Stripping

Ever started something and then thought, puck – wish I hadn’t done that?
I’m having that feeling all over the place since I started stripping off the wallpaper. It had to come off – all thick vinyl which was one clear reason for, oh, at least half of the damp problem.
‘I’d leave the lining paper on though,’ opined the builder. ‘It’s probably holding up the walls.’ Ho, ho, ho. What an amusing cove.
Trouble is, said lining paper was a bit tatty and snaggly and torn in places. Surely it would be far easier just to take off the lot?
I asked on Purplecoo about stripping machines.
‘Don’t bother,’ said Edward. Then added, ‘Wouldn’t take off the lining paper anyway. It’s probably….’
Holding up the walls. Yeah, right. Heard that one before.

It was a slack day. My deadlines were suitably far off and I had absolutely no inclination to do anything like as energetic as trying to rewrite the novel (for the nth time). So I thought I’d try just a corner. Dampened it down. Wandered off and lay on the bed, reading Bleeding Heart Square, waiting for the obligatory twenty minutes it’s supposed to soak. Gave up after five and went and dug at it with a scraper. Hurrah – a huge bit satisfying bit came flying off. It was lovely – I’d forgotten how much I love picking and peeling. One of my great sadnesses is that I no longer dare get sunburned – the sheer joy of peeling off bits of curly skin. I try to do it to Adrian (who stupidly still gets burned occasionally) but the misery-guts gets all antsy about it and pushes me off, saying I’m a skin vampire.
Anyhow, before I knew it, about six feet of lining paper was off the wall and in the bin liner. Then I hit problems. A lovely large bit swung off the wall and, yup, took several layers of plaster with it.

I knew the house was in a rotten state but I didn’t realise it was actually, well, rotten. I didn’t realise walls could move, sway, undulate, wobble. It’s like having Quatermass or the contents of his pit living behind your wallpaper.
Adrian was horrified. ‘Stop it,’ he said as I sliced into a juicy bit above James’ bed and showered the poor boy (who was in it at the time) in a snowstorm of 1970s plaster. But I can’t. I’m obsessed. I’ve done the bathroom, rampaged through the guest room, got halfway through the loo before getting bored and leaving it as it is really really tough (and I’ve done the bits you can reach while sitting on the pan). I’ve nearly done the upstairs corridor and am going great guns in James’ room.
James looked a bit worried. ‘I don’t think you should be doing that, Mum.’
‘It’s going to look bloody awful,’ said Adrian, holding up one finger to forestall my next sentence. ‘And don’t even THINK about saying that once the electrician has been we can decorate it.’
Ah. He knows me too well. ‘Once the electrician’s been’ has been my constant refrain for the last three or four months. Said electrician has gone AWOL following a holiday in Thailand (yes, the recession is obviously an unknown concept for electricians) and hasn’t replied to our increasingly desperate messages. There are rumours of nervous breakdowns, of marital disharmony but one can’t help but take it personally. Safe to say, the electrician isn’t coming any time soon and so we’re going to have to live with the results of my stripping mania. I had an idea.
‘People would spend a fortune getting a finish like that,’ I said, with a sweeping arm gesture at the mottled pink, white, grey and mould coloured wall I’d just liberated from its grey and brown floral paper. They looked unconvinced.
‘People where, Mum?’ asked James.
‘Er, people in….er, London….’ I said, and then picked up confidence. ‘An absolute fortune. In fact, you’re really lucky to have a wall like that. We shouldn’t paper it – it would be a crime. This wall could appear in World of Interiors…..’ Pause. ‘Well, maybe Living etc.’
‘But we don’t live in London and I want blue walls and James Bond strip lighting.’
Philistine.
I know I should stop. I should call a halt before the madness descends down the stairs and into the rest of the house. Before the whole house maybe gives up the ghost and quietly collapses into a heap of rubble. But it’s like some awful compulsion. Hell, I even find myself eyeing up the brand-new paper in the breakfast room.
The problem is that stripping walls (even when they have a propensity to come tumbling down while you’re doing it) is a mindless, delightfully physical task. There is a goal in sight and one can move towards it (either in niggly irritating little scrapes or broad sweeps of sogginess). When it’s done, it’s done. It’s hugely satisfying and curiously soothing – unlike the rest of my life. So, for the time being, I’ll carry on stripping, regardless of the carnage.