housesteria: lottsa lead paint

several friends have come over during the past few days to check on the progress slash see if we have been overtaken by the lead paint/kilz fumes/construction dust. on saturday the wall paper removal chemicals must have gotten to jack's head, because he proudly proclaimed to most people that we would be finished with our den project by sunday night. PS--that was 3 days ago. (oh, and along with the 8 other rooms that need repainting, he would also be repainting the inside of all of the closets before move-in.)

we are still diligently working in the den...and are hoping to finish up by thursday or friday. we absolutely have to be finished by saturday though--new sofa & chair are being delivered from crate & barrel. excited face! (it is the 3 cushion back sofa though in a custom tan/nude herringbone fabric & the silhouette armless chair in a custom geometric fabric)

A few pictures to keep everyone updated:

avant...

also, please take note of just how RED that wainscoting is...

it is funny how many times i have been in this house, but when i am away from it, i just can't seem to remember major details about it--details that are crucial when it comes to planning paint/furniture/lighting and just about any major detail necessary to get everything together for moving. (we bought the house in october, but were only able to go inside 2 or 3 times since then as the owners were renting back from us through january.) i thought originally this room has a grasscloth-ish wallpaper (that we could live with for awhile) above the wainscoting, but alas, i was mistaken, per usual. See the wallpaper below:

boy did that sucker have a grip on the wall. it was probably attached circa 1950--if not before--but it had the suction power of a 2012 dyson. we used dif gel, scrapers, hot water solution, but it seemed the steamer worked best. the actual paper itself was easy to dry peel but the adhesive backing had a mind of its own. 24 hours later...

half of the room was painted tan underneath the wallpaper...hmm, why not? then there was a layer of pink on the trim, light blue on the wainscoting...

as if the wallpaper wasn't dramatic enough, a lot of the wainscoting had cracks in it from either paint or separation over the last 120 years. since we are both a little type A, we want everything to look as seamless as possible. that consisted of plugging every little crack with a n assload of wood filler then sanding everything down to the point where we look like the blue man group, except red.

jack looking proud (below) but probably second guessing his goal of also wanting to repaint the inside of the closets before move-in...please notice the giant 4 foot wide area of dry wall which will also have to be replaced. (although, surprisingly, that was not our fault. it looks like one of the previous owners moved a door that was likely leading to the attic at some point & decided to replace it with reliable homemade dry wall.)