Before ... and After

Fascinating title, huh?

For the past several weeks, I've been holding in a secret. And now that it's out, it doesn't seem quite so interesting: I painted Lizz's bathroom. It only took about 16 months from the time she first began removing the old wallpaper.

Here's some before (actually, during) photos:

I have come to the conclusion that wallpaper is evil. There is still lots of interesting wallpaper in my house, but I am making slow but steady progress at eradicating it.

This bathroom not only had really ugly, peeling wallpaper, but it seemed the shower vent didn't work very well. So every time someone (ahem) took a hot, steamy shower, the paper and paint peeled just a bit more. It created a very attractive crater in the ceiling, which you can partially appreciate in the lower photo. The good news was that the plaster below a century's worth of paint and paper (at least three layers) was still intact. A little application of skim coat ... and the crater is barely noticeable now.

Part of the project was going to involve replacing the motor in the vent because I didn't want to invest all that time in scraping, sanding and painting just to have the walls/ceiling get all peely and yucky again. I have a really great handyman, and I asked him to please replace the motor in the shower vent for me. So when he checked it out he discovered a humongous quantity of nesting material was blocking the vent. And the motor is just fine - in fact, it's a stupendous motor. So that was good news. We just have to keep the birdies out. (Isn't this a gripping story?)

Ah, but the project was not without drama. One evening, while I was sanding all the places that had been patched, I set off the smoke detector with all that nice, fine dust that my joint compound/patching plaster/paintable caulk cocktails made. The detector is hooked into the alarm system, so the alarm company called before I had a chance to call them. We had a friendly chat (this was the second time I set off the alarm with my sanding in a week).

And then a little bit later I had some visitors. Can you guess who?

(No, I didn't steal a helmet from one of the nice fireman. Ashton loaned it to me. Hey - you can see a tiny piece of Claudette in the upper left corner of the photo!) Luckily, there were no real emergencies right then in Saginaw, and I felt really bad that the guys had to get all suited up just for me. Although I did look especially fetching with my googly goggles and dust mask.

So is the bathroom done yet, you ask? Well, not quite. The light fixtures aren't back together (still looking for globes to fit) and the door needs to be finished (I can't decide on paint color) and there's a bit of plumbing work to be done (new faucets and drain thingie), but the bathroom is functional again and the progress to date was met with great enthusiasm when the college girl came home last weekend.

Here she is appreciating her pretty wall:

I did not paint the flowers, I confess. My neighbor is the talented artist. He's also painting a giant mural with enormous irises in the bedroom as part of the wallpaper eradication effort. I'll post photos of that when it's complete.

Hmmm. Maybe I should move up here. It's much nicer than my room.