De-decorating the mancave
Feb. 18th, 2018 10:04 pmThe previous owners of this house did some strange things. They put a big heavy heaginal head screw into the wall for use as a picture hook. They left a lot of holes in the walls. There are countless wires going all over the place from a selection of satellite dishes and phone lines. A lot of Manchester houses have a small nick in a room to allow room for the staircase. This house has a wooden box over it that can be used as a surface. The owners of this place inexplicably carpeted over it. I have no idea why.
They also stuck paper over the walls. And the ceiling. Lining paper rather than wallpaper. It was a real pain to remove. Most of it came off easily enough. It was not put on well. However, there are a few sections that were impenetrable!
I tried soaking it. Rubbish! Chemical spray helped a little but I got through a bottle on half a wall.
I tried just pure elbow grease. After 20 minutes attacking with a scraper I'd removed a patch about 5cm square, and hated every second of if. Figured at he rate I was going this would take approximately 20 hours of scraping. Eventually decided to go to Screwfix to buy a steamer. But the journey took a little longer than expected.
flickums suggested going into Altrincham to look around. We did. She got distracted by books. WE both got distracted by DVD shops (I bought a bunch of cheesy action films - including that 80's classic The Final Countdown).
So after all that, we didn't get back until almost 5:00pm. And I still had wallpaper to scrape.
So I set to work. An hour later, I was running out of accessible paper to remove.
Next day I bought a set of spanners,and set to work removing the radiator to get behind there. The largest spanner was too small... I went back to Wickes and bought myself a large adjustable spanner. Seems most of the DIY I've done in this place seems to involve driving to and from various DIY shops. But I now have a wallpaper free mancave!
Then went to the dump with Flickums to get rid of all the scrapings. I take my girlfriend to the most romantic places.
And I removed the box for the phone socket! And the wire coming from that, and going under the carpet to nowhere. And the cable inexplicably coming in from either the satellite dish or the aerial. And the threshold plate (inexplicably held on with two types of screw, one of which was inexplicably screwed in while bent).
Just need to remove the rest of the paint, and then I can finally start redecorating!
They also stuck paper over the walls. And the ceiling. Lining paper rather than wallpaper. It was a real pain to remove. Most of it came off easily enough. It was not put on well. However, there are a few sections that were impenetrable!
I tried soaking it. Rubbish! Chemical spray helped a little but I got through a bottle on half a wall.
I tried just pure elbow grease. After 20 minutes attacking with a scraper I'd removed a patch about 5cm square, and hated every second of if. Figured at he rate I was going this would take approximately 20 hours of scraping. Eventually decided to go to Screwfix to buy a steamer. But the journey took a little longer than expected.
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So after all that, we didn't get back until almost 5:00pm. And I still had wallpaper to scrape.
So I set to work. An hour later, I was running out of accessible paper to remove.
Next day I bought a set of spanners,and set to work removing the radiator to get behind there. The largest spanner was too small... I went back to Wickes and bought myself a large adjustable spanner. Seems most of the DIY I've done in this place seems to involve driving to and from various DIY shops. But I now have a wallpaper free mancave!
Then went to the dump with Flickums to get rid of all the scrapings. I take my girlfriend to the most romantic places.
And I removed the box for the phone socket! And the wire coming from that, and going under the carpet to nowhere. And the cable inexplicably coming in from either the satellite dish or the aerial. And the threshold plate (inexplicably held on with two types of screw, one of which was inexplicably screwed in while bent).
Just need to remove the rest of the paint, and then I can finally start redecorating!