<p>thanks so much for the suggestions. I have taken notes.</p>
<p>Hooray, it’s finished! Four of the sheets were extremely easy to remove. Two were hellish. The others were somewhere in-between. Who knows why?? </p>
<p>I got DH to do the last bits because it’s awkward in there with the ladder and I am not very tall. He just finished. Thank goodness that part is done.</p>
<p>Next is PRIMING (definitely!!!), then painting. We won’t tackle that stuff until next weekend, at least.</p>
<p>^ and then you’ll be finished and have a lovely set of walls until the fever sets in again in a few years. Never say never. You may find yourself re-wallpapering!</p>
<p>I don’t mind wallpapering, but I hope to never have to remove it again. We were talking, DH and I, about all the houses we’ve lived in and all the wallpaper we put up - and wondering how the new owners fared with taking it down. I remember our first house, we did not size the walls before we put the paper up. And the paint underneath was cheap (it was a brand new house). I’ll bet that stuff was a bear to get down.</p>
<p>I think my shoulders are going to be very sore tomorrow, but I’m thrilled it’s done!</p>
<p>mafool - according to the Benjamin Moore paint guy, their ‘shortcut’ Venetian plaster product/method is very durable for bathrooms and high humidity areas. The room I will likely do is a small shower area with a large walk in shower, so I plan to seal anyway. Couldn’t hurt.</p>
<p>Oh and btw…he showed me some samples done by a local woman who is self taught. She does beautiful work using the Benjamin Moore products…including impressions, tone on tone stencils, and other designs. She charges and GETS $1000(!) for a small powder room. </p>
<p>Hmmm…I think I might have to figure this vp thing out and hang a shingle myself.</p>
<p>Cool, IDmom! Let us know how it turns out!</p>
<p>DW decided to put bead board to cover wp. Q E D.</p>
<p>I have wallpaper all over my house (everywhere except hall and bedrooms), too, and it is very dated. I removed it in the master bath where it was already peeling a little from the humidity, and found it was put over drywall with no primer or sizing. A bear to get off and lots of repairs to be made to the drywall. I left the wall smooth in case I ever want wallpaper again and painted them. I am worried that the wallpaper in the rest of the house will be just as difficult to get off and therefore I haven’t tried. But my question is this: When you are removing the wallpaper and painting, are you texturing the wall or just painting the smooth wallboard?</p>
<p>As for the paprika color, my bedroom is painted Sherwin-Williams “Reddish” and I really like it.</p>
<p>I might add, I am planning to tackle this wallpaper removal soon. My boss gives us gift cards for birthdays, Christmas and incentives, and I have requested Lowe’s. I already have a good collection!</p>
<p>Another question for you experts: I am planning to put new wallpaper in my formal dining room. Would it be ok to put it over the old wallpaper. It is really stuck on good, and probably with no primer or sizing underneath the old.</p>
<p>musicmom - this wallpaper was put on over textured walls, so no need to texture before we paint.</p>
<p>If I were you I’d wallpaper over the old stuff, but could be because I’m lazy. ;)</p>
<p>We painted on smooth primed wallboard. The application of the paint with a medium roller gave us a very faint “hint” of texture, barely. It’s a look I prefer, more like plaster walls. Depends on your taste. Smooth finish is not very forgiving when it comes to any wall blemishes and does require some thoughtful prep.</p>
<p>When we remodeled the master bathroom a few years back I found three layers of paper. The bottom layer was classic late 60’s-orange, gold and olive greens in a bizarre paisley design. Hard to believe something that busy was in a smallish bathroom!! The middle layer had some foil type thing going on. Top layer was a very boring tan and white stripe.</p>
<p>IDmom, are you planning to put the Benjamin Moore stuff over the wallpaper, or remove as much paper as you can, not worrying about mangling the walls?</p>
<p>In our “project” house, the paper was easy to remove in the upstairs bathroom…top layer peeled off in whole long sheets…the problem there were the STAPLES that the previous owners had used to secure some peeling corners. Egad. These people were lazy idiots.</p>
<p>It’s bathroom 2 that’s got me frustrated, and I’m suspecting the half-bath paper is of the category of 1/2 inch square pieces at a time variety.
