Do you remember in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the dad put Windex on everything? Well, when I was at Zoar, a lady I worked with gave out a Windex tip to several people. They always came back and told her how well it worked.
She told them that Windex with ammonia-d would remove wallpaper, but it had to have ammonia-d in it. She said to spray it on the wallpaper and it would peel off easily. There was some amazingly ugly wallpaper in this little tiny bathroom in Matt's room. It was plaid and incredibly ugly. Did I mention that it was ugly?
Here's proof.
(The first picture is supposed to be turned up, but I couldn't figure out how to turn it.)
The wall behind the toilet was this solid plaid and the other 3 walls had the same plaid cut into a border on the top and the bottom. This little bathroom used to be a closet so it is really small. You can wash your hands while sitting on the toilet, if you wanted to. We met the man who was pastor here when it was put in. He wanted it in for his son who was potty training. It is literally a water closet.
The corners of the wallpaper was peeling up so I just peeled what I could. I sprayed Windex on the paper that stuck to the wall. I let it soak in for a couple of minutes and then scraped it off with the spatula that Dave had just made an omlet with. It took a little time, about 2 hours, but I got every bit of that atrocious wallpaper off the bathroom. As if the wallpaper wasn't ugly enough, the walls are the color of baby poo. There was a medicine cabinet with a light fixture on the top of it. I took it out and found all the different colors that that little bathroom had even been--white, yellow, beige, green, then brown. I'm about to add red.
My next phase of the project was to remove the toilet tank lid so I could finish scraping off the wallpaper. Of course, being a rigger bathroom, it's not so easy as turning off the water under the toilet. It's probably under the house. I'm NOT going there. So I thought I'd turn the water off at the meter. That's what anyone would do. I've done it for Dad at his house a bunch of times. Ican do that. So I went out to the yard and uncover the meter, only to find out that the meter can't have been read in years. Underneath the lid is dirt. So I start digging with my hands, because digging with a shovel into the water main would be stupid. So I dig and dig and dig. Finally, I feel something metal. I discover the meter that should be read once a month. At this point, I've got a feelfor where the pipes are so I go get the shovel. There really shouldn't be earthworms in the water meter, right? I saw 4. I finally found the thing that turns the water off. Since this is just my day and luck and all things lovely are on my side, it does not turn. Even with a pair of pliers, it does not budge.
As it stands:
There is still wallpaper behind the toilet.
There is no light.
There is no mirror.
There are wallpaper jibblets all over the carpet.
The wall behind where the medicine cabinet was is a mess.
Even with all that mess, it still looks better than the plaid.
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