Taking Down Wallpaper = No Fun

After we got back from Charleston (and hubby watched the end of the Panthers game), we headed over to the house to try to tackle the wall paper in the dining room. Actually, firstly, we stopped at Lowes to pick up a steamer to help with the job...then, we headed to the house.

Welcome to my beautiful dining room. Oh yea!

While I waited for the steamer to heat up...

...I spotted my first roommate - a yucky spider. I really hope this house doesn't have too many bugs!

If you've never taken down wallpaper before, then you have no idea just how time-consuming and slow-moving it is.

We scraped and scraped and scraped.

Upon further digging, we discovered there were THREE layers of wallpaper in our dining room.

The blue-toned wall paper appears to be the original wall paper of the house. We think the trim, baseboards, and molding used to be a pretty baby blue. I kind of want to try to restore the original colors (sans wallpaper), but I really like the paint color I picked out, so I probably won't.

I had my work/hiking boots on. These are my Timberlands from high school. For some reason, they were really popular back when I was in high school. Anywho, I put these on so hubby knew I meant business!

Working girl!

I wish I could give you some tips, but I'm not sure I'd call us experts. I did notice the following:

• If we started with the steamer top-down, the water seemed to move downward naturally (thanks gravity!) helping loosen the adhesive of the wallpaper below where we were working
• The areas that were dampest (without being soaking wet) came off the easiest - we probably should have gotten a sponge to lightly wet the walls before working them with the steamer/scraper

After 4 hours, we called it quits so I could cook dinner and catch Drop Dead Diva and Cold Case. We got there 15 minutes too late to catch Drop Dead Diva, so we just paused the channel (thanks DVR) and recorded Cold Case (need to watch that this week sometime!).

I thought about asking hubby if he just wanted to pick up pizza because after 4 hours of wallpaper removal, I honestly didn't feel like cooking, but I was glad I came home to prepare something.

I somehow talked hubby into letting me cook tofu for him. I made Ellie's Marinated Tofu (baked at 450 degrees F for 20-25 minutes)

I used a single pot of water to cook both the organic udon noodles and organic broccoli.

The sauce was simple with garlic and soy sauce.

I thought dinner was pretty awesome. Hubby ate all the tofu and remarked that at least it didn't "make him ralph." Nice...lol. Hey, props to hubby for eating it!

My sweet tooth was calling so I made another mini-parfait with Stonyfield Organic Oikos Greek Vanilla Yogurt with some Bear Naked Fruit + Nut Granola with a sprinkling of unsweetened coconut flakes, chia seeds, and a drizzle of honey. Yum!

Does your SO eat tofu? Does he like it? Hate it?

Dessert, Dinner

Comments

[Lindsay]

These greek yogurt parfaits you're posting just look so YUMMY! I'm obsessed with greek yogurt!

Hubby hates tofu... I mean HATES it. I've told him that there are several ways to prepare it, so hopefully we'll come across a way that will make it more appealing to him :)

BTW, love reading your blog so much that I left YOU a blog award over on one of my posts. You can find it here: http://lindsanity.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-didnt-even-prepare-speech.html

:)
Linds
lindsanity.blogspot.com

[VeggieGirl]

LOVE the house progress!! But EEEEK no spiders, please - major arachnophobia over here, haha ;)

[Grace]

Yeah, my SO HATES tofu too. I still don't get how anybody could really hate tofu.

Haha, I remember when Timberlands were a big trend in grade school for us too. The hottest outfit was wearing a girly babydoll dress with big Timberlands.

[Jaime]

My husband will eat tofu - I'm the picky one :)

I'm enjoying reading about your house progress! We bought our first home last year (closed on the house and moved in on December 5.) And we had a lot of wallpaper to deal with.

A wallpaper tip (not that you asked for one, but these were useful for us):
It is a lot easier to wet the wall with a sponge before trying to take it off. The glue will also come off easily with liquid fabric softener (if you have any problems getting the glue off....) I bought a large bottle and have used it on multiple rooms. Not only does it take the glue off, but it smells nice :) Just mix the fabric softener with water in a bottle, and sponge away! I used a paint scraper to scrape the wet glue off.

Good luck!!

[Amanda]

I can't wait to see the house when it's all done! (or even sooner if you need help with anything) When my family moved to Maryland from Chicago, the guy who bought it from us was a flipper. We spoke to him after he finished remodeling and found out that our stairwell had like 15 coats of wallpaper and paint or something and when he got to the bottom of it all, he found a built in cabinet beneath it all!

And no, the Husband doesn't like tofu :-(

[Marie]

My husband likes tofu but I always have problems cooking it. I can never get it the same color as you do. Mine is either too light or it starts to burn. How do you get it that nice golden color? I use the same brand as you. Do you cook it on low heat or high.

I did the wallpaper thing too and yeah, it's a pain in the neck. I hate removing it.

[JennA]

i love how you make cooking look so simple. i guess in reality it is!!! =)

[Jeannie]

Your house will be beautiful when you're done! All the hard work will be so worth it. I'm so happy for you. God Bless you as you make your house a home ! Prayers & thoughts your way !

[Leah @ L4L]

Jodus didn't touch tofu before we started dating. He now eats it, happily, as long it is prepared well. He prefers it fried/baked so it is crispy and likes it to be well seasoned. He's a trooper. :D

[Rebeca]

Mine hasn't even tried it yet, but I'm slowly working on convincing him- he's obsessed with Morningstar now so that's a start :)