The Wall–ugly wall. It’s finally coming down!
It’s been almost a year since the day we first laid eyes on…THE UGLY WALL. We have asked ourselves over and over who would build such a monstrosity and WHY. Although it’s white in the photo above, when we moved in (11 months ago) it was a knotty pine–with a super-duper high gloss top coat on it. In all our naivete, we thought that maybe painting it white would make it better. HAH! It actually made it look bigger and bolder. It just sat there, taunting and torturing us with its ugliness. Oh, and did I mention that attached to the ugly wall is an ugly bench, shown below with its upholstered seat removed.
So, we stared at it (endlessly), whined, brainstormed and complained about it. We’ve challenged our visitors to come up with creative, DIY (read: cheap and easy) ideas on how to “fix it.”
Finally, I could stand it no longer. So, on this peaceful Saturday evening, with a light and fluffy snow floating down outside our window, I declared to no one in particular that I was “taking it down, folks!” With a hammer and a flat head screw driver, I began prying off the first layer of trim.
Before I even had time to break into a good sweat, my totally awesome husband, Peter (who has become quite an amazing DIY-guy) quickly got into the act and before we could say, “ugly Swiss Family Robinson wall,” it was down. Ahhhhh….what a feeling!! Have a look at what we found under the layer of pine (which was over a layer of dry wall)…
And this is just one side of the ugly wall. The other side is going to be even more difficult to tear apart because it’s over the stairs and harder to reach.
Well, the first step is sometimes the hardest. But, at least the next stage will be rebuilding and making it beautiful. So far, in our efforts to brighter and beautify, we have painted the previously dark brown walls a soft colour called Raffia Cream. I’ve also painted the front door and now just have the back door and adjacent closet to do. It really brightens up the entry ways. (By the way, our front door and back door face each other and form one large entry way. It’s pretty unusual, but our house is L-shaped and it really works).
I hope you will come back to see our progress. Tomorrow we’re off to see a play with my mom, so all tools are down for the next 36 hours. But, once Monday gets here…look out ugly walls!!!
And, these aren’t all of my etchings. There’s seaweed in one corner and a tropical fish in another. (They also etched masterpieces into the mirrors in the guest bathroom, too).
