No one wants to peel wallpaper...no one.

We've been fortunate to be blessed with family and friends that want to come lend a hand with the yard, home improvement projects, and decorating.  However, when it came to the hallway, there was no help because no one wants to peel wallpaper.  I did not like the shiny paint that was used in the hallway. It simply showed each and every imperfection.  Clearly, you could see that wallpaper was under the paint.

This is the best 'before' picture I could find of the hallway. (Sorry for the photobomb from our dog, Lucy!)  

So, let's get to the story of the hallway.  It was a freezing, cold Sunday, as we had become accustom to this winter, and I started 'piddling' around the house.  (According to my husband, Stephen, that's what happens when I sit too long around here.)  At any rate, I decided to peel the wallpaper and get the hallway transformation in motion. I knew I wasn't going to get it all done in one day, but I knew that starting was the hardest part. As I started my peeling, I was also thinking to myself This will be a nice little Sunday project. WRONG!  The first layer came off easily.  The second layer - not so much.  This was only the surface! Turns out, as I kept peeling, we had four - count it - FOUR, layers of wallpaper under that shiny paint.  No wonder no one tried this before.  Had I known this during the construction I would have had our contractor take down the drywall and rehang it in the hallway.  That would have been much easier than the can of worms I opened up.  

Stephen jumped in to help when he realized I had bit off more than I could chew.  We spent the rest of the day working our fingers to the bones as we tried to get all four layers off the wall.  Below are the different decades we 'peeled through'. 

The black wavy lines are from the 70's. Then we have the textured paper of the 80's.

Then we have the mauve color of the 90's. Then paint on top of it all.

After about a week of peeling paper for a few hours here and there, we decided to just take the top two layers off the wall.  We were tearing up the sheetrock trying to get the bottom two layers off.  After much trial, we found that warm to hot water and vinegar was the best mixture for removing the paper that we needed.  

We peeled only to top of the hallway above the chair rail for obvious reasons.  We left the hallway looking completely disheveled for about a month. (Don't judge me.) We affectionately referred to it as our 'Silent Hill Hallway' because it looked like something straight out of a horror movie. 

I did have a painter come to give me a quote to do the hallway for us.  He never called back. I figured the job was way over his head so, hey, I could do it!  After some research online I had a plan. Now it was time to try it out!  Stephen had plans to leave town the weekend I decided I could take the hallway no more, so I called in my reinforcements, my brother, AJ.  

Our game plan was to mud the rough spots on the wall, sand, prime it, mud the rough spots, sand, prime it again.  We did this over and over until we thought the walls were smooth enough to take flat paint.  I started the process on Friday night and AJ showed up on Saturday morning. We sanded the first coat before heading to Home Depot to get the necessary supplies for the job.  

Chair rail removed. Walls sanded. 

At Home Depot we purchased: 

Wainscoting, liquid nails, finishing nails (for the nail gun - best tool ever!), caulk, and new chair rail.  

Since we were trying to finish this in one weekend we decided to get a little help from the guys at Home Depot.  We knew the height of the wainscoting before we left.  After picking out the boards, we took them to the handy-dandy cutting machine in the store.  Best move of the weekend! 

After sanding and priming and mudding a few more times, we were ready to hang the wainscoting.  I can truly say this was the easiest part of the whole project.  Easy to cut and easy to hang.  Luckily, we didn't have any plugs on the bottom of the walls to cut around.  

Our directions for hanging wainscoting:  Put liquid nails on the back of the board and some on the wall.  Press to the wall and use a nail gun with finishing nails to attach.  Be sure to leave about an eighth of an inch or so for the boards to expand during warmer weather.  This will keep the boards from buckling. 

Wainscoting - hung and unpainted.

Next came the chair rail.  I opted for the new plain rectangular trim.  This would give me the more updated finished look I was going for.  Again, hanging this was easy.  This is the same process as the wainscoting without the liquid nails. 

Chair rail hung.  Everything primed.  White on white on white! 

After caulking all the seams and trim, we had to paint.  I used the same color, Sherwin Williams - pediment, as the rest of our house.   While there are still some textured places from the wallpaper and a few imperfections, our hallway is miles better than when we started.  I actually don't have to apologize to people as they walk through it. :)   It's the small victories.  

We completely finished our project at 8:00 pm on Sunday night.  It truly was a weekend effort.  A big thanks goes out to my brother for always wanting to lend a helping hand! 

Finished Hallway.  Now to paint to hallway doors. :) 

Thank you for reading and keeping up with our home projects.  It's really starting to feel like home.