Reasons I hate wallpaper

I am just hating wallpaper today. This stuff is the devil (channeling Kathy Bates from the Waterboy here)! I know there are times when paper is the best wallcovering... no, it's never good. If your walls are in that bad of shape, replace the drywall!
So here is my list of why wallpaper is the spawn of Satan:

1) it is difficult to remove!

2) Almost all of it is ugly. Other people don't like your taste and you won't like a garish print in 2 years.. mark my words.

3) it hides things that shouldn't be hidden. For example... mold, mildew, water leaks, holes in walls.

4) it is difficult to hang properly and only a professional does it right. Sadly, it is usually NOT professionals hanging the stuff.

I am done with the wallpaper rant. I love paint. Paint is the best!! Okay, so I am almost finished removing the wallpaper in the downstairs bath. Bill replaced the damaged studs and we are almost ready to drywall and put the shower back in. I found another leak last night though so now we have another thing to fix. I hate that. Nothing ever goes fast and under budget.

In other news, we have gotten 2 inches of beautiful snow today and Ashlyn made her first snowman (with my help.) The boys did great at their karate tournament on Saturday- Noel took first place in Kata and Kelley got 2nd place in Kata and Kumite. Go Denham Boys!! Tomorrow Bill has another orientation for sub teaching and has tons of work to do to get his loan business going here, and Ashlyn has dance class at January's.

IKEA and other obsessions

Have you ever been to an IKEA store? This place is like Disneyland for me. I can spend an entire day browsing and shopping and then cap it off with a wonderful meal of Swedish Meatballs. Since we have moved, we have to drive to Pittsburgh to get to the closest IKEA store, which is a 3 hour drive from our home. I have been wanting to take a day trip there to get some new kitchen cabinet handles, 2 pendant lights for the kitchen and shelving for the kitchen and bath.
Check out the handles, called "Snacka" They are 2 for 2.99.



I got my kitchen touch up paint finished today and have a coat or two more for some trim. The kitchen is celadon green with white trim. My accent color is tomato red and the color combination is so fun! Picture to come, eventually! I want to get the wallpaper strip job finished today before the weekend. The boys have a karate tournament tomorrow- wish them luck!

I love ebay!!

I have been picking up some great old postcards on Ebay. I have two dated 1912 and this one just cracks me up, especially since I feel this way all the time:

Scenes from our area

I wanted to share a couple of pictures. The first is a picture of

the ducks and Canadian Geese that visit us here on the Elk River. This is our access to the river from our backyard. Taken in September.

Next is a classic scene associated with rural West Virginia. This is a barn about 5 miles from us on Rt 119 towards Elkview. All pictures were taken by me, photography is one of my favorite hobbies.

Great Clendenin History Link

This is wonderful and gives a slice of life in Clendenin, Wv in 1911

http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvkanawh/local/clendenin.html

Bathroom adventures

Our house is located in Clendenin, West Virginia and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as "Koontz Avenue Historic District, Blonde Brick 4 Square." It has both Arts and Crafts and Victorian elements which reflect the changing styles of the time. Other information is that it sits on the site of the first brick mill in the area that made all the bricks for the homes on the street as well as the brick streets of Clendenin. This was the site of a 1770's era log cabin as well. The home was built by a prominent man named Koontz who once ran the bank, the natural gas plant and served as Mayor of Clendenin, WV. He built this house in 1905 for his mother in law, who was an Osbourne, then built his own home in the lot next to it immediately after. The most interesting bit of history about this house is that the front room, which we now use as a dining room, was used as a "Laying Out" room for the dead. As there was no funeral home in the area at the time, the owner invited anyone who lost a loved one to lay them out in the front room for the wake or memorial service. I hope to cover a little Clendenin history in future posts.


We have done so much since moving into this house in July, but we left the bathrooms for later. Well... later has come! Before I get started on that, let me first do a quick rundown of past projects:
1) Strip wallpaper from 1 upstairs bedroom, paint three bedrooms upstairs.
2) Installed a new ceiling fan in master bedroom, upstairs bath, downstairs multipurpose/playroom.
3) Installed high efficiency washer and dryer by LG in laundry room. In January we rerouted dryer vent out the window. Long story.
4) Changed all the window coverings, avoiding the wood trim whenever possible.
5)kitchen- installed new Jenn air appliances- gas range, counter depth fridge and dishwasher. Put in a white island for more storage ( got it at Lowe's for $40!!!), new Corian counters in Sahara, changed the cabinet knobs, added a plate rack to the walls and a pot rack over the one window. We painted the kitchen a cheery celadon green and white trim. The kitchen is the only room that the trim has been painted so we went with that. We changed the ceiling fan, which was awful, for a small chandelier.
6)new mailbox and post... several times :o)
7)4 foot high picket fence around the backyard for the dogs
8)new storm door on back with built in dog door
9)Repainted living, dining, kitchen and bedrooms with ICI Dulux paints. I will publish the colors later.
We got a ton of supplies from Lowe's. We have donestuff through Home Depot and our local hardware store here in Clendenin, Karr's, has been a wonderful and convenient place as well.
10) new white wicker porch furniture and black wrought iron table and chairs for the patio, all from Lowe's.
there is more but I need to move on!

Our project this week is working on our downstairs bathroom. Wow, this is a challenge already. The back porch was converted years ago into an entry/mudroom and small bathroom. After we bought the house I realized that the wallpaper in that small bath would not come off easily. We found out from the local plumber that there has been numerous burst pipes in the shower. I could tell that the wall behind the shower was in bad shape. We removed the shower walls and discoverd that the moisture resistant drywall had indeed become severely damaged as had the studs that support the plumbing. UGH UGH UGH We have removed all the wallpaper and the offending wall and now have a nice view of the brick backside of the house, the uninsulated pipes and the damage. We need to put in new cement board and will probably just tile the enclosure instead of doing a fiberglass wall. We have decided to put in a small bath (we only have about 52 inches length) that we have to special order and hopefully we can get things up and running in a week or two. More on this subject tomorrow!