Wallpaper

Last year, we replaced the countertop in the upstairs bathroom with a solid surface that looks like fake marble. A few weeks later, my husband and I drove to a nearby ceramic tile outlet and purchased large, rectangular, gray tiles and grout to replace the flooring.

“I want to replace the mirrors and the light fixtures, too,” I said. “And I want to put wallpaper on the walls in there.”

“Absolutely no wallpaper!” my husband replied gruffly. “No!”

I knew why he had responded this way. In our three-and-a-half decades of marriage, Gene and I have had about ten major arguments, and one of those big knock-out-drag-out fights occurred when we were trying to work together and hang wallpaper.

We had moved into a new house in 1990, and it had a sunroom with a high ceiling, a black and white checkerboard floor, and spectacular southfacing, floor-to-ceiling windows. I couldn’t wait to fill it with African violets, Christmas cacti and other houseplants, but first, I wanted to wallpaper the room with paper embellished with wide, vertical green

and white stripes. Gene and I had successfully hung wallpaper together prior to the sunroom project, but the rooms were smaller with lower ceilings and the patterns were more forgiving. Still, I was confident that the project wouldn’t exceed a Saturday afternoon.

I picked up the pre-pasted rolls and some brand new razor blades and set them in the room with a step ladder, a level, scissors, a tape measure, a pencil, and big sponges, and we got started. Gene used a large mop sink in the laundry room to wet the pieces, and then he handed the sheets to me. While I was on the ladder hanging the first piece, I realized that the paper was heavier and more textured than the coverings we had used in the past, and before I could get the sheet to adhere to the upper portion of the wall, it began sliding and folding off the wall and back onto itself.

“I need another set of hands here,” I said. “We’ll have to work the pieces together.”

I held the top firmly, and Gene tried to smooth it, working downward toward the floor. Thirty minutes later, we finally got the first piece up, and I climbed off of the step stool to evaluate our work. “It’s crooked,” I said. “And there are bubbles all in it.” I took the sponge and tried to work the bubbles out, nudging the edge closer to our guideline. Gene went to the other room to wet the next piece.

The second piece didn’t go up any easier or faster.

“At this rate, we’ll be in here for a week or more,” he said.

“Well, I can’t work any faster,” I said. “I’m not going to rush. I want it to look perfect.”

“No one’s going to notice except you,” he said.

“That’s right, and I intend to spend a lot of time in this room, and I’ll be looking at it all the time. I want it done right,” I said.

And this is how the quarrel started — Gene wanted to throw the paper up on the wall haphazardly, even if the vertical stripes were skewed and even if big bubbles bulged beneath the surface. I, on the other hand, was more concerned with the quality of the job.

Two hours later, as frustration peaked, we both reached our boiling points, and with raised voices, said things we shouldn’t have said to one another.

“I’m done,” he said walking out of the beautiful, sun-filled room that day. continued from page

I hung the rest by myself — with elevated blood pressure, steam shooting out of my ears, and arms that felt like they were going to fall off my body. Working around all of the windows was a nightmare, and while moving past the first corner of the room, I realized that the room was not truly square. Still, I pressed on — alone. Three or four days later, I finally finished the monstrous job, and it looked great. I purchased cheap white wicker furniture and curtains for the room and brought in the houseplants and arranged them on white shelves Gene had made for me in the garage weeks before.

For years, on Saturday mornings, I sat in there by myself and read the newspaper or a good book, occasionally looking up at the gorgeous green and white striped walls. It was my sanctuary.

But Gene never got over the big wallpaper blowup, and that’s why he refuses to consider putting wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom. Just hearing the word, “wallpaper,” makes him mad.

“I’ve heard that the new peel-and-stick wallpaper options are much easier to hang than the old stuff we used in the 1990s,” I said.

He went into “ignore mode.”

So, looks like I’ll be hanging wallpaper by myself again in the near future, but looking on the bright side of things, I’ll be saving our marriage. I just hope the project turns out as good as that sunroom did all those years ago.