Our house, is a very very very fine house...

...or it will be anyway! Once we've completed some updates that is!

We closed on our first house on July 15th. We were in there by the 18th to begin what we affectionately refer to as demolition! Some before photos:

As you can clearly see here, we are dealing with some serious wallpaper and green shag carpet. Both of which are not our taste, so they're coming out! First things first though, the "window treatments" had to come down. There was so much fabric used for these, you could have clothed a small country with no issues!

With the curtains down, we dug in to start the wallpaper removal. This includes using some genius tools called "paper tigers". You roll them over the walls and they make tiny perforations so the water can seep into the wallpaper. My husband mastered the "Dual Tiger". Oh yeah...that's right.

With paper tigering complete, we dug right in. We knew to start off carefully so we didn't hurt the wall underneath the paper. We didn't know how many layers we would encounter, so we took our time and peeled away at it.

Turns out we only had two layers to worry about. One was very thing, velvet embossed stuff and the under was a paper bag textured twall style.

Dustin's main goal while stripping the wallpaper was to accomplish the full panel pull. After one day and numerous attempts, he was close...very close...

He might actually pull this off!!!





The face of victory!!
In all of our reading on wallpaper removal tips, we found that one of the major ones was exercising patience. So,we would spritz the wall and walk away for 10-15 minutes. I found plenty of mini jobs to do. One of the major ones was finding a way to open the windows that had been painted shut!

In order to reach the windows, I had to employ some of my rusty rockclimbing skills. I kept my toes on the rock (or ledge) while using one hand to grip the "rock" or window frame while the other used a utility knife to cut around the window.

In the end, I realized that the yew bush would hold my weight so I lean against it while I go after the window with a bit more gusto, i.e. a hammer and putty knife!

VICTORY!!!

This little trench here has become my burrowing ground. We needed to get me back there to work on the windows and also to find the second water spout to the house. It had been long dormant, covered over with a combination of fiberglass insulation and duct tape! In the end, we got it up and running again!

We got to water our lawn!!

It's the little things in life that make it worth living! We have a lawn! And naked walls!! I've never thought I'd be so happy to see bare plaster walls!

So ends weekend one of our home improvements. Tune in for updates!!