Wallpaper Success and Photos

I'll be spending Sunday vacuuming, beginning to rehang paintings, and reassembling my dragon shelving, but I wanted to share the long progress toward our finished look. I'm so very pleased with how fabulous the living room and hallway look now!

The old paper as it was after we pulled down the art. This was
taken the night before Mike was scheduled to arrive. Look at how
the paper is peeling away from the wall on the bottom. The one
square of differently colored paper in the middle of the wall is
my sample of the new paper. 

We had really old paper that was blue on white. It featured texture in the living room and a French provincial design in the hallway. I thought the paper was original, but DH thinks it dated from shortly before we purchased the home in the mid-1980's. Either way, the paper had been there a long time and looked horrible.

The paper is down in the living room and Mike has patched
and plastered, putting primer on the wall to help the
new paper's adhesive hold  well. 

Mike pulled down the old paper and spent Tuesday, Wednesday and some of Thursday smoothing the walls, fixing damaged parts, sanding and putting primer on the walls.

The hallway has also been stripped. The primer applied
here was pinker in the hallway lighting. Tarps cover
the carpeting throughout. 

Thursday he spent a long day putting up the striped paper in the hallway and entryway. Lots of cut-outs for this install, around doors and electrical outlets. Lots of small and narrow spaces.

The hallway has five doorways, an alcove and
the stairway leading to the living room. Lots of small,
narrow spaces. The stripe pattern is subtle and a bit abstract. 

Compare the finished look to the prior look of the
primer. I'm really happy with the look of the paper
with the woodwork and carpeting. 

Mike spent Friday putting up the paper in the living room. DH was sending me texts throughout the morning - he was seriously worried about how the paper would look and whether it would go well with the hallway paper. He thought it might be too dark, he was second-guessing his choice throughout the morning. It must have been over thirty texts that he sent. He was throwing angst in my direction for hours.

The new living room wall has an abstract look. The hallway
is in the upper right (the new lightbulb is looking blue in this
photo. I'll change it to a warmer bulb within the week.) 

DH was worried about whether the two papers would work
together. But here they butt up against each other and they
look great. The upper part is the hallway niche, the bottom is
a small overlap of the living room paper leading the eye into
the hallway. 

We still need to rehang our artwork onto the wall, and move
one piece of furniture back into place, but the living room is finally
complete after almost a year. We finally have new carpeting,
a new drapery, and now the wallpaper. It's a radical change
and so pretty! Call me VERY happy! 

When Mike finished and left, DH started falling in love. By the time I arrived home that night, he had moved most of the furniture back into place and was ecstatic about "his" paper (that would be the wallpaper for the living room). I'm thrilled all around. It was a productive week's work and after we rehang our artwork, it will be a joy to have one level of the house almost complete. Hope you're having a wonderful weekend, I'll be back on Monday.