We got the the ball rolling on the dining room project this weekend!
I took some before pictures, which are true to the starting state of the room, except for the test-peels of the wallpaper:
The white bead board at the bottom is actually wallpaper that Nik put up a couple years ago, which is a really clever and easy DIY. Taking it down, though, was a little more of a challenge. We went to Lowe’s looking for a Paper Tiger, which had been recommended to us, but they only had the Piranha system. We picked up the wallpaper scoring tool and the wallpaper removal spray.
And then I went to rehearsal for most of the day and was no help at all. Abel-the-dog was very helpful, though.
It was exhausting for him.
Nik worked on the walls all day and reports back that the Piranha scoring tool seemed to do a decent job, but that the bead board paper has a foamy texture that’s much thicker than regular paper, so it didn’t perforate all the way through. The removal spray helped a lot, but she ran out halfway through and switched to a water and vinegar mixture, which worked just as well, possibly better. So there you have it! Get a perforation tool, save your money when it comes to commercial solutions and use vinegar instead, and still expect to have to do a lot of meticulous work.
When Nik previously painted and put up the bead board, she only painted the top half of the room, so by Saturday night, we had an interesting color block effect going on.
The next day, we cleaned up and were ready to prime the room. After looking at a couple options, we picked up Valspar’s High Hiding Primer, since the color is going to take at least two or three coats and we have two more rooms up on deck.
Nik manned the roller:
While I took pictures and made graffiti did the edging with a brush.
I’m incredibly pleased with the quality of the primer. This was one coat, and we have pretty perfectly white walls.
Get ready for a big change, though, because we picked a color: Mark Twain’s Gray Brick. Swoon.
The Projectory 