Today we are continuing the entryway. Our entryway is a narrow hallway with a textured wall and paint that just makes the walls look dirty and yellowed. You enter our townhome straight into the stairwell. The stairwell is open to the third floor and there is a skylight on the ceiling. The stairwell and hallways also have this yellowish tint that looks dirty. It is definitely not my favorite color. The lighting is early1980s (I know this because it matches the lighting in the home that my parents built in 1979-1980). The ceilings are popcorn and the stairs are carpeted. The open stairwell leaves room for a lot of design possibilities, however the bank account does not. So we will do this part of our home step by step and try to find a balance between design ideas and budget. To further complicate things are the high points in the stairwell, requiring ladders or scaffolding to access, which is why I have lived for so long with the color.
Last weekend I suddenly had the desire to remove the popcorn ceiling in the entryway. It is a small surface area so good to start with. It scraped off easily. I suspect it had never been painted, so it required very little time and effort to remove. Unfortunately I do not think it will be that easy everywhere else. For one I painted the living room ceiling so I know the popcorn surface there will require more work to remove. Secondly there will be some work smoothing out the bumps and imperfections and given the size of the area, it will be a big job. Definitely a job for when I have more motivation, determination and energy. For now I will stick to the small entryway. It will be a high impact result since it is the first thing we see when we come home and the first thing our guests see when they come over.
After the ceiling texture came off so easily I decided to try to remove the textured surface on the wall. Ouch… not so easy. I tried warm water and warm water with vinegar but I think that just made it harder. So that was where I left it until yesterday. After coffee I decided to try again, scraping with my drywall trowel. It was a lot of work but it did peel off. Unfortunately it took the drywall paper off with it. We considered replacing the drywall versus repairing. But I hate the idea of the waste involved. It is not straight forward disposing of drywall, it is expensive, and the more that we can avoid producing waste in favor of reusing the better. I read once about rolling on thinned down joint compound to repair imperfections on walls. This seemed like a good occasion to check that out. So to google I went. After a bit of research I found several websites describing the process both for smooth walls and for repairs (I shared the ones I used below). I decided to give it a go. I spent a long day tearing off the remaining textured surface, scraping the bits of paper and sanding everything smooth in order to prepare the surface. Here are the results from yesterday:
Here is our narrow entryway with the textured wall removed as well as the majority of the first layer of drywall paper. The rough edges of the paper have been removed and sanded down. Today I will seal the drywall with a sealing primer. After that will be the “mud-rolling” steps. However it may take a bit before I get to that step. We will see. My bike trip with my mom is coming up next weekend! – stay tuned for that! The completion of the entryway may have to wait until we are back. Also, we need to get the dining room wall ready for the new custom cabinet which we are expecting soon… stay tuned for that project too!
The websites I found for wall repair and smooth walls:
https://homeguides.sfgate.com/repair-drywall-damage-caused-wallpaper-removal-41859.html