I’d thought about the beadboard idea; if it only went up part-way, I guess we could wallpaper over the old-stuck-like-glue paper???</p>
<p>Is it too late for a color suggestion? Benjamin Moore soft fern. I saw it at a friend’s house and then used it in our powder room. The same friend had a deep pumpkin powder room, and it was very warm. </p>
<p>I had wallpaper in my kitchen years ago. Thank goodness I never “got around” to putting it anywhere in this house, where we have lived for 20+ years. </p>
<p>My next home improvement/decorating project, planned for next fall, is to take over my son’s bathroom, paint it pale, pale azure blue (almost white), buy all new linens, and ta-dah! The Empty Nest Spa. (No spa tub, unfortunately, but there’s a regular tub, which DH and I do not have in our teeny-tiny master bathroom.)</p>
<p>First we need to survive the gazillion-dollar roof job that starts tomorrow on our ca. 1900 house (replacing the original roof, if you can believe that). Roofs are a totally unsatisfying expense. Bathroom colors: now there’s real gratification.</p>
<p>We (actually DH) painted our morning room a very light blue. In the day light it is close to the background of this page, in the afternoon sun it looks like the sky with clouds, at night with the lights oon it looks like the color of a beautiful pool…I just love it. I have brazilian cherry floors and white window casings, we are putting up 2" wood blinds to make it all pop!</p>
<p>For my boys rooms we chose blue also (except they are the dark blue hue, think colonial blue, painted three of the walls, left one candelight beige) I did denim linens with black accents for one room, and two shades of blue for the other…they have an adjoining bath (Jack and Jill…Brady Bunch) where I did white and black with blue accents.</p>
<p>My daughters room we did pampass green and yellow with chocolate brown accents. I am in the midst of hand stenciling sayings on the top…Live, love and be happy for 2 of the walls. Hope, faith and love, above all there is love for the other two.</p>
<p>Now that I have said this, you can see my color pallet help me for my room. We have a cherry bedroom set, currently in this house I have done burgundy and golds, my new home I want something different. I have a private sitting room attached to my bedroom, I don’t think I want to paint both but I am open to suggestions…I was leaning to doing a toille, but have 2 dogs that sleep on the bed, thus paw prints become an issue, and I wouldn’t like a reverse toille.</p>
<p>Late to this party, but a veteran in wallpaper wars.
Our half bath, which is smaller than the small walk-in closets in the kids’ rooms, was absolutely impossible - cheap wallpaper applied to unprimed wallboard, and the room is so small that you couldn’t manuever around to pick it off.
Solution? - we removed all the color layer of the wallpaper, and as much of the liner as possible (including a fair amount of the surface paper of the gypsum board :(), then the sheetrockers rough mudded the walls and we had a faux painter paint the walls, ceiling, cabinet, door and trim. This was not expensive because the sheetrock guys were in to do the adjacent kitchen - they just mudded the bathroom in about 30 minutes. The painter was also doing the kitchen, so he charged us about $500 to do the bath.
Result - it is incredibly dramatic, the walls look like they have been papered in leather or some sort of old browned paper. The cabinets, door and trim were oak in a light-medium brown, he just washed over them with a coat of black, so they look almost bronze. We put in a Black Galaxy granite countertop which the granite people just charged us to cut the hole and finish (it was scrap stone for them). The faux painter took a bunch of pictures, he has done a lot of work in our area, and he said our little bathroom was one of the most “bang for the buck” of any job he had done.</p>
<p>bulletandpima - We have brazilian cherry floors and white trim with 2-inch white wood blinds throughout the main floor of our house, including the kitchen, which has white cabinets. We put these floors in about three years ago and just dithered for ages between tile and oak and then finally just went for it with the Brazilian cherry. They are so beautiful! Every morning I come downstairs and every morning there they still are and still just beautiful. I’m not satisfied, though, with the wall colors on the main level. Very neutral Benjamin Moore butterfield which is sort of yellow white. I want something bolder. I did paper the foyer, though, with a carmel watermark textured paper that works really well. We added an oriental carpet to the living room last spring that is really, really big and has shades of navy, gold, and touches of pink. I’m thinking of re-covering our hunter green couches in navy . . .</p>
