A few days after returning from Antigua, I decided that we would spend some time at the house over the Thanksgiving holiday removing wallpaper. I HATE wallpaper with a passion – and this wallpaper in particular is even more spectacularly ugly than most. My reasoning was that wallpaper removal (while it sucks and I swore that I would never, ever do it again) is something that we could actually try and do ourselves to save some money. Neither Danny or myself is gifted when it comes to handyman tasks around the house – but, I have some experience with wallpaper removal and my frugality got the best of me.
At any rate, we started in the half bath and (with the help of my mom) managed to get it all down pretty easily.
Once we moved into the guest bathroom, things got complicated very quickly. It seems that the previous owners either put up the wallpaper in this room themselves or hired a very inept contractor to do it, because it was not coming down worth a damn. It did not take long (roughly 20 minutes) for me to decide that whatever we would have to pay the painter to tackle the rest of the job was well worth it. I feel better in justifying this now because we at least attempted it ourselves. Oh well.
This is the second time that I have tried unsuccessfully to defeat wallpaper. When I first moved into the condo it was everywhere (kitchen and both bathrooms). My parents and I spent Fathers Day ‘03 trying to get it down in the kitchen and pretty much decided at the end of the day that it was not going to happen. This makes the score: Wallpaper 2 – Me 0.
After all of that fun, I came home and watched Duke play a very, very ugly basketball game against UConn. But, they won and that made me (and Danny and Gracie who do not like being around me when Duke loses) very happy. I spent most of Friday evening curled up on the sofa.
Gracie will only hang out on the sofa with me if she is super tired OR if I bribe her with treats. In this case the treats won her over. Turns out she is a sucker just like her mommy.
