In the hood

You can probably understand my extreme agitation shopping for a kitchen extractor hood.

First, it's not that complicated.  It's a fan in a box, so why does it cost the same as a used car?

Second, there's no reason for the fan to be in the box.  In fact, it's much better if the fan is outside the box -- it is much easier to pull air than to push it, so you get better airflow and less noise.  (Your neighbors may not appreciate your kitchen fan outside their living room window, but that's their problem.)  However, the simple act of moving the fan from the hood to the wall somehow increases the price by US $300!!

Third, the ignorance of kitchen salespeople is staggering.  If you ask them anything at all, they basically hand you a catalogue and walk away.

After much searching, I was finally able to find an Elica hood with a remote motor that was half the price of similar options.  Of course, Jess would likely point out we can get one without a remote fan for half the price again.  That's why I'm not telling her.

Stupid things I've done in a convertible

The stupidest thing I've ever done in a convertible was drive across the Mojave desert, at night, in winter, with the top down and my mother folded into the tiny back seat, in the hopes that I would see the Leonid meteor shower. I didn't see a thing, but my mother couldn't hear for a week.

Well, I think I broke the record this morning. I was going to the local DIY shop to pick up some door handles, and asked the builder if he needed anything. He did: 650 square feet of loft insulation. "No problem," I said, knowing full well it was a big problem.

I needed four rolls, and they actually had four rolls wrapped together in plastic. It was 4 feet high, 5 feet wide, and weighed about 60 pounds. I tipped it on my trolley, rolled it to my car, put the top down, and wrestled the insulation onto the trunk. I had nothing to tie it down with, but I figured it was only 15 minutes to the house along mainly side roads, so it would be fine.

Then it started to rain.

Then it started to pour.

In 15 minutes, I was completely drenched. I can only imagine what other people thought watching me drive by, but what was really embarrassing was when I got home, and the builders immediately ran over to rescue me. It easily took the record for stupidest thing I've done in a convertible.

I broke that record about two hours later.

We had ordered half the kitchen from Ikea last week, with delivery scheduled for this Thursday, and had decided on a few things since. Unfortunately, we couldn't update the order over the phone, we had to go in, and I was hoping if I did it today, they would include the new items with the delivery. Imagine my surprise, then, when they told me I had to pick the new items up downstairs and take them home with me.

This included a gas stove and an eight-foot refrigerator cabinet.

So once again the top came down, the boxes were perched precariously on the back of the car, with no tie downs. Fortunately the weather cooperated, but unfortunately I was now an hour from the house and had to get on the motorway.

Knock wood, the drive home was uneventful, but it was definitely the stupidest thing I've done in a convertible...so far.

Differences

A few of the differences between building in the US and UK:

	US	UK
Toilets	Close-coupled or one-piece	Close-coupled, back to wall, wall hung, high level, low level
Heating	Central air	Vented boiler, system boiler, combi-boiler
Hot water	Pressurised boiler	Direct vented tank, Indirect vented tank, pressurised hot water cylinder, combi-boiler
Door locks	Deadbolt	Mortice sash lock, mortice dead lock (3 or 5 lever), Yale aka rim lock, eurocylinder
Electricity	125V, GFCIs in bathrooms and kitchens	240V, with dual RDC contolled consumer unit or multiple RCBOs, separate ring main and lighting circuit, no outlets allowed in the bathroom.
Fire prevention	Smoke detectors outside each bedroom	Heat detector in the kitchen with interconnected fire alarms either on each floor or in every room; staircase must be sealed off from all other rooms
Phone jacks

Laminate flooring

Pergo introduced laminate flooring in the US in 1994, but they actually invented it (in Sweden) in 1977.  It's an actual picture of wood layered between plastic, and there are literally hundreds of different variations.  So why can't Jess and I find anything we like?

Part of the problem is me -- I'm quite partial to a recent innovation which includes a "V grroove" between boards, which narrows the options down to a few dozen.  And because we're running it through the kitchen and cloakroom, it has to be water resistant.  And because we're running it through the entire house (upstairs and down), it has to go with everything.  That only leaves one option -- the light oak that everybody has.  And that's the one color we don't want.

However, we have to choose soon because the kitchen arrives on Thursday, and the builder needs to put it on the flooring!  Also, for the rest of the house, he wants to leave it "rest" for a week, because if he unpacks it and lays it immediately, it will develop gaps.

The builder is also ready to start the bathroom, even though the bathroom won't be arriving for at least two weeks.  (We just ordered it yesterday.)  Jess has chosen the tile, however, so that may keep the builder busy for a while.

