Front Entrance

So I have taken a break from the furniture mash-up because I am really stuck on how to finish the back of the bookcase and my husband and firstborn went to DC for a boys weekend to visit my brother-in-law.  So I found myself with a free weekend so to speak. I did have my girls so we decided to have a girls weekend. It involved drywall, paint scrapers and a palm sander. Pure Heaven, at least for me, probably not for a 3 and 8 year old. I did manage to have some fun girly time with them which I will always treasure in my heart.

As I said,  I am stuck on Big Blue, as I have affectionately begun to call the shelving unit for my son, I decided to tackle the front entrance of our home this weekend. I figured a 2x4 space could easily be scraped, painted and made fabulous in 48 hours and I would surprise the hubs with it as he has been wanting to do this for a while now.

So wrong on so many levels.

 Behold the befores.....

I actually loved this wall "tile" (looks like what linoleum might have originally looked like or at least its prototype)  and was going to copper foil it but the other corner is so cracked it was horrible.

Love this floor tile but not sure I should keep it since it is all cracked. I have a hard time parting with things that are indigenous to the house and this is all original tile. I think I'll try to find a way to clean it well first and see how it goes before undertaking that beast.

Here is the first problem......

The tile will not come off of the walls!!! The first wall I tried peeled right off and that is where I got excited and well, cocky. Never get cocky until you are all done, all of the walls. Then you can strut like a peacock but until then....just scrape your little heart out and be silently all aflutter at how well it is going.

The second problem.....It all began when I decided to strip the door frame to make it match the rest of the wood in the front entrance. They painted the door green and just the door frame wood green and left the rest a beautiful deep dark wood color. So I wanted it to match.

Green gone, now white

White gone, now yellow

Yellow not going anywhere, apparently applied with some form of vintage super glue that no solvent can dissolve. 

It is probably lead filled and thus I will need a a ventilator and a blow torch to remove it, well, heat gun  seein' as there is wood involved. Or I could just paint it white! Sounds a whole lot easier to me then more scraping. On the plus side, my biceps and triceps are looking tight!  

Stripping wood is so labor intensive, however,  I love it as it tells the homes life story. You can imagine how the layers speak to the layers of the family that lived there and how changing paint color may have coincided with a hang in the family. Much like how a weekend trip changed the look yet again of this lovely brick lady.

I do have a solution in my head to remedy the wall situation and if all goes well, I'll show you. Otherwise, this never happened.


Always being renewed,