One should not simply gloss over these things…
We’re soon to undergo a kitchen refurbishment that entails among the many other things you would expect:
- a wall to be knocked through;
- the replacement of two hot water cylinders and five (yes, five) cold water storage tanks by a single pressurised cylinder system;
- sunken LED lights to be fitted in the ceiling.
Naturally, we’re getting the professionals in, but we still have to do some preparatory work.
The plaster work around the knocked-through wall and the ceiling will need to be made good after the rest of the works are finished. That means we have to strip the existing wallpaper and ceiling paper back to the plaster before the professionals start.
That has been easier said than done. It turns out the walls had wallpaper on top of lining paper (no problem there) on top of lining paper on top of paint on top of wallpaper on top of some Victorian laquer on top of wallpaper, and then the plaster.
The lacquered layer has been particularly difficult to remove, but that pales into insignificance compared to the ceiling where we had textured paint on wallpaper on paint on lining paper. With no way to score through the textured paint, it has been hell to strip (with the job still unfinished as I write – three days solid work so far).
So, in ‘honour’ of all those DIY handymen that repeatedly paper or paint over the existing decoration instead of doing a PROPER job, I give you:
I’m not a DIY master
And progress could surely be faster.
But the problem I have
Is the handyman chav
That put artex on paper on plaster!
(rant over)
