This week we have been mostly removing wallpaper! So far we’ve done the entrance hall, corridor and snug, and each area has thrown up some surprises for us! The kids have joined in and really enjoyed scraping (and peeling!) the wallpaper off. This photo shows the entrance hall. There were at least 2 layers of wallpaper in this room, and on the wall in the photo, all the different colours you can see are the various layers of paint under the wallpaper! Some of the plaster is sound whilst some just totally came away on the back of the wallpaper – yikes! In one corner, where we know there had been a recent leak, a lot of plaster came down and there are now sizeable holes near the ceiling! I have to say that when the plaster also comes off, the wallpaper is really easy to remove – always try and find the silver lining has become our motto this week 
This picture shows the snug where we had all sorts of fun and games! We did above the chimney breast first which had nasty wood-chip wallpaper and was on really good plaster, so quite a job to get off, but did leave a lovely looking surface! The walls you can see in this picture didn’t even need steaming! We quickly discovered that in fact there is not even any plaster on these walls! Instead, there was some thick wallpaper which had been hung the wrong way round (so the pattern was against the wall) and more wallpaper on top of that which had been painted. We could basically just peel it off, and underneath goes straight to the clay walls, complete with bits of straw and hair (see picture below)!
The walls are in great condition and definitely no signs of damp there! However, on the other (external) wall, one side of the window has sound plaster but is completely mouldy underneath the wallpaper (eeww) so showing signs of damp, and on the other side, the plaster at the bottom has just turned back to sand, so again signs of damp! Don’t know what’s causing that so we will need to investigate further.
Here is the corridor which will eventually become part of the entrance hall. As you can see the plaster 
is, on the whole, good, and so good at the bottom that we had a struggle to remove the woodchip wallpaper. In the end we have left it until such time as a plasterer comes along and advises us what we need to do to (all) the walls in terms of preparation for re-plastering. Of course, that will be the final stage after the electricians have hacked them about a bit, so things will only get worse before they get better! But, I’d say that on the whole the walls haven’t been quite as bad as we thought.
We have also succeeded in getting the front door to open and close without too much effort as it was really sticking before. We haven’t been using it as you would literally have to kick it open and shut (!), but hopefully now we can come in the front door instead of the back! All good stuff
Tags: Clay Lump, Home Improvements, Plastering, Removing Wallpaper
Categories: Home Improvements, Living the Country Life, Posts with Photos
