Circa-1860's Farmhouse in Indiana

[Blue Farmhouse]

Thanks, guys. We started to remove some of the wallpaper in the master bedroom and were surprised to find drywall under it. We thought it would be plaster like all of the other rooms. Think again, I guess! It became a mess real fast with the wallpaper steamer. We've left that room alone since then, but it's funny you should mention just trying to remove the wallpaper because that's exactly what I did on Friday in the dining room (which is more like a second living area for us). There was a little edge peeling off, and I pulled on it just to see what would happen. The entire sheet peeled off. I kept going. That led to removing the cheap wood trim that was under it. That led to exposing the chimney. And, as you can imagine, this has turned into a huge project literally over night, but I guess we needed to start somewhere.

[Sow's Ear Mal]

I removed all the old wallpaper from my tongue/ groove pine ceilings. (sore neck for days) A few little stubborn bits remained but I sanded them smooth and then primed the surface with an acrylic primer. Big mistake! All those previously well adhered hold-outs came loose with the water based primer. I had to scrape them all off, wet with paint. I used a shellac primer after that (BIN) and it was fine. I'm helping my son paint some wall papered walls next, going to use fast-dry oil-based Cover Stain.

[Powermuffin]

I am glad that you are tackling the wall paper. Subsequent owners will thank you for not painting over it!

We also removed many, many layers of wall paper. I am so glad that I did this. The plaster had never been painted and was relatively easy to patch and paint. I love wallpaper, but I am too fickle to have it; I would always find something that I liked better. Painting over paint suits my purposes.

I love your home. I also love that old porch; what a shame that it was torn off. Keep us posted with your progress and welcome!
Diane

[Blue Farmhouse]

Thanks for the welcomes!

I wish someone had repaired our house correctly a long time ago. It looks like whenever something went wrong, more layers of wallpaper, paint, or wood paneling was added to try and cover it up. I can't even count how many layers of wallpaper there were in the dining room, but we're tearing the plaster out of that room, the downstairs guest bedroom, and the family room anyway because it's just horrible. (That also gives us the opportunity to run new electrical and add more outlets.)

I chipped the rest of the plaster off of the front of the chimney last night. The built-in to the side of it isn't original and will be leaving shortly (another poorly-constructed project from this house's past). I feel like everything in this house is wrong, but I know there's actually a nice house hiding under all of the poor decisions that were previously made. We're just trying to make it right once and for all. It's going to take a while, so I probably won't have many interesting big updates to post, but I really do appreciate all of the advice and encouragement I've found here. My fiancé has a general contracting background, but there are still many old house-specific questions we'll probably be posting as we go along.

This may not be the best place to ask this question, but in case anyone sees it, is there a product used to seal brick that we should be using on the chimneys we're exposing in the house?

Thanks, again!

[Texas_Ranger]

Considering how sooty those bricks look in the picture I'd definitely cover the whole chimney.

If you decide to paint over wallpaper, please ONLY use paint that'll let water through in the future if the paper has to come off at some point, e.g. milk paint! Flat latex could be OK but I'd definitely test that first - give a sheet of paper two or three coats of paint, wait for a few days, then wet the paint and see if the paper gets soggy. If it does you can use the paint on wallpaper. Oil or acrylic paint over wallpaper is just one of the worst nightmares ever!