Is it too much to ask?

wallpaper.jpg

Just once, just once in my life, I want to go to strip wallpaper and discover I’m dealing with the nice strippable vinyl stuff, where all you have to do is pull it down and wash the wall, and you don’t have to screw around with DIF and paper scorers and sponges and splatter and scrapers and all the rest of it.

Kate calls this “dentist office wallpaper.” I think she’s got that about right. The burgundy in it matches the paint in the dining room and the green in it matches the paint in the living room, and all the colors are found upstairs, too. You’ve heard of bed in a bag? This was house in a bag.

Not that I am complaining. About the colors, anyway.

Here’s something I never thought I’d say: Good for Lynndie England. She may still go to some female version of military prison, she may have given birth to the antichrist, she may spend the rest of her sad little life unredeemed, but by God, if she can grab a couple of officers to take with her as she falls through the trap door, you gotta love that. I’ve been worried about her since I saw a photo of her walking with her “defense team,” which looks like it accidentally picked up a few comfort women along the way.

And I take back what I said about the baby. He’s pretty cute, and I’m sure has no 666 markings anywhere on his body.

Speaking of babies, you’ll have to sit through an ad to enjoy the whole of Jennifer Allen’s essay on raising boys, but if you have more than one — and yes, I mean you, Deb — you’ll want to read it. It’s a scream, and tender at the same time. Quite the trick. Go figure.

Posted at 9:11 pm in Uncategorized |
 

7 responses to “Is it too much to ask?”

  1. Pam said on May 5, 2005 at 9:11 am

    It may be too late for this, but DO NOT USE A SCORER. If the paper is that hard to remove, the only thing that works reasonably well is a wallpaper steamer. Scoring merely adds lots of perforations and you usually end up removing the wallpaper in little postage stamp size pieces. We removed all the 1970s wallpaper from this house and steaming seems to be the best way to go. All of the wallpaper that I personally hung came off very easy (I put on sizing!). The jobbed out stuff was a B. Enjoy!

    502 chars

  2. Pam said on May 5, 2005 at 9:18 am

    Oh BTW, when we were removing the wallpaper and would steam off an especially large piece, the excited conversation would be “OH LOOK! This piece is HUGE!” Until RIP, it would tear. Small victories. Until it was done. How pathetic.

    235 chars

  3. colleen said on May 5, 2005 at 9:52 am

    Use caution with a steamer if you have drywall….you can damage the outer paper and soak the gypsum stuff inside, then yer screwed.

    And THAT is a lawyer? The one in the gold suit looks like she just got off work at Showgirl.

    231 chars

  4. MIndy said on May 5, 2005 at 9:57 am

    Forget the DIF and rented steamers. Buy a soft brush at the home center, one that’s for washing cars. Get a screw-on handle for it and a plastic scraper while you’re there. Shut off the power to the room, fill a bucket with hot water, and slosh it on the walls. Repeat, reapeat, repeat. Wait 20 minutes and check a corner of the paper. When it lifts off easily, you should be able to lift it off in large pieces with the scraper. Then scrape off the adhesive while it’s still wet. Brush the walls with fresh hot water until it’s clean. This worked well for me; I had an entire house of 1979 to tear off the walls. (Remember those wallpaper photo murals? I had a photo of three deer standing in the forest that dominated a small bedroom. What were they thinking!!!)

    776 chars

  5. juan said on May 5, 2005 at 11:38 am

    Get with the times, Ms. Nancy!

    The mark of the beast is not 666. As of last week it was discovered that “666” was a typo. The mark of the beast is 616.

    I’d send the link, but I suck at html.

    Just Google “Beast 616” and pick the most reputable news provider you can find (which is probably the Canadian Post.)

    This means that the Beast is probably living in your area code!

    387 chars

  6. Michael G said on May 5, 2005 at 12:22 pm

    That’s perfectly lovely wallpaper. Whyever would you want to remove it?

    72 chars

  7. John said on May 6, 2005 at 8:45 am

    Emperor Caligula works for 616 or Emperor Nero for the more traditionally 666.

    81 chars