The Story of a Wall ...or, Expectations Adjustment 101

This is the story of a wall.

It looks so non-threatening in this picture. Don't be misled. That's about 5 hours of frustration there.

Not THE Wall (although I have been known to say Hello? Hello? Is anybody in There? rather too often). 
 

Just A wall. 

Well, technically 6 walls.

Six walls with a carefully applied wallpaper border. And navy blue paint with white stars. And light blue above the carefully applied wallpaper border.

See, back in January I had Ambition. Ideas. New Year’s kind of goals.  Remember that? Ok, since one of those goals was “blog more often”, and I made that happen all of twice, this wasn’t such a long ago post. 

Ugh.

But I am STILL determined to keep chipping away.  This wall (walls) represent starting.

The room is VERY small. You would think this would speed the process along. Not so much.
 

I have used an exacto knife, a scoring tool, 2 chemical wallpaper removers, extra strength vinegar and water, a sponge, a spray bottle, a spackle knife, and an actual wallpaper scraper thingie (which despite my resistance to paying $8.39 for a plastic thingie, actually does work the best).  Me vs. the Wallpaper was not a pretty battle, and now my son’s room smells vaguely like Italian dressing or Easter eggs, even though I haven’t worked in there in two plus weeks.  I just haven’t had time with my work schedule. 

note the oozing detritus of my despair falling upon the stars. Gah.

 

BUT I STARTED.

Yes, it’s April. Yes, there is still an awful lot of glue stuck to that wall.  Yes, I need to get brillo or something to get the rest of the scunge off the rest of the wall. 

BUT I STARTED. After 2 years of wanting this to happen, I started.  And instead of being demoralized by the fact that global warming is happening faster than I am taking the baseball wallpaper down from my now college-age-son’s walls, I am trying to at least muster a feeble woohoo!  for getting started.

Admittedly, this is lame. But instead of Pinterest-y photos of all the creative huzzahs I’ve gotten done, I’m keeping it real, AND trying to not get too down for the pace of this LONG overdue project.

Also, I had to convince the dog that tiny scraps of wallpaper wafting down are NOT in fact a snack.

Adjusting my expectations is honestly an ongoing project for me in EVERY ASPECT of my life, to be honest.  Expectations are killer in so many areas.

But getting started is a win, even if it’s not “finish the now 18 months late wedding sampler” or “finally sew those old shirts into a memory quilt” or “paint something!”  or “write poetry again”.   Scraping wallpaper IS a win, because I am so often paralyzed by my expectations into doing nothing except wandering in circles. 

I do have to say, as someone who finds it hard to part with things from my children’s childhood, about 10 minutes of hacking away at the baseball players (one of whom looked weirdly like Mark McGwire, obviously BEFORE we knew he was Captain Steroids…and another who looks like A Rod…hmm)…10 minutes and my nostalgia was covered in minute particles of sticky paper and unpleasant thoughts about how Pinterest was a FAIL on telling me how to get this stuff down.

Now I have a speck of a hope that maybe, MAYBE over the next month I can actually have the room prepped (oh, the spackling I still have to do, and priming…) and THEN finally paint it some neutral clean color. Just in time for Mr. Biohazard to come home for the summer.  Sigh.

So the wall(s) are my story for today. I finally started this project that has been bothering me for 2 years. Ok, so we were a little consumed with other stuff over a lot of the last 2 years, but getting started on these walls (and thus on transforming this into a more grown up room for my son) is my win. It’s not pretty, it’s not creative, but it’s the win I have.

Now if I could just get things together enough to wash my rugs…stay tuned for THAT exciting post. ;)

(and note of disclosure, even THIS post was written for a week before I managed to upload the picture of said wall...ergh)