Master Bedroom Makeover

We have lived in our home for seven and a half years now (does time even have meaning anymore?) Having purchased a fixer-upper time capsule of a house, we have been working sporadically – when funds, energy, and time permits – to renovate the house. Some of that has been boring but necessary work on electrics and plumbing but I much prefer the decorative updates.

The master bedroom was arguably the worst room in the house when we moved in. Guests used to actually gasp and laugh at how horribly ugly it was. However, it was put on the back burner because it was not a public room and, of the private spaces, the boys’ bedrooms were a higher priority. Then a number of other projects jumped the queue because of disasters (the basement) or because things were starting to break down (the bathrooms and hallway). This meant that the master bedroom remained a brown box with every literally every surface being covered in thick textured wallpaper – what we disparagingly referred to as the “hairy walls”. It was so thick that one of our cats used to be able to climb the walls. We have tried every method and combination of methods to remove the wallpaper but without success. Finally, this Winter, it was time to banish the horrid décor of our bedroom and make it a more comfortable, calming, and less embarrassing space.

The solution to the major wallpaper issue turned out to be not removing it at all. The options were to remove the walls and start over or to place a layer of thin plasterboard / drywall on top of the existing walls. Since it was cheaper and quicker to do the latter, that was what we opted for. So, years from now, someone renovating our home will find a layer of crazy wallpaper as a hairy sandwich layer in the bedroom walls. Frankly, the room looked a hundred times better even when it was raw plasterboard but some new carpet and a fresh lick of paint made it feel like a much nicer space. The room is still a work in progress (I will, for instance, be painting the window frames this summer) and the curtains were a compromise (I wanted midcentury modern fabric but curtains of the size required were out of our budget for now) but it is wonderful to have a room we can actually relax in now and that actually feels more like “us”. The bonus is that my husband can now attend on-camera meetings without having to blur the horrible background.

Spider-Cat and the ’70s Wallpaper

Other than our “vintage” bathrooms, by far and away the renovation job Mr Pict and I most dread and which we will probably procrastinate over for at least an eon is the wallpaper in the master bedroom.  This is no ordinary wallpaper.  This is 1970s grass wallpaper, all murky browns and hairy texture and all adhered to the wall using the toughest glue imaginable.  That would be quite horrendous enough but the previous owner had wallpapered every single surface in the room: every wall, every door, the light switches, and the air vents.  It is like being in a forest of hairy wallpaper and not in a cosy fairytale either.  We console ourselves with the fact that at least it was 1970s brown that was chosen and not bright magenta.  That would be much more difficult to live with while we decide how to problem solve the wallpaper horror.

So we hate the wallpaper in our bedroom but it turns out we know someone who loves it: Peanut the kitten.  Peanut is mischievous and likes to explore.  He likes to do parkour using our furniture.  Turns out, he also loves to scale walls that are covered in hairy 1970s wallpaper.  To Peanut, our bedroom is essentially a really large scratching post.  The first time I discovered this new activity of his, I saw it out of the corner of my eye and thought I was imagining things.  But, no, my cat was scaling the walls, Spider-Man style, and was then shuffling around the ceiling level of the room like a Bat-Crab.  If Bat-Crabs were a thing.  Maybe Peanut will somehow manage to remove the hideous wallpaper for me.

PS I still don’t have a working camera (*sob*) so that is my explanation for the cruddy phone photos.