Peeling wallpaper (for real!)
What does this wallpaper say to you?
Ugly?
Psychedelic sixties?
Tacky?
Okay, maybe. But does this wallpaper say Jack to you? Well, it should. This was my wallpaper at one time. In fairness, I didn’t hang it on the wall. I didn’t go to the wallpaper store, drop acid and make free love with the proprietress in the back room on the faux zebra carpet, and say, “wow, that was great, now I’ll take three rolls of the naked chick wallpaper and I’ll be on my way.” No, my wife and I bought this place without knowing about the naked chick wallpaper. When we purchased the house, the bathroom had shiny silver 19th century newsprint wallpaper with make believe historical headlines and advertisements for miracle-working elixirs. As difficult as it is to imagine, this outer layer of wallpaper was even worse.
We decided to peel off the shiny wallpaper one weekend shortly after we moved in. Surprisingly, it came right off. And there, underneath, were the beautiful naked ladies from the sixties. These walls were like a Roman archeological dig. And getting better with each successive layer! We briefly contemplated leaving the naked chick wallpaper up on the wall – well, that’s my recollection anyway – but in the end it had to go. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t go! Whoever hung this wallpaper did so on bare walls without sizing them first. Our attempts to remove this under layer of wallpaper also removed pieces of the wallboard. So we stopped. We left the ample-breasted nymphs on the wall – before we could do more damage – and papered right over them with some tasteful wallpaper purchased from a store that didn’t even have a back room with a faux zebra carpet. Still, for years after that, I enjoyed knowing that my girls were under that wallpaper waiting for me, thinking only of me. Eventually, I forgot about them (hey, I’m a guy). Then we moved.
Amazingly, we became great friends with the couple who bought our house (providing evidence that life blossoms even in the company of real estate lawyers). Carolyn and Jon, both regular readers of this blog, still live in our former house. Their history with this house and the neighborhood where it resides goes back further still, but I won’t digress one iota more.
Recently, Carolyn decided that the walls in her bathroom needed to be redone. So she pulled off the wallpaper that we had installed and, for the first time in nearly two decades, the naked chicks were free to let it all hang out again. Carolyn took the digital photo that you see above. I believe she is much further along now in her remodeling efforts. I think that she may have even made use of a sledge hammer in her quest. I don’t like to think about that. I prefer to remember these girls, umm, I mean walls, as they were back when I knew them: young, perky and devoted to me.
Be gentle, Carolyn.
10:43:58 PM  Stories
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