The Wallpaper Wars Begin in the Master Bedroom

We started in the master bedroom because we figured we'd have to have somewhere to sleep, and it would be hard to do this room once we'd moved in.  (We didn't know when we started whether we'd be able to finish all the walls before we had to move in.)  Above is the rose madness that we faced in the bedroom.

Here you can see me at work peeling some wallpaper while Jamie takes a photo.  The "yellow" wall behind the wallpaper was another layer of stuff we had to remove.  Jamie did most of this work in December during the week while I was in Houston.  Here's another photo of me at work on the master bedroom:

We finished wallpaper removal on January 15, 2012.  I described it in an email:  "We finished stripping all the wallpaper from the main bedroom and Jamie has been getting it ready for painting.  The wallpaper removal is a two-step process. First you have to peel off the vinyl surface, which can at times be easy (a whole swath at once!) and at other times maddeningly difficult (only fingernail-sized pieces coming off at a time).  This leaves a yellow paper backing that is stuck to the sheetrock with paste. To remove this, we spray the walls with an enzyme compound that breaks down the paste, and then the backing can be peeled off easily."

Here's a view of the same wall from a different angle.  All of the wallpaper has been removed and Jamie has started repair work.  On almost all of the walls we worked on, Jamie had to do a lot of repair work and then several coats of primer and usually two coats of paint.