So here's what the living room is looking like. 

Using a steamer we rented from Home Depot, we managed to strip all the wallpaper off in about six hours. We accidentally found a helpful tip... we found that the top vinyl layer of the wallpaper could be removed by hand first, leaving the glue backing on the wall. Then steaming this glue backing off went a lot quicker and easier than attempting to strip both the vinyl and glue at the same time.

I don't know how we never noticed it before. It looked to be a rectangle covered with plywood... could it be an original fireplace? This would make sense because our attached neighbour did have a fireplace on the other side of the wall. 

The bumpout wasn't deep, only about 6 inches. This meant that either the fireplace (if there was one) was purely decorative, or the fireplace cavity was recessed and it was a working one (which might cause us to totally rethink the room layout). So we made like Geraldo Rivera and did a little digging behind the wall...


And found nothing. So I guess we'll leave the fireplace where it is, in the corner. 

We sanded and patched the walls and electrical should be done by the weekend and then we can start building the frame for the fireplace. 

In the meantime, we have to settle on the paint colour. Here's samples of the front runner, Edgecomb Gray by Benjamin Moore. Its a light taupey gray, and works with both the yellow and brown tones of the dining room and the darker gray paint in the hallway.


More to come...