You need to have the right tools!

Have you ever stripped wallpaper?

It is not fun. My house had one wallpapered bathroom and two wallpaper murals. My friend Chris removed one of the wallpaper murals for me, and then he helped me strip the bathroom, over the course of two days. TWO DAYS. It came off in little strips and gouged the wall to shreds.

Hours after the newest residents of Upper Montrose took possession of their new house, Chris rushed in to strip the wallpaper off the upstairs bedrooms. He finished one bedroom in 10 minutes. The other bedroom's wallpaper would not strip. Not at all. So that's when Chris said: you need to have the right tools. He got on the horn and found us a steamer. Ian ran out to get it, and then we got to work.

It took forever to get the flipping thing working. Then the heat and steam poured out. And we got to work - stripping, and sweating. The smallest bedroom in the house, which was only half papered, took us 3 hours to do. We finished around midnight, then cleaned up, and called it a day. We went back in the morning only to discover that the wallpaper in the mainfloor powder room was equally stubborn. So two of us crammed into the smallest room in the house and got steamy. I cannot imagine how long it would have taken to do this without the steamer. It just goes to show you that the right tools make all the difference!