I am pleased to report that thanks to Mr. Big Food’s unrelenting efforts in a small space of 50 square feet and wall heights ranging from 8-10 feet the prison-striped wall paper is history!

As you may recall, there is no law (Yet? That I’m aware of?) forbidding home owners from affixing wall paper to sheet rock which has not first been primed or painted. And I’ll not be painting over wall paper. Daughter C. recommended steam– and hey!– if you have a now-previously very nice garment/drape/upholstery steamer you might as well put it to good use. Steam works remarkably better than diluted Downy Fabric Softener [insert trademark thingy]. There is one small problem, though.

No caption needed if you know what bare naked sheet rock looks like.

The original plan was to paint. There’s still paint involved in the revised plan, but it comes after the walls are textured

because when you texture walls, you don’t have to sand after you fix the gouges in the sheet rock.

After I’d sanded the bare naked wood door frames and mouldings, I was sort of tired of sanding. (Don’t forget, I just sanded all the bare naked wood in the half-bath.) Texturing it is!

Steam also works remarkably well to loosen Joint tape. [Let me remark here that if it sounds like I know what I’m talking about it’s due in large part to Bro. Mike.] Turns out that before I knew what Joint tape was, I’d managed to scrape away a whole Joint’s worth in the worst of all possible Joints–

that crazy Joint at the Corner of Door Frame & Wall.

 Repairing this Joint requires mesh sheet rock sticky tape (a technical term), dry wall mud, and a putty knife less than 1.5 inches wide. [Take that blogger, who wants to read < as a symbol that means something. Ha.]
 
It is true that whether by necessity, design, or desire a lot of folks out here in rural Mississippi tend to do things for themselves. We champion that can-do spirit. But of course, we don’t do all things all by ourselves. Sometimes we have to go to the hardware store. 

Here’s how that works.*

You walk in with a problem and some vague idea of what a solution might look like. Or you walk in knowing exactly what your solution looks like but no idea where it might be located in said hardware store and you are in a Gawd-Awful hurry to beat the school bus traffic. So you walk up to the counter and some nice fellow takes his sweet time finishing up a conversation on the telephone– not his cell phone, his telephone– and then asks, “What can I do for you today?” And you tell him what your problem/solution is and he steps from behind the counter and you follow him. There are always questions about particulars, and plenty of discussion– in the end, it’s your decision which of his three most likely options will work for you. So, of course, you have to talk about things. 

But when all is said and done, you walk out with a custom made less than 1.5 inch putty knife for 22₵.

No extra charge for two snips with the wire cutters.

~~
*Sometimes you have to grapple with the problem on your own and the best that the hardware store fellows can do is give support.