Time flies when you're...

Having fun? Are they sure about that??

SO over a year and half since our last post, and not a whole lot to show for it.

I mean, we've done a lot, just not on this house-- moved out of and rented out 2 other houses, mostly. But hopefully that's about to change.

Having bought the house about 2 years ago, we finally, finally, finally finished unpacking the boxes downstairs. And while all these boxes and trash were piled up everywhere, collecting dog and cat hair and dust, some things were easy to overlook. Like the wallpaper.

My house looks like a scene from The Shining. Without the flooding blood.

That wallpaper is so ugly. And if you look closely at that picture, you'll see all the seams peeling. Stains. More ugly than you can shake a stick at. It's the entire entryway/great room. The entire stairwell. I hate it so much.

The rest of the house is mostly wallpaper. A lot of it is the paintable kind. 

It's in pretty good shape. Not my favorite, but I can live with it. I can CHANGE it. I was hopeful that our previous owners simply loved wallpaper. I went to a spot the dogs had taken a liking to and peeked behind it...

Sigh...

That's a crack. Pretty sure I'm dealing with plaster. And cracked plaster at that. There's probably a bigger reason that they used wallpaper than simply being fans of the stuff. Judging by some other things that they did-- electrical craziness, cheap materials in the kitchen, painting over the ORIGINAL brass doorknob plates-- my vote is with them taking the easy way out. 

So here is the real question: what should I do?????

First I should say that large portions of the wall won't be easy to reach. They're really high up and over stairs. 

So I guess option one is to "repair" the seams and paint over it. As old as it is, though, I'm not sure how well the seams would restick. 

Options two and three are to remove it and either patch and paint, or replace with paintable wallpaper.

And depending on what kind of plaster this is (i'll add some better photos later), that will dictate what kind of paint, correct? What if it's lime? Is latex simply out of the question??

help...