The walls in our master bedroom suck.
Excuse my language.
Our house was a repo when we bought it, so the bank replaced most of this:
with beige. Lots and lots of beige.
(They left the pool tile and the kitchen linoleum that was done in these colors, however. Yes, they were amazing!)
There had been wallpaper in the master bedroom. The texture underneath the wallpaper was terrible—flaky and peeling. The wallpaper was removed and the walls were painted, but no texture correction was done first.
In one of my earliest bouts of home improvement (we’ve lived in our home nearly 17 years), Jeff and I re-wallpapered the bedroom in an attempt to cover the bad texture.
It was a heavy wallpaper, adding texture and a subtle color to the walls. I loved it.
However, over time, the seams started pulling away and we couldn’t seem to get them to stick down because the wallpaper was so heavy and the edges started curling.
In a desperate moment I might have used some glue to try to salvage the situation.
And, maybe it wasn’t wallpaper glue.
Don’t judge.
So, down came the wallpaper. It was time to finally deal with the original problem: the texture.
I got some bids.
I felt really good about the first bid I got, but it was a couple hundred over what I wanted to spend. Name brand company, I thought maybe it was priced a little high for that reason.
Then I found a local contractor through the paper who did small jobs on the side. Eh, he seemed fine for this job and the price was definitely more in line with what I was thinking.
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Fast forward to the result:
I really really hate extra-strongly dislike that guy.
Seriously, I would smack him upside the head if I knew where to find him, or remembered what his name was.
Just kidding.
Ok, not kidding. At all.
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I had started getting all of the wallpaper paste off the walls. It was a big job, so I asked him if I needed to get the rest of it off the walls before he came. He said no, the texture would cover it.
I asked him about the miscellaneous adherants (spell check says that isn’t a word, but I’m gonna stick with it) that “SOMEONE” might have used on those pesky seams, especially around the doors and corners.
He said, no problem, he’d take care of it.
(this isn’t him)
I was distressed when I first saw the uneven texture—where you could see the ghost of the old wallpaper texture.
I was even more distressed when I saw the lumpy results around the doors and in the corners. No prep had been done by him AT ALL.
I had him come back to fix a few of the most glaring problems, but he made it very obvious I was being unreasonable and inconveniencing him. Clearly, I hadn’t paid enough to warrant a GOOD job. I was done with him too by this time so I just sent him away.
I hope he doesn’t expect a positive YELP review.
Not that I knew what Yelp was then.
So, to punish his shoddy workmanship, and to wallow in the economy of saving a couple of dollars, I left the walls just like that.
No touch up.
No paint.
For two years.
Boy oh boy, I showed him!
Next up: what finally pushed me to paint the bedroom after so long and my thoughts on this question:
Why doesn’t the universe want me to have a pretty bedroom?
Of course, it might be another two months until I write that post.
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