Smiley Nursery Prep Work

Well, I finished stripping the wallpaper from the nursery. Generally, when I'm remodeling a dollhouse, if the wallpaper appears solid and intact (i.e., no tears, bubbles or ripples), I might opt to leave the wallpaper in place and paint over it with primer. As I looked closely at this room, I noticed several areas where the paper had torn and was peeling away from the walls.


When I slid the putty knife under the loosened spaces the paper came away fairly easily, which would suggest that the moisture from the primer would probably cause the paper to bubble and peal away. I scored the wallpaper using the corner of the putty knife, lightly sprayed the walls with window cleaner (double purpose here), waited a couple minutes and then began pulling the wallpaper off the walls. As an aside, I personally like to apply at least a coat of primer to the walls before applying wallpaper. Much like painting drywall in a real life house before hanging wallpaper. Have you ever tried to remove wallpaper from unpainted drywall? Yuck! What a chore. Primer and/or a coat of white paint really does do triple duty: seals the wood, provides a good base for wallpaper application (both from the standpoint of adhesion and removal), and protects the purity of the wallpaper color. Imagine the darkness of wood showing through a thin white wallpaper.


About a half hour later the walls were stripped and a puddle of paper shreds lay on the floor. Reminds me of removing the wallpaper from our real life house, but it took more like a day to complete the removal project there! Next I'll sand down any of the remaining paper and wallpaper paste then apply a coat of primer.

As I was "sweeping" up the remnants of the wallpaper, our UPS delivery guy arrived. He looked quizzically at me and asked what I was doing. I told him I was remodeling the dollhouse. He left shaking his head and muttering "remodeling a dollhouse..." Some folks just don't get it!

On to the next room!