Grass is always greener...

... when there isn't any. Thats right, we finally got rid of the grass (cloth) wallpaper in our hall and now I'm no longer dreaming whats on the other side.

Its here and its gorgeous!

The grass cloth was one of the least offensive wallpapers in the house, which is why it survived so long, but after the rest of the house looked so fresh, new and white, it was an obvious relic. 

So off came the wallpaper (rather easily, I might add) and we began to plan the board-and-batten replacement. Actually, its batten. The 'board' is just wall. I'm sure in the days of plaster walls, it was all but impossible to create a flat, smooth surface but drywall works beautifully. And, actually, the battens weren't that hard either. 

We had to work with the original baseboard molding, which was high and quite beautiful in its own right, but didn't obviously lend itself to the very straight battens. So Bill came up with a piece of molding that would meet it, and create a flat surface for the vertical battens to butt up against. The battens themselves were just math - figuring out the spacing on each wall and then buying the right amount from Home Depot. 

Then came adding the horizontal molding of our choosing, which for us included a picture rail on one of the walls. Right now, its only got the one, but I plan on adding a few overlapping pieces.

Bill worked a few days on adding a second light down the hall. Not sure what the electrician was thinking when he did these homes. Only one light at the top of the stairs and if the bathroom and bedroom doors are closed at the end of the hall (which would make sense!), you can't see a damn thing, which would be annoying in its own right but the linen closet is also at the end of the hall and with no light I can't figure out if I'm grabbing toilet paper or a pillow! So in went a matching, mint light!

We are very happy with the hall. So many projects in our home were done quickly, out of necessity. We had 30 more walls of wallpaper to remove and 30 more walls to paint. And that was just the walls! But now that we are not facing a home's worth of work, we can take more time on our projects. The hall took a couple weekends and night trips to Home Depot but we painted with expertise, planned and planned before purchasing a single batten, and even spackled, sanded, and caulked before painting to get a beautifully integrated piece. 

We are very happy with it and it sure is a refreshing change from yellowed wallpaper! 

Even the new lady is pleased enough to use it as a modeling backdrop...

(How's my lighting? Does my coat look nice?)