Paintable bead board wallpaper, sound too good to be true? I definitely thought so. We've used it in two rooms now and hopefully will have it in two more before we are done with it. Although I thought it was too good to be true, the wallpaper looks great and is fairly easy to install. The first room we used it in was the nursery and it still is holding up great. This time around we used it in the hallway upstairs. We installed it in both rooms on the ceilings to give the bead board feel, but with the installation ease of wallpaper. Installing bead board over our heads on old plaster ceilings sounded a bit out of our wheelhouse. Our ceilings also have curves and angles, so sheets of wood just really sounded like a disaster. Despite already installing it once, two years later we were surprised at the details we forgot on exactly how we did it, causing a few frustrating arguments in the process. So, since we plan to use it again in the near future, I figured why not document exactly what we did and avoid the arguments next time. What we Used
The ProcessGet everything set up so you are ready to go, which means don't forget your lights. Getting the ceiling well lit is going to make the difference in you noticing bubbles or not. In both rooms we started where the longest strip of paper would go. For the nursery the longest strip fell in the middle (which was easier), in the hall the longest strip was on the one side along the wall (much harder, especially when you are trying to make sure the paper is straight but its following a very crooked wall.) Decide who is doing what, and yes, you will need help. I don't know how you could do this alone and if it is possible you'll be fuming mad by the end. Danny did the actual installation and pasting to the wall, while my job was to hold the roll/strip of paper and slowly unroll what he needed and hold the already pasted paper in place with the pad. Cut the paper to the necessary length, with a bit to spare. You can always go back and trim, don't think you're wasting paper to give yourself some wiggle room. It's better to waste a few inches than several feet in a wasted strip that is cut too short. Brush paste on to a small section of the ceiling where you plan to begin. This is so different than a lot of wallpaper. There is no need to do any booking, just brush the paste on the wall and go! Get a decent amount on the ceiling too, remember you don't want it falling down from too little paste. The trick to doing a ceiling it to work in sections. If you try to do too much you'll have gluey wallpaper falling from every direction and you'll be stuck underneath. Begin adhering wallpaper to the pasted ceiling. This is where it it good to be a perfectionist so reposition as much as needed. Remember with those lines in the bead board, the longer they are and the more you get up, the more you will notice if they are crooked. In the hall we got a fourth of the way and then noticed it was slightly crooked. We pulled it off and repositioned the strip. No matter how maddening it is to have to fix, don't think you can ignore it. With every section you are pasting, positioning the paper, and then smoothing. Look for any air bubbles and then use your smoother to push the bubbles to the seams. This is where the damp sponge comes in handy. As bubbles come out so does some paste so the sponge helps keep everything clean. Once a section was up, my job was hold it up with the mop while Danny worked on the next section. You're fighting gravity here so the strip can't hang on its own or the strip will pull away and fall. The freshly pasted stuff needs to stay in place which meant I held the roll of paper up over my head with one hand and the mop over my head in the other. Trust me, holding a mop in the air with one arm and the roll of paper up in the other, your arms will get tired. To pass the time, I looked for air bubbles Danny missed. If you are on the ladder, expect your neck to get sore, so just take your pick. We would just keep working in sections, Danny pasting while I held up the paper, slowly shuffling down. Once you get to the half way point of a strip it gets easier. The hardest part is getting that first section up. Once a strip is up, cut away any excess with the knife and give the wallpaper another once over for bubbles. Then it is on to strip number two. With this paper there is no overlap or matching patterns, just butt the edges right up next to each other and keep going. However, this is why it is so important that the first strip be straight. Since the first strip will guide all the others, you don't want it to be crooked. Once it's all up and dried Danny went back and cut out the spots for the smoke alarm and light. Although we didn't need to paint the ceiling in the nursery, this time around we may go back and paint the hallway ceiling white. There are a few dirty spots here and there from storing it, and with one roll being leftover from the nursery project and one new roll, there is a very slight color difference, but only something we notice. Our ReviewMy biggest concern was will it look cheap? On a ceiling the wallpaper looks great! Its fresh, clean, and hides our plaster ceilings nicely. Here is it compared to our actual bead board ceilings in the mudroom. However, despite my love for it on the ceiling, I wouldn't use it on a wall. The problem is, the wallpaper feels cheap, it doesn't look cheap, but when you touch it, which you would do on a wall, you would know instantly the wall is an imposter. Wood and foam don't really feel the same, so on a wall it would be more noticeable that it wasn't real, but when it is 11 feet up in the air, no one can notice the difference. Most people are astonished when they hear its a wallpaper. Just look at that before and after! What a difference it made and we finally got rid of our final boob light. Whoop! Whoop!
