The Vintage Reader

I've been feeling a fair amount of house guilt ever since reading this post the other day. We haven't done have that much, and we've had our house twice as long. So late yesterday afternoon I decided I could no longer live with the peeling wallpaper in the entry hall, and Mr. Vintage Reader and I went out to the hardware store to buy wallpaper removing gel and some paint that ended up being soooo the wrong color. But the wallpaper remover was excellent, and we got the red 80s-country-patterned wallpaper off. And unintentionally, also the paper tape that was apparently holding the plaster to the wall in one corner.

So this morning (yes, Easter morning) we went back and exchanged the paint for a lovely shade of yellow courtesy of Martha Stewart, and also picked up some patching plaster and self-adhesive mesh joint tape.

I love this stuff. I ended up repairing not just the corner where the paper tape had been, but two other corners that were cracked, as well as some fairly large holes in the plaster that apparently were papered over previously. We're letting it dry overnight, then tomorrow we'll sand it and prime it, and paint it later in the week. I can't believe we've put this off for so long--patching plaster really wasn't as big a deal as I thought it would be. Next project: the hallway, where we discovered some MAJOR cracks when we peeled off the awful pastel 80s-country-patterned wallpaper.

Which reminds me: what on earth would possess not just one, but TWO previous owners to decorate a 1920s American Foursquare (with Arts and Crafts influences) in 80s country??