We finally moved into our home for real once we got rid of the mattresses (ew) and cleaned a minimum of rooms for livability (2 bedrooms, a bathroom, the kitchen, and the dining room which, lacking any other furniture, also became the office/living room/lounge). Up until now I should mention with extreme gratitude that we’ve been welcomed into the home of my cousin Kelly and his lovely wife Brenda. In case you’re wondering, the lot of us have all been first-dose vaccinated 1
We’re pretty much in a daily routine of cleaning now. Even after the 9 hours of Wicked Clean PEC help the house is SO DIRTY. In the main bathroom, where you may remember one of the cleaning crew worked for 3 hours, I thought I’d tackle the disgusting corners of the floor and discovered that the grout and edging is not, in fact, beige…
Just need to clean this dirty corner. 
Nope! The entire border of the bathroom is supposed to be white.
I cleaned a bunch of dog slobber and grime off the kitchen door that faces the living room. I expected great things from this effort, so carefully documented before/after pics.
Before – dirty dirty 
After – what the … ? Is there a difference?
Well that’s disappointing. Maybe the back of the door will be more successful …
Nevermind.
The previous owner spared no expense in updating about a million windows to beautiful, energy efficient models from Landmark (the Home Solutions company, not the crazy cult you have to join if you work at Lululemon). Thankfully, they clean up super nice! Sadly, there are 32 of them. There’s also a sliding door that alone took at least 90 mins to clean.
Before 
After!
This is SO much filthier than it looks! 
Underneath the dirt I discovered a damaged sliding track. Thank you, renters!
The worst job of all time, however, is wallpaper removal. There is nobody here who wants to be paid to do that job. My efforts to find someone went something like this:
Attempt #1
Me: Hi, I have a nice big job worth lots of money to remove wallpaper from several rooms in my old century home and them paint the entire interior.
Contractor: No thanks. Wallpaper sucks and if your walls are plaster it could be disastrous.
Attempt #2
Me: Hi, I have a great job to paint the interior of my house, and in a couple of rooms in the newer part of the house there is some wallpaper over drywall, if you could maybe look at removing that?
Contractor: I don’t do wallpaper anymore, thanks anyway.
Attempt #3
Me: Hi, do you think you could paint a large part of my house? None of the rooms being painted have any wallpaper at all.
Contractor: I guess I could come by and take a look.
Sigh. What to do, what to do.
Three lies that I have told:
- I’m just 5 minutes away.
- No, of course Ryan Reynolds isn’t cuter than you!
- I will never take wallpaper off a wall again as long as I live.
Starting in on one wall plus a border. 
Seven hours later …
Next up: Do we secure a painter? Also, a gallery of nice pictures.
1 future readers: May of 2021 is wave 3 of a global pandemic that started 14 months ago. Ontario is in a provincial lockdown that means you can’t buy clothespins at the dollar store or play golf but you can buy clothespins at the grocery store and anyone in the home improvement industry can come and go as they please.
I am at a loss for words!
At least you are slowly proceeding, hopefully in the right direction!
It feels like a home now. With just some new toilets and grout cleaner, I would be prepared to wait out the renovators and painters.
I love the before and after pictures, especially the door and windows. Having been forced to work as a slave laborer cleaning door frames and windows in Spain, I can appreciate the finer points of extracting grime from tight corners etc.
Look forward to more pics!
OMG you make me laugh!
The only people that put wallpaper up have never had to take it down. There was one room in our town that I swear they crazy glued a picnic table cover on the walls. I finally broke down and rented a wall paper steamer. Still had to go over the room 2x. NO WALL PAPER AGAIN EVER!!
HAHAHAHA I can SO relate to this! I’m pretty sure they used contact cement to put up that stupid border …
Several rooms in my apartment have been wallpapered at least once. In the living room, there are 7 layers. I’m not the first to paint over it, but I also don’t mind ‘textured’ walls. 😉
Definitely an option!
Following all the horror with empathy and dismay. What a way to spend your first weeks in your new home. I’m glad you can find the time and energy to still write witty and entertaining posts about the experience!
Our whole house has either wallpaper or cheap panelling, and was last renovated in the 80s so it’s all variations of brown. Except the roosters in the kitchen. We’re slowing doing a wall at a time, hopefully more quickly this summer!
Hope the next couple of days goes well and you can leave everything in capable hands!