8:05 a.m. - 2005-05-14
What's under the wallpaper???

Sorting through the last 19 years

In just 25 minutes I am getting Mike out of bed. He hasn't seen 8:30 in the morning in 3 years. It is the crack of dawn to him.

It will take him a while to have coffee, wake up and shower, but if all goes well, we should be ready to rock and roll by 10AM. Actually for all the complaining about him I do, I have to admit. Although I do get up at 6:30 even on a weekend morning, I am slow to get moving physically. My Mother once gave me a postcard that says, "Why do today, what you can put off until tomorrow."

Today, we will start disassembling our garage. I rented a 10 x 10 storage area the next town over and borrowed my Sister and Brother in Law's pickup truck and we are going to start moving our crap. We have a number of boxes packed inside also, but our garage is so packed with "treaures" you can't get in there. I don't even know if I can have a garage sale, because I don't know what is in there. This should be interesting because the last time I cleaned out my garage, I found a kitchen sink. That was 7 or 8 years ago. I wonder what has taken up residence in there since.

We are actually moving forward with this buying a house plan and I almost need to pinch myself to see if I am dreaming. I know I am getting in over my head but this is the way I operate. I get in over my head, then find a way to handle it. I always do find a way to handle it and I will this time too.

Mike has not been lumpish lately. He has actually been productive and supportive in this venture, except for last night when he brought home a copy of the old movie "The Money Pit".

I said, "Maybe we shouldn't watch this movie."

He replied, "Oh, I think we neeeed to watch it."

So we watched it. No comparison to our situation. They bought an old crumbling mansion. We are going to buy just a plain old crumbling big house. Still, I think I will stay out of the 2nd floor tub for awhile.

I mentioned that we have one more bedroom to rehab. It had wallpaper on it (which I detest). Well, Mike stripped the wallpaper off, or at least he stripped the top layer off, the 2nd layer, it is like a backing layer is held tight and fast to the wall. Underneath the wallpaper is..................................
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Paneling....paneling with the grooves filled in with some kind of concrete hard putty. Now, I suspected there might be paneling under the wallpaper, but I figured we could strip the stuff and restore the paneling. No such hope. My only options now are to Paper back over it or rip out the walls and redrywall. Both projects are beyond the scope of my expertise. We have decided on Wallpaper....and I am thinking about paying someone 300.00 or so to do it. I have no more heart for working on this house, and I want to get this done fast and move on with our plans. If I paper it myself, it will likely look like crap and won't get done for another 2 months.

Here is a question to throw out to my diaryland pals........Can I paper over the backing paper left by the old wall paper. It is paper...not vinyl and stuck to the wall like it is part of it....nothing peeling. Anybody got a suggestion???

Wish me luck. I am about to get Mike up now.

P. I. Yarnsmith

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