I moved our furniture in.

I have not done anything above the picture rail yet, there is wallpaper up there that needs to come down then I'll paint it a very light tan, almost white.

Back to work

I can finally get back to work on the house now that my work schedule has returned to normal.

One of the first things we did was to start clearing out rooms. We want to move in as soon as possible so we will need some living space.

The parlor has been our furniture storage space for the past few months. We emptied it out and setup our parlor furniture.


We are going to try to save the wallpaper in here, it will need to be patched in a few areas and will need a thorough cleaning.



Both of the above chairs will be recovered to match the parlor set.

The next two pieces were found at a yard sale in Alabama.



After much research I believe both pieces to be from the early 1800's (1820-1840). They are Empire style. We got the couch for $35 and the dresser for $25. I will need to replicate a leg for the dresser.

Next we turned our attention to the Living Room. This room has been a storage area for all of my tools and wood.

After clearing out the room, I pulled the mantle the rest of the way off of the wall so I could reattach it properly. Behind the mantle I found a small flyer.



Looking up info on KaDell-Kritchfield I found that they were a theater troupe that did their shows under a big top in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

The other project that we've been working on is the first floor bathroom. The floor has to be finished before the rest of the plumbing can be installed.

I decided to go with a Tung Oil finish. Here is the floor after the first two coats.


The tung oil really gives the floor a great warm color.

A wasted day...

Yesterday was a total waste of time. The power was supposed to be turned on at the Woodbury house yesterday so we went out there hoping to get some work done, but when I called Georgia Power they said that they never received the inspection paperwork from the county. I called the county but the inspector that we met was out in the field. The man I talked to said he would e-mail the information to Ga. Power shortly but it still wasn't there after 2 hours.

In the mean time I was double checking all my wiring to make sure everything was ok. I was checking the torque on the lugs in the meter socket when this happened:


Crap! The plastic bracket holding the bottom right lug snapped! I ended up having to once again make a 40 mile round trip to pick up a new bracket from the closest Ga. Power office.

In the end we just left with nothing at all accomplished. I don't know if the power was ever connected after we left but I seriously doubt it. I'll be calling Ga. Power later to find out.

I got a picture of the wall between the Living Room and the Sun room from the Living room side. you can see the outline of the old doorway that I mentioned in the previous post. This is the doorway that we will be opening back up.