Kitchen Update: New Countertop

I've got new granite countertop at Lowe's. It was about $2500 including installation and the cost of ripping out my old countertop. My handyman did all the plumbing work because Lowe's charges too much. I was without my kitchen for 3 weeks and was getting tired of washing forks and knives in the bathroom but it was worth it.

Before

After

New countertop & new sink

My Weekend

Friday night. Painted trims in the entrance foyer.

Saturday & Sunday. Dug two shrubs out. There were the last ones. Hooray!

Thank You, Refrigerator

I've finally replaced my refrigerator. My old one came with the house and it looks like it is at least 20 years old. Maybe 30 years old. Is that possible? It is Sears's Coldspot model that was discontinued in 1976. Hmm.

I bought new one at Lowe's and took advantage of free delivery & haul away service. The delivery guy from Lowe's disassembled my old refrigerator and took it to outside. When he did that, he threw my old refrigerator door on the ground like it was a piece of garbage. I know it is just a garbage to him. But I was sad to see that. My old refrigerator has been good to me and kept my drinks cold.

Because I was so used to my old one, when new one came, it wowed me. It's so spacious inside and all the shelves are solid. I don't have to worry about shelves falling down when I put something heavy. Wow.

Old one.

New one

It's spacious inside.

Removing 70's Wallpaper: Part 2

After spending two weeks on the wallpaper removal project, I was left with the damaged wall (pictured below).

I was thinking I might have to hire someone to put a heavy wallpaper. The estimated cost for hiring someone to do that was $300. Ouch. But my handyman told me that I need to sand the wall and prime it. He said he would fix damaged areas after I prime the wall. I hate sanding but I had no choice.

Sanding prep. It's going to get really messy!

Sanding prep.

Before sanding. Already very unhappy about the task ahead.

The wall after sanding & priming. It looks so much better.

My handyman & his wife suggested that I could do textured painting and avoid wallpaper. Brilliant. I searched online and saw "faux painting". There are different kinds of faux painting. Sponging, ragging, colorwashing, frottage, dragging, etc etc. I went to the home depot and a nice painting guy there said sponge painting is definitely easier. I thought I liked the look of frottage but I didn't want to mess it up so I decided to go with sponging.

This is the after the first coat of sponging. The painting definitely hide the damage of the wall. And the wall looks "interesting" but not so great. The wall somehow made me think of virus in a petri dish.

So I went for the second coat of sponging. It looks better. kind of.

After.

By the way I can't really recommend sponge painting. It takes forever. I was sponge painting until 2AM. Great way to spend my Friday night.

Removing 70's Wallpaper

This project was pure nightmare. I finally decided that I had to do something with the ugly wallpaper in my entry foyer. Foyer was covered with this weird grasscloth type wallpaper. It might work if the wallpaper wasn't damaged and the house is Japanese style. But my wallpaper was damaged badly in some places and there is nothing Japanese about my house.

I thought I'd just remove it and paint the wall. Well, nothing is ever easy in my 70's house. First, I had to remove grass-looking thingy. It was so hard to remove when it was dry. But when I sprayed with water, it came off easily. I wish I'd done that from the beginning.


Then here comes the difficult part. How do I remove the paper under the grass-cloth thing? The answer is "I don't know" because the wallpaper wouldn't come off! First, I tired Diff in a blue bottle. Then tried Diff in a red bottle. The used Paper Tiger & Diff. Nope. Dishwasher soap and hot water. Nope. Vineger and hot water. Nope. Nothing works. When I tried to remove the wallpaper, I kept ripping the sheetrock paper and damaging the wall.

Hello and welcome to the wallpaper hell

When I searched on the internet, someone said covering the wallpaper with plastic sheet helps removing old wallpaper. So I sprayed Diff and covered area with a garbage bag. I also tried food wrap. Okay, maybe little better. But it didn't really make big difference and certainly not worth the trouble of covering the wall with plastic sheet.


I even discovered the older wallpaper under the wallpaper I was removing. Yay, freakin' yay.
I worked on removing wallpaper every day after work for 2 weeks. In my opinion, dishwasher soap and Diff didn't make any difference. Actually, because Diff is more expensive and dishwasher soap smells better, I prefer dishwasher soap. I

f you are fighting with stubborn wallpaper like this one, I recommend spray wallpaper with dishwasher & hot tap water mix. Wait 10-15 minutes. Come back before it dries out and spray the mix again. Wait about 10 minutes and then remove wallpaper while wallpaper is still wet.

To be continued...