Girl’s Bedroom: Week 9 – The Closet

For all of the area school kids, this week is Spring Break. My kids are not in traditional school, but it does lighten up our schedule. Many of their normal activities observe Spring Break and they go on hiatus. That means I have a lot less driving to do, and I have more time to spend working on BHH, specifically M’s room. When I have extra time, my occasional overachiever wannabe self makes an extensive list and even a little editorial calendar for this blog. The universe loves it when I do this. The universe smiles down upon me, pats me on the head, and sits back to watch me work. She knows what is coming. Let me tell you a little story about the closet in M’s room.

When we last left the closet, Andy and I were pretending it did not exist.

We just couldn’t motivate ourselves to do it. The walls and the ceiling were a wreck, and after spending weeks on wall prep in the rest of the room, the process of patch, sand, clean-up, repeat sounded about as appealing as standing in line at the DMV. Andy did screw the plaster back to the wall using the Frankenwall method. That was as far as we got.

After a great deal of thinking, which looked a lot like procrastination, I decided that the easiest course of action to delay the inevitable of replastering altogether would be to wallpaper the closet. What?! I know that you are thinking, Didn’t you just remove the wallpaper in this room? Didn’t you just go on and on about preservation blah blah blah? Andy did all the work removing the wallpaper, and he was the person I needed to convince of my brilliant plan to fix the closet by ignoring the real problem. It turns out that this type of half-assery really speaks to him. He was all for it.

Now that I knew we were going to wallpaper, I had to decide how fancy to get. The wallpaper by Rifle Paper Co. is my absolute favorite. However, using beautiful Rifle paper, even at sale price, would cost $300 for the closet. Sigh… (Some day THIS wallpaper will be in BHH.) Next, I went to Lowe’s to check out the in-stock wallpaper there. Their choices were pretty trendy for BHH, and their supply was minimal. I did pick up two big rolls of plain white wallpaper liner for $20. Sold! It wasn’t fancy, but at the end of the day, this project is still just a closet and few people except for all of you will ever see it.

Neither Andy nor I had ever wallpapered before, but it seemed pretty straightforward. Cut the paper to size, put some paste on the back of it with a paint roller, position it on the wall, smooth it down with a wallpaper smoother, wash off excess glue, and trim off the excess paper. Easy peasy. Yeah.

Here is what really happens:

1. Cut the paper to size – The paper will roll back onto the roll as quickly as you spread it out. Using a yardstick helps, but the side you are not marking will roll towards the center, and you may have to nearly lay across the whole roll to mark it where you need it to be. Side note: A proper warm-up for hanging wallpaper would be a game of Twister. If you have mastered the game, wallpapering will be a simple job.
2. Put paste on the back of the paper with a paint roller – As you do this, the paste-covered paper will roll back over the roller and stick onto the good side of the paper. You will need to unroll it and prepare to clean off the good side of the paper with a wet sponge. Your hands will be covered with glue. The good news is that once the back is covered with paste, it finally stops rolling up on itself. This is when you will see a little glimmer of hope. Keep that in your heart. It will sustain you through the next steps.
3. Position the paper on the wall – The paper will stick to anything. It will catch on the door jam, the ladder, your pants, and especially the good side of the wallpaper beside it. Your measurements will also be off now. The paper will have grown in size now that it is finally flat and saturated with paste. You may vow to account for that on the next piece, but you will promptly forget until you remind yourself next time, and then you will promptly forget again.
4. Smooth the wallpaper with the wallpaper smoother – This is when you realize that when the instructions recommend making sure that your walls are smooth, they are serious. Every single imperfection will reveal a new air bubble. You will spend precious minutes in a fruitless attempt to make the wallpaper look professionally hung and perfect. It will not happen, but you will keep trying. In all fairness, white wallpaper is unforgiving. A nice bold print would likely detract from most imperfections as long as the pattern is lined up properly from piece to piece.
5. Wash off excess glue – You might as well wash all the previously hung pieces too while you are at it. They likely have glue blobs on them from trying to shimmy your way into a closet and up a ladder while you are carrying a glue-covered wallpaper piece to put into place. Also, you will never feel like you have washed it enough. Your eyes will trick you into seeing more glue at every angle. Just be thorough, and trust your work. It all works out. I promise.
6. Trim off the excess paper – This actually is pretty straightforward. I received an awesome tip from my friend on facebook. I read it right after the job was complete:
   

   Replace your razor blade at least one strip before you think you’ll need to. They go from sharp to “blunt paper-tearing @$!*” in the blink of an eye. ~R

   I tore the @$!* paper more than once, but you know the secret. Your project will go better than mine.

Hanging wallpaper turned into a two-day event. On day one, Andy helped me a little, but he determined that I was not pleasant to be around when I was wallpapering. On day two, he had to go back to work. With an adjusted attitude, I headed back into the closet to work solo. When the closet was finished, I would be able to photograph the completed bedroom project and post the big reveal on the blog. I was in the home stretch. It was the perfect time for the universe to show me who is the boss.

M. and I had nearly finished the doll apartment, and she was moving in their belongings, sorting their clothes, and making the last-minute decisions about how to arrange the space. Our building material of choice was cardboard, foam core, and contact paper. Remember this during the next part of the story.

She and I worked side by side finishing up the last little details. She was in the doll apartment, and I was hanging wallpaper in the closet. She had just finished sorting out the last of the doll clothes. I was coming down the ladder, and I stepped into my bucket of water wearing my suede Ugg boot (which is another problem altogether). In what felt like slow motion, I tipped over the bucket which was full of about 1.5 gallons of water, and it spilled out all over the closet floor, and immediately ran directly into the doll apartment! In a blink of an eye, the apartment was soaked. Everything was wet. I ran into the bathroom for towels, but it was laundry day, and they were all downstairs. I flew downstairs to get the towels. By the time I returned, M had removed everything she could, but the place was a mess.

We ended up having to take it all apart to make sure we could dry everything thoroughly. I had to move the bed to make sure the floors dried properly. Some of our cardboard items could not be saved.

M. and I surveyed the wreckage. Unfortunately, the dolls did not have homeowner’s insurance. Many items were a total loss. They have vowed to rebuild, but it is going to take a week or so. Our project completion date has been pushed back again. Time marches on.

I will leave you with a completed closet picture.

I finally finished papering, and it turns out that once wallpaper dries, some of the flaws smooth out on their own. I caulked around the woodwork and finished painting yesterday. The ceiling remains unfinished. It is in such a state of disrepair, that we may end up covering it with wallboard, but there is no hurry. As we keep reminding ourselves, it is just a closet.

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