When we first looked at our current home in Norfolk, we really liked the flocked wallpaper. It was very 1970s and we liked the 1970s, but as we started painting the other rooms, we realized the dining room was pretty "tired."The wallpaper had turned brown in some places. .

One of the first things we did when moving in (four years ago) was to take down the sheers.

Last year, I was able to replace the chandelier, and that improved the room a lot.

The matching sconces added some flair, too!

Best of all, this photo shows the detail on that 1970s wallpaper.

When I started pulling down the old blue wallpaper, it went very quickly.

In fact, it came off in whole sheets. Easiest wallpaper removal I've ever done. And boy oh boy, was it dirty. I was surprised by how much fine dust was trapped in all that flocking.

The walls in our 1962 ranch had never been painted (which was a surprise).

But the bigger surprise was that the walls were covered in wallpaper glue. That had to be removed before we could start painting. And that turned into a horrible mess. I used a combination of hot water and vinegar, but that didn't do much to break down the glue. At one point, I was ready to drop my sponge into the bucket and give up on the whole project. Ultimately, I washed the walls, I scrubbed the walls, and I used a plastic putty knife to scrape all that mess off. Probably 30% of the time invested in this project went to cleaning that gooey mess off the walls.

Once the wallpaper glue was gone, the project went much more quickly. And when the walls were primed, the room looked a whole lot better and brighter.

I love this shot because it shows our two ladders in the two rooms.

We painted from the ceiling down. I kept hoping we'd spill a gallon of paint on the tired blue carpet but no such luck. The cleaner the room looked, the worse the carpet looked.

Wayne painting the area under the chair rail. One year - to the day - that this photo was taken, he put a bullet in his brain. I still have no idea why he did this. None.

After sending this photo to a friend, I noticed how filthy the carpet was by the kitchen door (closed).

It was icky enough that I decided I could no longer stand it.

So I sliced it the 36-year-old carpet into bits and tore it up. And this is what I found under the carpet. The pad under the carpet had melded with the varnish in the floor, and left behind this awful mess.

Wayne Ringer went to work, pulling out 3,482 staples in the floor, and then spent another couple hours scraping the black goo off our red oak hardwood floors. It was pretty nasty stuff.

At the entrance to the kitchen, it looked really bad.

Two fellows from Kittrell Hardwood Floors (Portsmouth) showed up and once the big sander came in the house, things changed dramatically - in a hurry!

Donnie from Kittrell Hardwood Floors told us that the average oak floor can be re-finished a dozen times.

After the first sanding, he patched a few holes.

The entrance by the kitchen door cleaned up beautifully with only a few black dots left behind (where several hundred staples once resided).

A fun comparison between the spot at the kitchen door (before and after).

We had Kittrell come back three days later and put down a second coat of polyurethane.

When my eldest daughter heard that we'd done away with the blue flocked wallpaper, she was almost upset. But once she saw this photo, she said, "Okay, I have to say that looks pretty good." 🙂

And the sconces look mighty nice with the blue paint!

Still have a few spots to touch up here and there, but it's mostly done!

Looks pretty snappy!

Now we just need to put the furniture back.

All in all, a rousing success!

And Kittrell Floor Service (in Portsmouth) did a fine job!