Was the result worth it?

The pictures you see here are from our houses SW bedroom, occupied by our oldest daughter. It wasn't my first project in the house, and its a good thing. It was torture.

The floor was covered in industrial carpet, the walls were layer upon layer of paint covered wallpaper, and underneath, deteriorating paint. And of course, the woodwork had all been painted. Plus, it wasn't originally a bedroom. It was probably a ladies sewing room, or something along those lines. This part of the house is an addition, and it has a door connecting it to the kitchen area, and had an archway connecting it to a hallway leading to other parts of the house. It had a fold-down ironing board tucked into the wall behind a cute little door. What it didn't have was a closet. With 4 kids, we needed bedrooms, not sewing rooms, and this was a reasonable choice. With the help of a finish carpenter, we fixed the door and closet issue.

The house had too many doors--I stole one that closed off the kitchen from the hall (it was just getting in the way) and one came from the basement. It was smaller, and was better for closets. The carpenter had both of them put in door jambs, and then installed them. Fortunately, the closet was there, I just had to cut a hole into one of its walls to get to it. It serves two bedrooms, thank heavens it is large.

Once the doors were done, I started on the hideous wallpaper. It came off in its usual manner, but then underneath was flaky, deteriorating paint. Lead paint. It couldn't stay. I had to either get it off, or gut the room and sheet rock everything. Hindsight tells me I probably should have taken the opportunity to gut the room and put in insulation in those walls. But--this room wasn't cold, and I wasn't wanting to lose the plaster walls. So, a great product came to the rescue. It is called Peel Away. You can buy it at Sherwin Williams. Its like a mud, you plaster it on, cover it with a wax like paper that comes with it, and let it sit for 24 hours or more. It chemically bonds with the paint, and just destroys the paints ability to stick to walls or brick or wood. After the 24 hours, you use a spatula or large putty knife, and pull it off, scraping the mud off the wall, with the paint too. It works amazingly well, though you have to wash off the surface quite a bit afterwards. That can be messy on a ceiling especially. This process took weeks. I only did one "bucket" or so a day, and it takes quite a few buckets to do every bit of plaster in an entire room. When I was done, there wasn't any paint left on that plaster. It was the first time I ever had a glimpse of what a room looked like just after the plasterers had finished their task.

Once finished, the woodwork was stripped, (heat guns that time) and refinished, and then I refinished the fir floor. The results were incredible, and of course, my daughter loves it. Oh, and yes, I did repaint the walls and ceiling.