Monday, July 19, 2010

Messy Job

A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to say goodbye to the wallpaper that had been decorating my kitchen for a good 15 years or more.


The border was of a farm and the wallpaper itself had pineapples and hearts. I put it up initially because I have no back splash on the stove and I was worried about the grease on the walls, which did not wipe off well without something on them.


As you can see, it did not look especially bad. But there was a big problem.


In 2004, I had an accident with a two-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper. As I carried it in with the groceries, it slid from my hands and landed on its top. It immediately exploded, and Dr. Pepper went every where. The bottle flew around like a rocket ship, skittering in a circle on the floor until I could get it stopped.    Sticky softdrink covered the walls, the refrigerator, the telephone - pretty much the whole kitche. Even though I cleaned it, every year the wallpaper wept Dr. Pepper when the humidity was high in the house.

When I removed the wallpaper from the wall that had been splashed the most with Dr. Pepper, I discovered that the soda had eaten through the gypsum in the wallboard. The walls were damaged.


It took a great deal of spackling and many woman-hours of elbow grease to get the holes filled up and sanded back down.



My reward is a sparkling kitchen with walls that no longer weep soda pop. To protect the wallboard behind the stove, I painted with a semi-gloss latex paint that wipes off easier than flat paint.

4 comments:

  1. Ewww, Dr. Pepper. It does the same thing to your innards that it did to that wall. Hope you are not still drinking the stuff.

    It was absolutely time for that wallpaper border to be gone.

    I really want to paint my kitchen but waiting on cooler temperatures. Bet you are glad to be done with yours as it's a lot of work to paint.

    Di

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  2. A job well done! I know that was a lot of work. It looks great!

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  3. Way to go! What a rewarding job well done.

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