Peeling Back the Layers

I have been a time traveler in my own house this week. I started out by finding this forties or maybe fifties rose print which had sadly been painted over with a bubblegum pink paint. I am thinking very evil thoughts about past residents who paint over wallpaper. They create a hellish task for future house renovators! On top of that there is this sweet ticking and floral stripe that looks early 1960's to me.

Then I found a groovy seventies floral print.

This wonderful old print was in the spare room which will become the dressing room. I wish it was intact because I might have kept this one.

This eighties mauve and colonial blue border print was the most recent and the last (top) layer.

Here you can see how I had to chip away inch by inch through all the layers which required multiple soakings. The lovely pink paint splintered into millions of tiny chips which I had to wash down off the walls. I still need to sand to get rid of them all before the walls are ready to paint.

Three days and a bottle of Advil later. Voila! Beautiful plaster walls which look pretty good as is to me but I don't think my husband would appreciate this look. He doesn't get that shabby thing that I like.

As a side note, look at these vicious looking icicles we have hanging off of our roof right now. I feel like I am living in an ice palace.

More to come later....