<p>Our cabinets are maple and we have black appliances, and black granite in my kitchen. Our floor plan is very open, the kitchen, morning room and family room all are attached to each other, that is why I stayed with the light blue, but by putting the wood blinds on it tied the three rooms together. Plus we have a field stone fireplace, so the blue hue ties it in. We haven’t painted the family room yet because it is 2 story and that needs a painter to come in to do, but I think I will do a strong neutral color, burnt gold tone.</p>
<p>I do like the idea of hunter green for my sitting room. It is octagonal with all windows, so there is a lot of light, which would make the green pop, and I will put wood blinds there, we have beige carpet. Problem with that is I don’t see alot of dark green linens…always me luck, make a decision and then can’t find the things I need…of course as soon as I am done it is everywhere</p>
<p>apmom - The Benjamin Moore guy told me I could actually put this Venetian plaster treatment over the wallpaper, if I primed the wall first. I am very tempted to do that because I have already tried to peel a section of paper and am certain the walls were not sized before papering.</p>
<p>This is a link to the Modern Masters product that Benjamin Moore carries for Venetian plaster. </p>
<p>[Modern</a> Masters](<a href=“http://www.modernmastersinc.com/products.aspx?pl=VP]Modern”>http://www.modernmastersinc.com/products.aspx?pl=VP)</p>
<p>I’m also fascinated with this sand finish Benjamin Moore product. Would be even simpler than the VP process and it covers walls that have minor damage and slight imperfections…and it can be applied over wallpaper as well.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.benjaminmoore.com/bmpsweb/portals/bmps.portal?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=contentrenderer_1_4&contentrenderer_1_4_actionOverride=%2Fbm%2Fcms%2FContentRenderer%2FrenderContent&contentrenderer_1_4WT.svl=2&contentrenderer_1_4currentNodeUUID=%2FBEA+Repository%2F8048&contentrenderer_1_4NodeUUID=%2FBEA+Repository%2F8088&_pageLabel=fh_learnhow]Texture[/url”>http://www.benjaminmoore.com/bmpsweb/portals/bmps.portal?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=contentrenderer_1_4&contentrenderer_1_4_actionOverride=%2Fbm%2Fcms%2FContentRenderer%2FrenderContent&contentrenderer_1_4WT.svl=2&contentrenderer_1_4currentNodeUUID=%2FBEA+Repository%2F8048&contentrenderer_1_4NodeUUID=%2FBEA+Repository%2F8088&_pageLabel=fh_learnhow]Texture[/url</a>]</p>
<p>^^ ooh, very pretty!</p>
<p>I think I’m leaning to a sage green for the powder room. DH wants a light yellow, but I don’t think that will complement the light maple cabinet. Our master bath is painted the color of chocolate milk. I love that color, but we have it in there and on two walls in our family room, so I think that’s enough. Our dining room has one wall that’s a paprika/burgundy color. The rest of the downstairs is beige, except our bedroom is faux-painted in beige/brown/golds.</p>
<p>I definitely want to get a small rug for the powder room to add some texture. We’re getting new lighting, new towel bar, paper holder, etc. as well. We have an oval mirror with beveled edges that I think we’ll keep.</p>
<p>re: colors. The big trend in our area is that ‘Texas Hill Country’ look which is kind of rustic with natural drystack stone, rustic wood, rough iron. Our home was built just before the trend took off and I wanted to give the place a color update, so last year, I painted the entire downstairs by myself. (I’m no spring chicken, so it nearly killed me and I’ll never do it again.)</p>
<p>I have medium dark stained maple cabinets, natural stone-looking porcelain tile, natural warm beige granite/stainless kitchen, black iron/hardwood stairs. Some rooms have a neutral berber carpet, others Oriental rugs in black, tan, burgundy mixes, etc…and I felt I needed a stronger wall color to balance things out and really give it that Hill Country update. In the casual areas where the decor is all about my husbands travels (think African masks, Chinese iron, South American pottery) I used the ‘decorator’s favorite’ Benjamin Moore Lenox Tan, which is a very warm ‘khaki’ tan. And in the formal areas, (bronze chenilles/silk), I ‘invented’ a color. I had the store mix Pittsfield Buff and Shaker Beige for this lighter, bronze-toned beige. And I had them cut it 50% with white for a nice ceiling color. (The corner store B.Moore guys liked it so much, they named it after me…lol. Especially after a few friends asked for it as well.) </p>
<p>I really recommend Lenox Tan and the colors nearby in the paint deck. (Don’t bother looking at the online paint deck…on my monitor, the colors aren’t even close to actual.)</p>