I finally started!

Bye-bye wall paper,
Hello paint...

After months of pondering what to do, it finally occurred to me to just go for it. The wallpaper must go. I remember when my MIL put the wallpaper up in the dining room years ago. At that time it was very popular to wallpaper. I really don't think it is ugly or anything, but it is a bit dated and too busy for my tastes now. It actually really reminds me of one of my favorite shirts from Jr. High that my mom made for me. At any rate, when my sister was over the other day we were talking about how I wanted to tear the wall paper off and she said it looks like wallpaper you would find in a church bathroom. It's funny cause as soon as she said it, I had to agree.

With all the upcoming birthday celebrations and Christmas coming up, I thought no time like the present. At first I tried to talk my self out of it by telling myself that I could wait until after January to start...but I am too "anal" and in the back of my weird brain was this nagging voice that kept saying it would be nice if the photos from all the get-togethers had a more neutral/calm background. See...I'm a total freak, I know. Control freak, sometimes, yes. Knowing that Natalie's birthday is only 2 weeks away, you may think I am a glutton for punishment, but there's nothing like a tight deadline to light a fire under this girl! Heck, if those guys at Extreme Home Make-over can build an entire house, furnished and decorated in one week, surely I can remove wallpaper and paint in 2 weeks, right?

So tonight, Dan left early to play games with his friends and would be gone all night. I put the kids to bed and was totally bored. I could have done the week's worth of laundry that was piling up in the laundry bin, or even the dishes, but no, that would be too practical. The compulsive urge was too strong. So I searched the house for a spray bottle to wet down the wallpaper...no luck. I did find an almost empty spray bottle of Windex, so I went around and washed all the mirrors, a few dirty windows, the microwave and the oven until the bottle was empty. I filled it with hot water and began to spray the walls and rip the paper off. What fun. My MIL did such a great job of hanging the wall paper that taking it down was a snap...at least the top half of the wall came off easy, the bottom is a bit more stubborn. After about 2 hours, I decided to call it a night. Now that I have updated my blog, I guess there is only one thing left to do...the dishes! Ugggh!