Overhaulin' in Tully

Whenever we go on a wallpaper removal job, people often ask us, "Do you really like taking wallpaper down?" To which we simply reply, "Yep!" It’s crazy, I know, but we really do. I think because it’s a challenge, that and we are always curious about what lies behind it.

We have found covered doorways, which once led to other rooms, we have found windows (or the box of one) that have long since been spackled and sheet rocked over.

Some paper comes down like butter, some we pick at for hours only to remove one tiny piece, so removing wallpaper presents us with a new challenge every time. It isn't as predictable as painting and you can’t mess it up. To make us seem even crazier...Maggie, actually likes prep work! I mean who likes prep work? "Maggie!" She takes great pride in spackling, sanding and finishing off a wall, so that when the paint goes back on, it looks like new.

Maggie must have been in heaven then on our job in Tully. Not only did we have to do A LOT of wallpaper removing, she had to do A LOT of prep! Each room was covered in (some rooms many) layers of vintage paper. Although wallpaper was all the rage back in the day, more often than not people put up wallpaper to cover unsightly walls. That said there usually is a lot of prep work lying underneath the paper. On this job, that reasoning applied. Armed with her trusty putty knife and bucket of spackle, like Michelangelo, she carefully slathers the wall. Personally, I hate the feeling of sandpaper and sheet rock, it freaks me out, but not Maggie, she'll sand for however long it takes to get that patch looking like the actual wall.

This project was so big...I will have to do it in two separate blogs...so while your anxiously waiting for the sequel check out the work we did in the two bedrooms, office and downstairs hallway!

Metallic Stripes

One of our specialties is Stripes! Okay, perhaps you think we're crazy, but it is! And we do them well, I may add! The trick to good stripes is first the obvious, straight lines, but second, is good tape. We have tried all types of paint and Frog Tape (http://www.frogtape.com/) works the best. It gives you the least amount of bleeds, and that means less touch ups. Plus, it comes in this great little container, which prevents everything in the world from sticking to the outer edge of the tape roll.

Maggie has several "T-squares" that she has created in various widths (4,6,8,10 inches) which is what we use to measure out the stripes,  as opposed to a ruler, because that way we insure the stripes will all be completely even (sometimes if you measure with a ruler, after 40 stripes you can get sloppy and be off an inch or so every stripe leaving the last stripe to be 5-10 inches wider than the rest of your stripes). But honestly...you have to have a really good "eye" because believe it or not, all walls are NOT straight! That's when you have to create a Trompe L'Oeil (fool the eye) of sorts. Although, not a mural as most Trompe L'Oeil, it's the same premise; you have to fool the eye, in other words if it looks painted it is! If you have to flare out the line at the bottom a bit to make it “look” straight to the naked eye, you need to do that instead of going by the actual measurement.

With all that said its best when you have two people working together simultaneously. Maggie usually marks, we both tape, and I use my "eagle eye"

For this particular job we had to prime the walls, because we were going from a hot pink to cream. Then we applied 3 coats of creamy white paint to the walls (white to the ceiling) and completely let it dry overnight. The paint must be completely dry before you tape off your stripes, otherwise you will take half the base coat with you when you peel the tape off at the end, and that's never a good look, trust me. So, the next day it took us about four hours to plot out the stripes, and then we started painting them. Metallic paint is fairly translucent so it took about 6 coats of metallic gold to reach the level of intensity that the customer desired, the good thing is without a glaze added to the metallic paint (sometimes you do that for a different faux effect, it allows the paint to stay wetter longer so that you have more time to manipulate it) it dries faster! Again its important to let it dry over night, this gives you the crispest line.  When the paint is still wet and you peel the tape you get far more "bleeds" (paint that has seeped or been pulled under the tape) or actually dislodging of the paint. Bottom line, you can get one big mess. Hint: once tape is up feather the paint along the sides of the tape, let dry, then go back in with your juicy roller.  The feathering sort of seals the areas around the tape line creating a block.

The end result was very classy. Now, you know why we love doing stripes, because they look so darn good in the end!