Removing Wallpaper

(Quick note: Our new house is great, perfect, lovely, fun, exciting, exhausting and all those things.)

Four rooms in our new house are "decorated" with wallpaper. The previous tenant, RIP, was kind enough to only wallpaper two of the four walls in each room (with the exception of the bathroom which positively needed all four walls "decorated"). We also discovered that underneath the wallpaper is a perfectly fine textured wall.

I'm on the record as being anti-wallpaper since 1987. I hate it. I think it adds nothing to a home and in fact should be erased from existence.

PROOF THAT I'M RIGHT: You might think it looks good now. You think to yourself, "Hey! I found some beautiful wallpaper that I could slap on my walls to give this room an extra kick!" You think, "Golly gosh, wallpapering would only take a little time and effort on my part, after which I can enjoy the fruits of my labor!" But what you are not taking into consideration is the fact that wallpaper, like all of us, gets old. Not only does it get old, but it yellows and stains and rips and begins to peel. In short, it eventually looks disgusting. Which means that eventually, you will have to re-wallpaper or take it down entirely. And trust me, you will rue the day you wanted to put up wallpaper once you're scrubbing off the adhesive for countless hours. Here's why:

Long ago, in a time before time when the universe was just a little baby, Satan was sitting alone in his room. Mom and dad had gone out for dinner and drinks with friends, giving Satan the run of the house. Nothing was on TV, so he went into his room and got into his pajamas.

Being of a certain age, parts of Satan's body were beginning to develop. When he removed his clothes, Satan noticed that a certain lump between his legs got all tingly. He touched it. Then he touched it some more. He touched it so much that before he knew it, an explosion of euphoria erupted from his loins. Hot, steaming liquid exploded out of him like lava from a volcano. He doused the walls, covering them in a slick, sticky paste. When it was all over, he looked around and realized the mess he had caused. He looked at the clock and began to panic. Mom and dad would be home in a half hour!

Satan burst open the linen closet, digging for old towels or rags. The only thing he could find were perfect, fluffy new towels! "DAMMIT," Satan said aloud, "Mom must've made a trip to Goodwill!" He rushed down the hallway and into the garage, where sitting neatly by the recycling bin was a stack of newspapers. He grabbed some and headed back into his room. A quick touch revealed that the goo was still wet. He hastily placed newspaper on the wall. Obituaries, comics, community news, national news, advertisements, sports, all of it soon covered his walls.

When mom and dad arrived, they found Satan reading The Hardy Boys: The Search for the Snow Leopard silently in his room. Noticing the new walls, mom said quizzically, "Honey? Why do you have newspaper on your walls?" Satan brightened up and walked excitedly to the nearest wall. "Waddya think? Cool, huh? I thought my walls could use an extra kick!" Satan waited for the inevitable line of questions, the probing, and the eventual persecution once he tearfully explained the real reason for the papered wall. Instead, his parents just gave each other a look and didn't seem to mind. His dad shrugged, "Well, it's something, I'll give you that," and they walked out of the room.

And that is the story of how wallpaper adhesive (and subsequently wallpaper) was invented.