With all of the snow that accumulated on the roof in Jan. 2011, there was
enough weight to cause a "flexing" problem in my front entranceway hall.
Basically visible in the first and second photos.
The brown part is wood; to the left, I believe there is a concrete block.
There is definitely concrete block at the top of the wood. The room adjoining
it with various stuff stored in it (including the shop-vacuum) used to be
driveway until the house got modified. The flexing caused the wallpaper to
tear. I searched (various websites + even a specialty wallpaper store in my
area) to find the existing pattern to see if I could repair the problem simply
with a replacement of the torn wallpaper. Unfortunately, I could not find
that particular pattern anywhere. Which meant it was time to strip off the
old paper, and figure out what to do. In the end, I decided to repaint with
the same color that is in my TV room.
Some interesting discoveries. Photo 3 shows three different layers of wallpaper
two of which were hidden behind the molding around the door, including
faux knotty pine. Ugh.
It turns out that wallpaper can hide a lot of minor divots that are visible
when the surface is bare.
Once I managed to steam all of the old wallpaper off, and smooth things out,
and replaced the light switches & covers & repainted, I realized I
might as well refinish the baseboards and floor. The baseboards were easy,
but refinishing the floor required a new 20A dedicated circuit, as the sander
I have pulls more than 15 Amps. But now that I've acquired the floor sander
and installed a dedicated 20A circuit, I can refinish the rest of the floors
at a realistic pace without having to spend a pile of $$$ on floor-sander rental.
walls painted, lightswitches replaced
but molding still not back in place
Floor refinished, molding back
A final photo of the hallway with furniture/artwork needs to be taken, once
I get a replacement table.