House Update: Check Out The New Office!

 One of the rooms that we thought was going to be easy to fix up was the office. Sadly, this was just as deceiving as my sewing room. To look at the before photos, you would think you could just pull down the wallpaper and paint it, right?

Sorry the photos are such inconsistent colors - crappy iphone shots are all that I have from before. It was just painted plain, flat white with that hideous lovely wallpaper border. The wallpaper ended up being a blessing in disguise. Check it out:

They put trim both on top of and below the wallpaper :) We just needed to paint it all white = instant crown molding! Or so we thought. As I was pulling down the wallpaper, I discovered they had tacked it up with not wallpaper paste - but wood glue. Yep, you read that right. It was spotted with glue under the paper in certain spots I'm guessing to keep it up over time. Whatever the reason, it made it hell to get the paper off. We tried everything - water with fabric softener, a steamer, a scraper, a sander - nothing would get it off. I got so tired of trying to figure that out that I decided to just paint the blue and do the molding later. So here is the blue:

Before you ask - no it is not the same color as the bedroom. This is Valspar's Paradise Blue and this was Valspar paint - I bought it before I knew I didn't like Valspar paint. I really like the color. It's a bit more of a gray-blue than the bedroom.

The other day, I was up working with Justin and he had the idea to try this crazy heavy duty scraper - like the kind you use to scrape tile off a floor - and it worked! It took most of the glue and crap off along with the bumpy texture on the wall - double score! I just had to touch up a few spots with spackle and it was ready to paint. So, I started with a coat of Kilz Latex on the molding pieces, followed by 2 coats of Valspar's Ultra White. The trim was still darker than the wall in between. So, I put on another coat of Valspar - still darker. I got so fed up that I did one more coat of Kilz and one more of Valspar and just called it done. Seriously - that's 6 coats of white paint - 2 of which are primer! I absolutely hate Valspar paint now (if my mind wasn't totally made up after the other two rooms) and I wouldn't use it again if they gave it to me for free.

Anyway, after we finally got the white looking white, I touched up with the blue et voilà!

Here is how the office looks now :) Not to toot my own horn, but I'd say it's a vast improvement. I do still have to paint the doors white and touch up above the entry way with blue, but those are all little things that I can do once we've gotten moved in, you know? We finished the paint on Wednesday night and then yesterday we moved in the big guy ...

This Ikea Expedit unit has moved with us a few times now and it is a beast to move! This baby is why we wanted to finish the paint in the office - we didn't want to have to move it once it was in place. It has 2 desks that attach to it as well and I'm really excited to get it all put together.

So, one more down! It's a miracle! And now my condo has gone from still comfortably livable to a complete disaster when we unloaded this shelf unit, so now I'm even more motivated to move (as if I needed any help with that). I can't wait to live in my house!