On The Border

Way back before the great blog-hiatus of late 2011, we were preparing the house for our first overnight guests. Unfortunately, even after moving/hiding the boxes which were being stored in it, our guest room was looking like this:

It was better than making our visitors sleep in the ghost room in the basement (a story for another day), but not by much.

Here are the things I don't like about this room:

Wall color - it's indescribably bleak

Baseboards lazily painted same color as wall

Old windows

Weird window shutters

Wallpaper border

Light fixture

Brass headboard/footboard (but we scored them for $20 off craigslist, so they have to live somewhere)

Severely too-small rug (but we scored it for $13, so it has to live somewhere)

Here are the things I do like about this room:

It's huge.  And that's about it.

A lot of the wallpaper was peeling up at the edges already, so I went for broke and just yanked at it. Probably two-thirds of the border just fell off the wall.  Yippee!  Then this happened:

Uh oh.
The paper that didn't pull off easily was seriously stuck down. Seriously. Like it seemed to really enjoy being one with the wall.

I doused the paper in a water-vinegar solution and scraped with a putty knife - no idea if this is an appropriate wallpaper removal technique, but I refused to spend a cent buying anything special/toxic to do it.  It didn't really work, took FOREVER, and there was still a thin layer of paper stuck to the wall in some places.

After two, two hour sessions I thanked my lucky stars that the whole room wasn't stuck, and then took an oath never to install wallpaper in any house I inhabit now or in the future.  You can hold me to that.

I attacked the paper mess with our ShopVac, which was a bad idea since it immediately clogged up the hose. Obviously. I've no idea why I didn't sweep it - sometimes these decisions boggle even my own mind.

I had already put one coat on the baseboards before starting on the wallpaper, so you can see above how much better they looked already.  I also painted the trim around the windows even though they are still wood. It just seems like the right thing to do, you know?

The wall color is Crocodile Tears by Olympic, and I am completely lacking an opinion about it at the moment.  Once there is some real furniture in the room, some appropriate bedding, and a less wonky looking window, I'll pass judgement.

We also threw up some wall art that was lying around the house about 45 minutes before leaving to pick up our first guest from the airport.

I hope you noticed our most elegant piece of furniture in the above picture. Yes, it's 4 (still full) moving boxes covered with a bed sheet. See what I mean about mind-boggling choices? Oh well, at least it coordinates.

There is no story behind the empty frame, I just have nothing to put inside at the moment.

There's obviously still a lot to be done in this room, but it's not exactly a high priority. I have already spray-painted the brass headboard seen in the first picture, but haven't yet figured out how to attach it to the bed or wall (whichever you're supposed to). I also have a few fabric samples that might work for window treatments, but the ugly shutters are probably staying put until we replace our upstairs windows entirely (hopefully by this summer!!!).

Anyone else have experience with stubborn wallpaper? How should I have tackled it? How will I eventually feel about that alligator-y wall color? How does one install a headboard to a frame-less bed?