Note: I came back and added photos of the messprogress I've made so far.

Quick update on my Project to End All Projects, partly to let you all know how I'm doing, and partly to justify taking a B.R.E.A.K., for pete's sake!





Note: On left - wall before. On right - wall stripped and painted. Much better!

I've got three walls completely stripped, and painted a nice antique white, ready for wall decor. I've got two walls still to go - stripping, painting. A few people asked what I use for removing the wallpaper, so I wanted to pass that on. I found a product called Chomp, it's in a plastic spray bottle, and cost about $7. I'll go through five of them to get this job done, but our basement is pretty good sized. You pull off the vinyl paper, and if the wall was sized before the paper was applied, that part usually comes off without too much work. Then you spray the backing, still on the wall, with Chomp, let it sit 1-5 minutes and it comes off pretty easily with a razor blade on a handle. The trick is to remove the backing while it's still wet with the Chomp. If it dries, you'll have to reapply it. I found mine at a specialty paint store, but it's possible Lowes or Home Depot would carry it. Much better than DIF which I've used before. You might also Google it.

I got the table at a second-hand furniture store for $50. It's going to be used for chess, checkers, etc. The antique bleacher seat was $15 at a tag sale. This room is right off the garage, so we'll use it to sit in when we pull off snow boots this winter. The trunk behind the seat we picked up on the side of the road I believe. It'll be a coffee table in front of the sofa, and all the shelves are to be painted black, then they'll hold the framed family photos. Black paint makes almost anything look better! You can see this dropcloth has seen a lot of action. I bought the professional grade and size, and am still glad I paid the difference for a good one.

Tonight I plan to finish stripping and painting the last two walls, and paint the table top and antique bleacher chair before I soak in a HOT tub. My sister, Barb gave me a great tip - don't wait til I'm lying in bed tonight aching, rather take 2 ibuprofen throughout the job, and so I'm going to do that.

Tomorrow I'll paint the armoire the TV goes in, and all the shelves for the walls, and hopefully Thursday I can get a few photos printed out and framed. I paint fast. I do expect some of the decorating / finishing touches will flow into next week. I've also still got doors and baseboards to paint white. So I think it's still doable, before hubby returns.

This armoire holds a TV and DVD player, and has to be painted black. You can see the Chomp on the floor. Tip - vinyl table cloths make GREAT dropcloths for smaller painting jobs. They won't let paint seep through, and the flannel backing keeps them from slipping on the floor. Also, if you look close you can see on the left side of the armoire the paper has been stripped, on the right the paper backing is still on the wall. Just a bit more to go.

Tonight, for supper, I actually put out extreme effort and made a pan of Jiffy cornbread. Since it took 2 minutes to throw together, and I sat on the deck and made a phone call while it baked, I considered it minimal cooking. Here's what I had for dinner.

Labels: Busy Buzz