Post 3: Scraping, Scraping, Scraping Wallpaper

The house, in the state I'd purchased it, had what I thought was one layer of wallpaper, a heavily textured, thick paper that was a creamy off-white (and super dirty after years of neglect).  Upon getting the keys, I could reach up pretty easily and just pull it down. It appeared that the walls underneath that had been painted red.  Here's a picture:

But no, the red was wallpaper too. It didn't pull down so easily, but after a bit of scratching, I could see the cream plaster walls beneath that.

Except that those cream plaster walls were a third layer of wallpaper.  After a bit of scratching underneath that, I saw paper, and I knew that was the last of it.

So one hot summer day, I started peeling every layer that I could, starting in the dining room.  Using my putty knife, some sections came up easily, others....not so much.  And nothing was getting up the paper stuck to the walls after the bottom layer, but I wasn't worried about that because I knew it would come off with water, vinegar, and other DIY concoctions I'd read about online.

Here are some progress pictures:

I've been super depressed about the state of the US and scraping that wallpaper became a great escape for me.  I went three weekends in a row, and a few weekend evenings, to scrape scrape scrape the dining room, and then the living room.  A wallpaper steamer borrowed from a friend helped with the really stubborn bits, but mostly it was me and my putty knife.

After all that scraping, and with the paper backing left behind, I simply sprayed small-ish sections with vinegar and water (and sometimes just water) to get the paper off. Here's are two videos:

Finally, though, allllll that scraping was done (on the first floor) and the original plaster walls are simply beautiful!  I'd never had or worked with plaster walls, and 108 years later, there they lay in all their beauty.  I was left with a handful of holes to patch or repair in some way, but by and large the walls were entirely savable.

A handyman I'd consulted early on advised me just to drywall the entire house, over the original plaster. I was convinced (and correct) that that was unnecessary.  And I'm all about architectural preservation whenever possible.  

The best part was finding this original pencil drawing, which struck me as very much James Thurber inspired:

There was no way to save him - he couldn't be chiseled out and where he is on the wall isn't convenient for artwork. But I plan to get some high-quality photos of him printed and framed in his memory.

I still have the two bedrooms upstairs to do, but that will come later.