Half-bath wallpaper removal

So last weekend I was in over my head full of different projects, middle of spring summer cleaning projects, and thought, 'I'm getting reaaallllyyyy sick of that wallpaper, why don't I try to rip it down?'

I started to rip it down and then another thought popped into my head,

'Eh, I don't really want to do this project right now.'

Too late, the wall already looked like crap because I ripped some wallpaper down, so here I was on a Sunday night needing to spend every minute after work for the rest of the week redoing my half-bath.

I researched all over online on how to remove wallpaper the easiest, fastest, cleanest way.  There's no other way to put it other than: wallpaper sucks.

I went out an bought DIF wallpaper remover, a scrapper, and some other supplies to get to work.  The top layer was coming off no problem, until I hit the one corner of the room.  I read this article online on "Painting over Wallpaper" and when it's acceptable to do so.  Many people say the only time you should paint over wallpaper is when you notice the wall is cracking underneath, and by ripping down the wallpaper you would have a reaallllyyyyy B I G mess.  Well, I came across that.  The wall was definitely a little crumbly underneath and I knew if the wallpaper came down, the wall was coming with it.

Alas, paint over the wallpaper.

Not-so-great-panoramic-before-photo:

You can read article after article online on how to paint over wallpaper, but I'm just going to tell you the way I did it.

Off to Home Depot we went to gather the following supplies:

                                 Clear caulk

                                 Spackle (the kind that goes on pink and dries white so I know when it's dry :))

                                 Putty knife (or whatever tool you are going to put the spackle on with)

                                 Paint (and paint supplies if you don't already have it)

To make a realllllyyy long story/tutorial short, here is what I did:

Monday & Tuesday nights: First I caulked a thin line along all the seams (wallpaper to ceiling and wallpaper to shelving).  Then.... spackled the entire wall surface that I planned to paint.  Yes, right over the wallpaper. (make sure you wipe and clean the walls first, and I would suggest taping off your trim prior to spackling.  I used blue painter's tape).

Wednesday night:  Sanded & painted.  I sanded the entire wall, wiped it down really good, and then went to work painting.  Make sure to remove the spackle tape and replace with fresh tape prior to painting.  I let the walls dry for 2+ days before hanging anything because it's been extremely humid.

The pink to white spackle is perfect for any woman person like me who is impatient and can't wait for things to dry.  Here is the wall while I was working away:

Finally, hallelujah.... my half-bath is complete.  Going with an extremely dark color (Chocolate Swirl) is ambitious and I read in some home decorating magazine once that it's GOOD to paint the smallest room in the house the darkest color.  Maybe I should have went with the deepest navy blue I could find... oh well that's another project for a different day ;)

And for the record, I hope you never have to deal with wallpaper.

As I've stated before, I hope the inventor of wallpaper is now bankrupt.  Just kidding.

Kinda... not really.