wallpaper revelations day 2
22 Jun 2019 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneWe spent quite a while scraping every layer off down to the wall itself (which is made of stretched thin cardboard called spännpapp in Swedish or pinkopahvi in Finnish) and we got alarmed that the cardboard seemed easy to accidentally damage in the process, and also we determined it would probably take over 7 days per room to strip all the wallpaper, and that's before we could finish the walls which still has to happen before electricity gets put back in... anyway, this drastic alteration in our projected timeline was terrifying and the possibility that the cardboard couldn't be saved seemed dispiriting.
So we quit for the day and did a bunch of research and have eventually determined that we can paint the walls as long as it's with all natural paint, and we don't have to remove every layer of wallpaper unless the painted one under the top layer turns out to be moisture-impermeable latex paint, because vapor permeability is important for this sort of house so the wallcoverings should be made of natural materials. If the paint is linseed oil as we hope, we will simply excavate out the electrical wires and then work on smoothing edges out, repairing it with scraps where necessary, and then cover it with that wallpaper that gives a smooth surface for painting on and paint it with natural paint (probably linseed oil, because I really want to try out some of the other ones and making a textured gesso surface sounds AMAZING, but these are high-traffic areas and chalk and tempera paints are water soluble, and traditional animal gelatin gesso is difficult to work with because of drying time apparently). If the paint is latex we'll have to strip it off of everywhere or else pull down the old cardboard and put up a new layer, and both of those things would be extremely irritating and time-consuming and hard work but not necessarily expensive.
Also we mocked up my idea for a kitchen island with masking tape on the floor and determined there's not nearly enough room for it after all, lol.
So we quit for the day and did a bunch of research and have eventually determined that we can paint the walls as long as it's with all natural paint, and we don't have to remove every layer of wallpaper unless the painted one under the top layer turns out to be moisture-impermeable latex paint, because vapor permeability is important for this sort of house so the wallcoverings should be made of natural materials. If the paint is linseed oil as we hope, we will simply excavate out the electrical wires and then work on smoothing edges out, repairing it with scraps where necessary, and then cover it with that wallpaper that gives a smooth surface for painting on and paint it with natural paint (probably linseed oil, because I really want to try out some of the other ones and making a textured gesso surface sounds AMAZING, but these are high-traffic areas and chalk and tempera paints are water soluble, and traditional animal gelatin gesso is difficult to work with because of drying time apparently). If the paint is latex we'll have to strip it off of everywhere or else pull down the old cardboard and put up a new layer, and both of those things would be extremely irritating and time-consuming and hard work but not necessarily expensive.
Also we mocked up my idea for a kitchen island with masking tape on the floor and determined there's not nearly enough room for it after all, lol.
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Date: 24 Jun 2019 07:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 25 Jun 2019 07:04 am (UTC)