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The week of the fourth is always filled with fun and is definitely more than a one day affair for our family. Baby started off with donuts and an attempt at watching "Red, White, and Boom" from a sound free distance. The possibility of rain made us decide to hang out and go for a walk instead, which I think Baby preferred, as he got to hold Otis' leash. We broke out the old wagon and he had rides in the yard with Otis. He has mastered all the dog names now; Harvey is "Bobo," Elmer is "Elm Elm," Jackson is "Jack," and Otis is "Odie Oh." Baby was so chubby last year I think his outfit actually fit better this year. I made him wear it again just so we could compare, and of course I found some cute old photos of him. A lot changed in a year! The fourth was pretty typical for us. Parade, fireworks, and swimming. The poor guy fell asleep on the way to the parade with his little hand out the window. We opted to try a different parade than the UA one this year, which definitely helped with nap time. Aunt Grace got him some apple juice and he loved getting to sit and drink it out of the bottle like a big boy. He loved waving his flag and putting the candy in his bag. Thankfully he had no idea what it was and Aunt Grace got to take it all. After a surprising, 4-hour nap, he had a lunch of peanut butter (fresh ground is his thing these days), then we loaded up the baby and dogs, and headed to the pool. The dogs got baths at the pool, and we took baby to the fireworks later, which he loved. We did the small-town thing, park on the side of a highway exit ramp and sit on the roof. Thankfully the bugs steered clear and Baby enjoyed seeing the fireworks and yelling, "BOOM" after each one. However, those were the only ones he liked and he spent the rest of the week scared at night. Throughout the week he could hear people shooting them off around our house and he would be sobbing in his crib and yelling, "Mama Boom Boom." So he slept in our room most of the week and everyone was pretty tired. Poor Harvey feels the same way about fireworks and was glad when the week was over. With the heat, Danny has been enjoying ice cream trips and visiting the splash pad. He's slowly warming up to the idea of it, but is still not ready to run through. With our anniversary falling so close to the fourth, I always forget it. Thankfully Danny doesn't mind. We went to Fox in the Snow for coffee and baby thought he was super cool sipping from and getting refills in his "Big Boy" cup. He was very interested in watching the workers in the bakery, even pretending to roll out his own dough and yelling "down down" to the lady, wanting her to put the dough down the "slide." Poor baby ended up reacting to something he ate and had to take a terrifying visit to the minute clinic later that evening. He was ok and we dropped him off at my parents to go on a quick date night for some poke. It was our first night out since he's been born, and although it is nice not rushing through meals, we really do enjoy having him with us. I honestly don't think we were even gone long enough for him to notice. We said when we were married we'd go back to Maine for our 5th year anniversary, but we also said maybe then we'd start thinking about having kids. We didn't end up in Maine but I got two new kids instead, which I'd say is a pretty good alternative.
My favorite thing we did on vacation was the hike to Max Patch, which was probably the easiest and shortest hike we did, but it had the best views. Baby didn't want out of the backpack when we got up there, but then once he was out he refused to go back in the backpack. He joyfully trampled and tumbled, vehemently refusing our offers of assistance, through long grass stretching above his head. And I apologize now for the photo overload, it was just too amazing! To get there, you drive up windy dirt roads most of the way, then finish the trip with a short steep hike up to the top. Max Patch was cleared back in the 1800's and the Forestry Service keeps the area clear, resulting in a 360 degree view. Baby was convinced he could touch the clouds. There was a gentle breeze at the top and baby wanted everyone to put their hands up to feel it. He's really into the wind, stars, moon, and nature sounds these days, listening and mimicking the birds and bees or flapping after a butterfly. Of course every flower needs a good sniffing and if he had pockets they would've been filled to the brim with wildflowers. Danny and I could have easily stayed there all day and baby really loved running through the tall grasses, sniffing wildflowers, and listening to all the bees and crickets. I don't think I have been anywhere that has such a noticeable humming sound from all the bees buzzing from flower to flower. Even little Danny noticed and was running around buzzing too. My mom said watching Danny tumble through the grass reminded her of the opening scene on Little House on the Prairie. He would run and get caught up, falling and laughing as the grass tickled his face. Danny was so happy to be up there and was really hamming it up for his Aunt Grace at her every request, doing his best cheese pose. Max Patch is on the Appalachian Trial, so for as remote as the drive seems up there, it is actually a frequently visited spot, with little remnants of campfires throughout. It definitely made our list of places we must go back someday. This summer my family finally all got together to go on vacation. Despite the fact I was still in college for our last family vacation, it still surprises me that it has been that long since we have all been together. Originally the plan was to go to Yosemite, but plans change and we ended up in a beautiful cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. The drive was only 7 hours, which compared to the 18 we are used to doing to Boca, was nothing. Baby couldn't have gone another hour more