April 21st, 2008 - Wallpaper Removal ContinuesOur children's daycare was closed today for that silly New England holiday called Patriots Day. Since my mom is in town for one last day, we wanted to be sure she had lots of alone time with the kids, so we went up to the house to get some wallpaper removal completed. It was good because being a weekday, Jim and Larry were at the house working away. When we pulled up, there were moving the door that used to lead to middle unit's porch. Larry was framing it when we stopped to talk to Jim. It couldn't have been more than five minutes that passed, and when I looked back, Larry had finished it up, and had moved on to another task. 
I was, without a doubt, stunned at how fast he could accomplish that. It would have taken me a day, and it wouldn't looked nearly as perfect. But, then I learned that first thing this morning, they had framed in the utility hallway wall. Um, I guess they did this while we were eating breakfast. These guys are amazing. 
Jim and Larry quickly moved on to cover the old basement stairs that are no longer needed (there's a bulkhead) and they also framed where the door is going to be that leads out to the water facing deck of the West Unit. 
Jeremy and I are going to cover the area with tile to make a mudroom feel to that part of the room. I think it will be really a neat addition to a unit that previously didn't have waterside access at all. Since we had given up on the exterior painting, we focused today on wallpaper removal. There are many rooms that are covered in multiple layers of really, heinously ugly decades old wallpaper. So we got to it. One of the challenges we've faced is not having running water. Water (mixed with some vinegar) is essential for wallpaper removal. So, we threw a bucket down the open well out front and fished out ice cold water. We then found some old aluminum pots and heated four pots at a time on the electric stove in the West Wing. We then mixed that with some vinegar into a garden sprayer and were good to go. Here's what things looked like when we started: 
So we knocked out what was left of the wallpaper upstairs and in the hallway of Equinox fairly quickly. 
Then we moved on to the hallway of the West Wing unit. Here's the before pictures: 
And here's the after: 
However, one small problem did occur. It turns out that water obtained from an open well isn't the purest water, and the blades of grass kept clogging up our garden sprayer. It took us a while to figure out what was going on, so we kept pumping the sprayer to put air into it, thinking it was just low on air. At one point, Jeremy pumped so much air into it, that it exploded and sprayed water everywhere. I ducked behind the nearest trash can and covered my hands with my head. I guess I've now learned how I will deal with a crisis. At the end of the day we checked on how far Jim and Larry had gotten. They had framed the new door, but hadn't put it on yet.
They covered up the doorway with an old closet door, but we could peek through the cracks in the side to see the brand new view that the West Wing unit will now have: 
We were thrilled with how much we were able to accomplish today. We have a lot more to go, but we should quite a few people on Saturday to help. Posted by Laura Return to Pemaquid Beach Home Page from Wallpaper Removal Continues
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