The Giraffe in the Room
What do giraffes have to do with our basement renovation? Oh just wait...you're about to find out.
Last time you saw our basement bedroom, this is what it looked like.
We had a mixture of floral wallpaper and sponge painting. Also some pretty terrible carpet.
Lovely, right? Needless to say, we could hardly wait to get in there and gut it. We started by ripping out the carpet, and then it was time to attack the wallpaper. After reading a bit about the best way to remove wallpaper, I decided to use the steam method. I have a portable steamer that is used for removing wrinkles from clothes, so I decided to give that a whirl. It worked very well! The wallpaper came off in 2 layers...1st the decorative paper layer, and then the adhesive layer. It was a timely process, but it did work very well. So now, to address the giraffe in the room...this is what we found underneath the wallpaper:
Oh.my.goodness. Yes, it really was this hideous in person. No wonder someone wallpapered over it! It was also on another couple small sections of wall:
As you can see in the pictures above, even after using the steamer, there were still some remnants of wallpaper and adhesive. So I used hot water and a non-abrasive scrub sponge to remove all of that. A nice scrubbing of the wall left me with this:
Much better! Ok...better is a relative term. Our next step was going to be getting some primer up on this wall. We've never dealt with an umm..."situation" like this before, so we weren't sure if we would need to use a separate primer, or if we could get away with one-step paint + primer. After seeking the advice of the lady at the paint desk at Home Depot, we decided to use a strong primer first, and then normal paint on top. So we got the Kilz extreme cover primer. After 1 coat, we were left with this:
You could even still see the sponge painting coming through on the other walls:
So after another coat of primer all around, we were ready to paint. Because this room is so small and dark, with low ceilings, we decided to go with a really light and bright color in this room. We went with a white color that has a slight blue tint to it: Waterfall Mist by Behr. Here is the basement after all the painting was completed:
We love it!! We will definitely have to get more lighting in this room, because it tends to look a bit like baby blue in the dark, but with proper lighting it is a lovely bright white with just a hint of blue, exactly what we were going for.
Next up, I'll share how we installed the new floor in this bedroom!! We're finally making progress!
P.s. Guys...this was the LAST room left to paint in this house...I'm SO EXCITED!!! I hope not to have to paint again for a very long time!!
Last time you saw our basement bedroom, this is what it looked like.
We had a mixture of floral wallpaper and sponge painting. Also some pretty terrible carpet.
Lovely, right? Needless to say, we could hardly wait to get in there and gut it. We started by ripping out the carpet, and then it was time to attack the wallpaper. After reading a bit about the best way to remove wallpaper, I decided to use the steam method. I have a portable steamer that is used for removing wrinkles from clothes, so I decided to give that a whirl. It worked very well! The wallpaper came off in 2 layers...1st the decorative paper layer, and then the adhesive layer. It was a timely process, but it did work very well. So now, to address the giraffe in the room...this is what we found underneath the wallpaper:
Oh.my.goodness. Yes, it really was this hideous in person. No wonder someone wallpapered over it! It was also on another couple small sections of wall:
As you can see in the pictures above, even after using the steamer, there were still some remnants of wallpaper and adhesive. So I used hot water and a non-abrasive scrub sponge to remove all of that. A nice scrubbing of the wall left me with this:
Much better! Ok...better is a relative term. Our next step was going to be getting some primer up on this wall. We've never dealt with an umm..."situation" like this before, so we weren't sure if we would need to use a separate primer, or if we could get away with one-step paint + primer. After seeking the advice of the lady at the paint desk at Home Depot, we decided to use a strong primer first, and then normal paint on top. So we got the Kilz extreme cover primer. After 1 coat, we were left with this:
You could even still see the sponge painting coming through on the other walls:
So after another coat of primer all around, we were ready to paint. Because this room is so small and dark, with low ceilings, we decided to go with a really light and bright color in this room. We went with a white color that has a slight blue tint to it: Waterfall Mist by Behr. Here is the basement after all the painting was completed:
We love it!! We will definitely have to get more lighting in this room, because it tends to look a bit like baby blue in the dark, but with proper lighting it is a lovely bright white with just a hint of blue, exactly what we were going for.
Next up, I'll share how we installed the new floor in this bedroom!! We're finally making progress!
P.s. Guys...this was the LAST room left to paint in this house...I'm SO EXCITED!!! I hope not to have to paint again for a very long time!!
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