What Lies Beneath...

I don't know about you, but I just feel like this summer is FLYING by! Can you believe it will be August this weekend? Crazy! Also crazy is the fact that is less than 100 days, Baby Reitz (yes, she still has no name) is due to arrive! Crazy-crazy! So, Lloyd and I decided it was about time to start renovating her room. And, because of the type of house we live in, this does not just mean picking out a nice paint color and coordinating bedding. lol. Like the other upstairs bedrooms besides ours, the soon-to-be-nursery needs new EVERYTHING-- floors, walls, you name it. Two of our upstairs bedrooms have trailer-paneling covering the walls, and LL and I have been engaged in an ongoing conversation about what, precisely, lies beneath that paneling. And last night we found out! However, since a picture is worth a thousand words, let me set the stage for you. Here are a few "before" pictures of the nursery:



The carpet needs to be removed, because it is horribly ugly and cat-stained, and you can see the lovely trailer-paneling covering the walls. It isn't horrifically ugly paneling as far as paneling goes, but we would definitely prefer dry wall or something of that nature that could be easily painted.

Because our house is so old, they really maximized on existing space and didn't bother to add things like hallways. In our house, if you walk up the stairs, you will arrive at a tiny landing at the top. Straight in front of you is the bathroom door, a little to the right is the nursery door, a little more to the right is our bedroom door, and to the left is the door to the other two bedrooms, which are connected to each other without a hallway. Here are the doors to the nursery (on the left) and our bedroom (on the right) so you can see just how close they are:

So, we decided to pull up the carpet on the stairs and the landing, too, because the stairs, landing, and nursery carpet was all one big piece. Sorry I don't have before pictures of the stairs, but here are the stairs after carpet removal:

And here is the little surprise we found under the carpet on the landing:

WOW!!!! CHECK OUT THAT FUNKY LINOLEUM!!!!

I decided this did not bode well for What Lies Beneath the paneling walls, so LL gamely grabbed his tools and started peeling...

Yup. Out gut feeling was right. In case you can't really tell from the picture, it appears that there is copious amounts of glue and several layers of old wall paper covering what we can only guess is horsehair plaster. Baby better really appreciate her nursery! :o) So here is our current plan: the contractor that redid our bathroom and kitchen is here this week, peeling up the linoleum, sanding the landing and baby's room, peeling paint off and sanding the stairs, sealing the stairs and floors, tearing down paneling, blowing insulation in the walls, and then covering the walls with either a thin layer of sheet rock mud that will be sanded smooth, or perhaps some thin dry wall. Then we can begin the priming, painting, and decorating process. Whew! I will keep you updated as progress is made!