Lost Post: The Magic of Wallpaper

A while ago, I was talking with a colleague who informed me that she had hired someone to hang her wallpaper. I have to admit, I snickered. After all we've been through at Humphrey House, what with the smashing and sistering and building and installing, the idea of paying someone to do something as simple as decorating my walls with some pretty paper seemed a waste of money to me. When the time came that I decided to try my hand at wallpapering, I was pretty confident it would be no big deal.


The space I wanted to wallpaper was fairly small – just one wall in a hallway, an accent wall if you will. About 18 square feet total. A simple project, one that no doubt I, with my super-amazing-ninja-like home improvement skills, could handle by myself in a Saturday afternoon. Plus, I had a vague memory of assisting my mother when she hung the strawberry vined wallpaper in our dining room when I was six. I was sure to be a natural.

I’m a humbler girl now.


My dad Kenny, my brother Brian and his girlfriend Megan were all visiting for a few days. And anyone who’s spent more than five minutes with Kenny knows that about 5 minutes of inactivity is about all he can handle. So whenever he comes for a visit, we better have a project ready. I figured Dad could give me a few pointers for the wallpaper hanging, and then he and Brian and Jay could work on the porch outside. Meanwhile Megan and I would, naturally, be finished with the wallpaper in record time and spend the rest of the afternoon lounging and eating cookies and watching movies.

Is everyone out there in blogland snickering to themselves yet? You should be.

Over the course of four hours we worked on that wall. And I discovered that, in addition to not being a natural at wallpapering, Megan and I should never be left alone in charge of a project together. While I really like her, probably the most of all the ladies he’s brought to meet me, Megan and I are NOT meant to work together. Unless it’s on a sitcom or horror movie, with a fully staffed cleanup crew to look after us. Within minutes of Kenny leaving us, we had spilled the water from the tray, debated vociferously about the importance of the butterknife’s presence in said tray, gotten paste all over the trimwork and spilled paint on the floor. And that was just the first 10 minutes!

It was, in short, a nightmare. One that Kenny had to rescue us from. He took over the project after coming inside to find us cleaning paint from our feet and the wallpaper literally pasted to the floorboards.

Did I mention the humbler part?

The next time I decide to wallpaper any part of my home, I am hiring a pro. Or changing my mind immediately and heading to the store to buy some nice faux paint. Because while the finished product is lovely and adds a nice accent, I prefer the illusion that my home improvement skills are top-notch, not bottom-rack.

Where the heck is Humphrey House?

We've been noticeably absent for a month or two from updating our blog. I'm starting to feel quite guilty about it, but the fact is there hasn't been a whole lot of time to write.

We've been busy with a wedding of our close friends Scott and Julie, hosting family, coordinating a 10k race, studying for the LEED AP, teaching classes, and occasionally, Jen and I have actually been able to have a date nite with one another!

Sadly, there are many stories about some of our recent house work that is just waiting to be told - and we have the photos to prove it! We'll have to get back on our blogging horse soon. In the meantime, be comforted to know that we haven't forgotten about humphrey-house.com; life has just gotten in the way a bit lately.

Humphrey House Musings ...

"His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all."- Tolkien

This past weekend, Humphrey House was host to eight members of my family who had come to town for a wedding, almost all of whom have at one point or another worked on the house. Then on Sunday, we had about 25 people over for a "morning after" brunch. And it was just lovely to have everyone there. Of course, the kids were disappointed you couldn't write on the walls anymore ... but it was great to know that the chances of them running headlong into an errant dremmel tool or accidentally knocking over a can of paint were slim to none. And everyone seemed to love the house too. They were all very interested to see the exact spot where Scott had fallen through the ceiling - but they had to use their imagination, since we finally (two years later) have patched up that hole. All in all, it was pretty cool to sit and enjoy the house with our family and friends. I am starting to look forward to Thanksgiving, which will be our first time hosting it with our family. Bring on the Turkey!

Green Home Tour Redux

Despite Chicago receiving a record-breaking rainfall last Saturday, we finally had our Green Home Tour. After weeks of preparation, it was great to finally take a step back and take in what we accomplished, and show off our home to the 60+ people that came through to learn a bit about green building.

Looking back at where we were a month ago, I'm amazed at how much work we were able to get done in preparation for the tour. We'll detail most of these projects in upcoming blog entries, but here's the quick hitlist: Exterior painting, stucco painting, replacing broken glass and re-puttying our porch windows, interior staining and sealing of our kitchen trimwork, wallpapering, major ceiling and wall repairs to the dining room (and adding a tubular skylight), installing an arts & crafts stair banister, and putting together a rough landscape in front of our home. Wow.

In particular, the exterior painting turned out to come down to the wire. We had finished painting on Thursday, but it started raining that night and didn't quit until the day after the tour. This made it quite difficult for the paint to dry. In fact, two hours before people were scheduled to show up, Kenny was helping us dry the paint of our front steps using Jen's hair dryer. We had tented off the steps to prevent them from getting wet for two days, but there was just too much humidity in the air. It's amazing what a hair dryer and a little patience can accomplish! As always, Kenny deserves a big shout out for all the help he gave us to prepare for the home tour.

And for all of you wondering how our colors on the house turned out, we managed to snap a photo during a brief break in the rain on Saturday. Here's before, and now our house looks like this:


I also wanted to summarize some of the things we pointed out about our green home. Thanks to Michelle at Seven Generations Ahead for organizing this list and producing a nice tour program for our home and the others on the tour. I'm sure it will be a great resource for the visitors and their future green remodeling. Here is Humphrey House's "green" resume:

Energy Efficiency

• Over 40 CFL's in the house
• Soy foam insulation in gutted walls
  
• Blown-in cellulose insulation in existing walls
• Daylighting tubular skylights
• Tankless water heater
• PowerZoning air recirculation
• Market-based electricity pricing
  

Water Conservation

• Rain barrel
  
• Low-flow plumbing fixtures
• Low water usage laundry machine

Healthy Air Quality

• Low VOC paints
• PhotoHydrolonization (PHI) cell air purifier
• Zodiaq recycled content / low VOC countertops
• Reclaimed flooring

Resource Efficiency

• Salvaged vintage doors
• Salvaged appliances
• Reclaimed windows

Rapidly Renewable Resource

• Soy foam insulation

Locally Sourced Items

• Soy-based paint stripper
• Oak trim from regional forests

So, that's the virtual Green Home Tour of Humphrey House in a nutshell. We don't have some of the fancy "green bling" such as solar panels (yet), but we like to point out things that show that living or remodeling green doesn't necessarily have to cost a lot of green.