Progress in the Foyer

One of the first things we did after taking possession of the house was run around and strip as much wallpaper off the walls as possible.  It came off in big sheets and was quite a lot of fun.  Once the wallpaper frenzy was over, however, we had to figure out what to tackle first.  We decided on the entryway.

In retrospect, it was possibly not the best idea to pick the most visible place in the house for the first project.  But it was a great learning experience, and so far it's turned out ok.  This is how it looked before the stripping madness:

Not bad, you think?  You had to see it close up, with its sea grass wallpaper and crumbling plaster.  With Billy the painter's help, Janet got to work on the long series of steps necessary to get it ready for painting:

Wash off the old glue

Patch the plaster

Fix this corner (Billy did it)

Skim coat

Strip the door (this was abandoned - not worth it)

Eventually it was ready for painting, which was actually the easiest part of the whole process (not to say that it was easy...).  The hardest part is skim coating, in my opinion.

1 coat of primer, 2 coats of paint

And finally, except for one small area that will need a second coat of finish paint, the foyer wall painting is done.  We still need to repaint the doors and trim, and we need to add back the wainscoting, so we're a long way from being altogether finished.

It probably took at least twice as long as it would have a professional painter, but we're pleased with the end result and the flaws are probably only noticeable to us (we hope).

And we couldn't have done it without our faithful helper:

Sunny