Unlike the previous owner of our old condo, I had no real beefs with the previous owners of our house. Sure, I hate all of their paint choices, and maybe the fake flowers planted (and thoughtfully left) in the backyard were pretty rank, but overall I couldn’t complain. There were no size 20 skirts in the closet and no spoiling milk in the fridge.

Until I started work on this bathroom. In a word, it’s been a nightmare, the likes of which only someone else who has removed wallpaper can appreciate. Let me give you a mini-primer on wallpaper removal should you ever be cursed with such a chore:

Wallpaper is made of 2 pieces of paper: the vinyl outer layer (in this case, 3 separate flower patterns) and the inner layer which is designed to glue to the wall. Removing the outer layer isn’t hard, but the glue bonds itself to everything in it’s path. Including drywall and the old paint from the walls.

After you scrape the bejesus out of the glue/paper and it comes off, you’re left with patches that weren’t able to be removed (so you have to sand it) AND in this case, bits of chipped wall paint. So now you have 2 choices (somewhat like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, only less awesomely awesome): you can sand off ALL OF THE PAINT from the walls OR you can spackle the living shit out of the patches (because if you don’t, the painted wall will resemble the pockmarked face of a teenager with bad acne).

I chose to spackle, which is somewhat more satisfying but will THEN have to be sanded smooth. Then primed and painted (assuming I haven’t committed myself first)

Here’s hoping that it works, otherwise you may see the only recorded death due to spackling (considering the recent back injury, the tally is now Spackle: 1, Becky: 0).