though, so I was very thankful we were going a shorter distance. We're back to the days of longer pitstops, looking for Cracker Barrel type places for baby to stretch his legs. We didn't make it to Cracker Barrel but we stopped at the Tamarack and he loved exploring the gift shops. Thankfully we had plenty of people to entertain him, plus he had fun kissing himself in the mirror and playing with stickers to pass the time. The cabin was in the Balsam Mountain Preserve in the town of Sylva, about an hour from Asheville. As we were driving up to the cabin my grandma asked if it had rodents. She obviously hadn't seen the pictures. The "cabin" was a beautiful 4 bedroom 4.5 bath mountain home complete with a hot tub, screened in porch, and 3 fireplaces, one being outside. It was a cabin by my mom's standards, which means absolutely no rodents. The weather was fairly cool, which was nice. We had fires in the fireplace whenever we were at the house and spent most of the time by the fire on the screened in porch. Baby enjoyed hanging from the furniture and helping carry in wood. I even discovered a snake one morning getting some wood which he liked hissing at. Daddy came home and took care of it for us. Baby seemed to keep getting me mixed up with Grace, even running into a wall because he was following Grace and then saw me next to him calling him. After a few mixups he seemed to hold it against her for a bit, yelling "no no" when she would look at him in the car or try to give him a pouch. Thankfully by the end he made friends again and wanted to hold her hand on the trip home. He loved calling for Joe which sounds a lot like goat, and knew to yell Nana when he found a tractor in the toy store he wanted. Papa John spotted a turtle on the driveway and stopped to show it to baby, who was a little unsure of it. He liked waving bye bye as we drove away. The house was in a preserve so their were hiking trails we could take all over the mountain. They also had a pool which we took advantage of one day and baby got a kick out of being able to run on his own in the baby pool. The place also had a golf course and horseback riding trails, which we didn't use, but baby loved looking for the "neigh neighs" on the drive. The boys went fishing a few mornings. Daddy didn't have the best luck, but finally caught a tiny fish one afternoon when we were all able to witness it. Despite it's size baby still was scared of it. I'm definitely more a mountain girl than a beach girl and I loved all the views. We had brunch at their restaurant at the top of the mountain. Baby got his first taste of eggs benedict and we got to sit on the porch and look at the views. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos of the place, I guess we were enjoying our time too much, but I snagged some online to at least kind of show how amazing it was. Click the link to see more of the place. The waitress shared a picture she took last summer of a bear cub at the door. Thankfully we didn't run into any of those critters. Of course my family has to track down a good coffee shop. The best one was discovered on the way to Turtle Back so unfortunately it was a bit far for an every morning stop. We found plenty of local food joints to try out. For the ribs baby had to go shirtless, because I wasn't trying to get barbecue out of his clothes later. We did several hikes while we were there. Visiting Rainbow falls and Turtleback. Danny carried baby the whole way in the backpack, which I'm sure got tiring. Baby had his snacks and enjoyed passing the time by drinking water from his water bottle and spitting it all over his dad. He thought he was hilarious. The mountain laurel was blooming everywhere and we found plenty of streams and waterfalls. I didn't do the rock slide at Turtleback, but I sat there wishing I could, even considering it for a brief moment, but there was a rock people kept hitting as they slid down. I decided after still being in therapy from my delivery two years ago, I should take the smart mommy route and pass on any more tailbone injuries. Grace and Zach did it though and it looked like a lot of fun. Our last hike to Max Patch was my favorite and so much so that I'm saving it for its own post. There's just too many pictures. But we did enjoy the trails by the cabin and it was nice that we were close and didn't have to drive too far to get there. While on the trip we also visited the Biltmore, which is the Vanderbilt estate in Asheville. I can't comprehend what it would be like to live in something like it. The house still sits on 8,000 of the original 125,000 acres and has a rolling stream, bike paths, and lots of areas to explore. After touring the house, we got lunch, which is where the old stables used to be, and baby got some sorbet to perk him up. Then it was on to the gardens. My mom made Joe and I reenact the old photo of us when we were kids. Baby thought it was fun too. I personally would take one of the old farm houses on the property over the mansion any day, but baby was impressed with the petting zoo and model trains. We promised him we'd stop in the petting zoo at the end, and he was all back at home with his "daots, peep peeps, bok boks, and howards." (goats, chicks, chickens, and donkeys) Then he discovered the old tractor and wanted to drive it himself, not wanting Aunt Grace to get in the way. Finally we made it to the garden trains and he could have been there all day. He ran around trying to chase them yelling "choo, choo" until he was tired and wimpery. It was pretty amazing and they had several building crafted all out of natural materials that had to do with the Vanderbilts. We all had a good week with a nice balance of activity and relaxing. By the end of the week baby was not sleeping great which tends to happen when hes sleeping in a pack n play too much, but he's happy as a clam back in his crib now.
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