Similarly, we're on the verge of getting on and replacing the kitchen, and part of this will involve new flooring, which will also run through the hallway. That's great, but I don't want to be painting the skirting boards in the hallway once the new floor is down, so I need to paint the skirting boards first. Except the line between wallpaper and skirting board is somewhat blurred thanks to years of overlapping paint - so if I paint the skirting boards now, and strip the woodchip later, it's more than likely that I'll peel the new paint (plus layers of old paint) off the skirting board.
And so, that is why I am currently stripping the woodchip from the hallway, despite never anticipating this being a priority!
I've been back stripping (!) for a few days, and have now removed everything from downstairs up to the first step on the stairs, which is all I really need to do to enable me to paint the skirting boards. There's still a patch behind the radiator, which I'll do when it warms up a bit and I don't mind turning the heating off!
Some photos:
Woodchip!
Most of the hallway stripped back to the yellow paint:
In progress:
Chaos:
Ridiculous relocated light switch... think we'll just move this back...
Catastrophic mess on the corners by the stairs. Not even sure what's going on here, it seems to be some sort of double strip of plasterboard used as edging instead of corner tape or metal corner strip... the heat and moisture from the steamer has...er... wrecked it.
We were umming and ahhing about whether the hall, stairs and landing would need skimming, but I think they will... the walls are quite a mess from the woodchip, so we'll just have to suck it up.
First, though, I need to employ someone to strip the wallpaper where it's out of my reach...!