The plaster is almost complete -- just the kitchen left to do -- and the builder is going to do the first coat of paint.  I tell you, the amount of extra jobs the builder has taken on is staggering -- including replacing the water mains, removing the bathroom waste stack, patching the roof, cleaning out the loft and behind the shed, and of course replacing every wall in the house -- but they are so good and do it so quickly, I'm happy to give them as much as I can.  They've been working seven days a week trying to get it all finished, because they have a hard deadline as wall -- on April 14 two of them are going on a one-month vacation, and on April 22, the other two are going on vacation as well.

Which works beautifully for us, since Jess has already agreed that the tenants can move in on the 23rd, and if the house isn't finished yet, we're going to be homeless!

I wonder if we can pitch a tent on our allotment?

Half a kitchen

Tonight, Jess and I bought half a kitchen. That is, we bought cabinets with no countertop; a sink with no tap; an oven with no stovetop; handles but no knobs. We spent two hours trying to figure out what size doors for the refrigerator cabinet, but finally gave up.

It was also the third time in a week we had to be escorted out of Ikea, because we were there past closing time.

It's funny what passes for accomplishment nowadays.

I also spent a large chunk of my day learning about toilet options in the UK. In the US, your options are a "close coupled" porcelain toilet in either one piece or two pieces. That's it. In the UK, you can have a close-coupled, high level, low level, "back to wall" or wall hung toilet. The latter two use a hidden cistern, meaning the tank is in a cupboard. High level means the tank is over your head, and low level is the same thing except the tank is lower (but not touching, which would be close coupled). You'll generally want a dual flush option, and all toilets today use a P-trap, or "horizontal outlet."

Except, I am replacing the old downstairs toilet, which used an S-trap (or "bottom outlet"). That means the drain hole is in the floor, and the toilet sits right on top of it. If you replace it with a P-trap, you have to put in an elbow to go to the drain, which means the entire toilet has to move about 5 inches forward, which isn't an option in the small downstairs bathroom.

Augh!

So after trawling through hundreds of websites, and talking to a dozen clueless individuals at various bathroom centers, I finally found what I needed: A Kohler Ove toilet with "vario outlet," which allows the elbow to be installed within the body of the toilet so it sits right over the hole. Perfect!

Except, while Kohler is the dominant brand in the US, it is almost unknown in the UK. In London I couldn't find a single bath center that had any Kohler on display--it was al catalogue only. And even more amazing, I could only find one online retailer, and they were more expensive than the local showroom! And even that was pretty dear -- £370 (US £600) just for the toilet pan, not including the tank or the stupid elbow!

Tomorrow, now armed with a near encyclopedic knowledge of toilet options, I will have another look and see what can be fitted there. Right after I understand how to calculate BTUs so I can buy a towel rail.

Allotment

Not content with a flat and a house, Jess and I expanded our real estate holdings today -- with an allotment.

Most people think allotments started during World War I, when people in densely populated areas needed to grown their own food to survive.  However, as with everything in England, it has a much longer and more interesting history. During the medieval period, villages were arranged around the "open field" system, and each villager was randomly allocated about 15 acres for subsistence farming.  There were no borders between the fields, and there were also common areas for grazing livestock, gathering wood, etc. 

However, during the 15th and 16th century, British wool exports became quite profitable.  Sheep were easy to keep and needed fewer people to maintain, and so many landowners enclosed their lands, evicting the villagers and destroying their homes.  If you lost your income, you were a pauper, and if you lost your home as well, you were a vagrant.  And at the time, vagrants were treated as criminals.  It is estimated that up to three-fourths of villagers were evicted during this period.

This quite alarmed the Crown, as it meant lower tax revenues and a large underclass population. Henry VII made it illegal to destroy homes, and Henry VIII made it illegal to convert crop land to pasture.  However, this made little difference, leading to riots between in the 16th century.  A poem from the time sums up the situation nicely:

They hang the man, and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common;
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common from the goose.

As a result of the enclosures in England, many people moved from rural areas into cities.  With the advent of steam power and cheap labour, Britain went on to lead the industrial revolution, with rural farming practically abandoned.  By the 19th century, King George III (of American Revolution fame) passed a series of Inclosure Acts, which stripped away the last "common" land. 

However, many of these Acts directed a small portion of land be made available to the poor, which became known as allotments.  1873 there were less than 250,000 plots, but by the first World War that increased to 1.5 million!  The numbers have been falling steadily, as interest in allotments as ebbed and flowed, and ten years ago the number was around 265,000, although that has now rebounded to around 330,000.  Of course, the allotments are scattered all over, and so some areas have waiting lists in the thousands, leading to the misperception most people have that it is impossible to get an allotment in London.  I called our nearest allotment a month ago, and last week they called to say they had some vacancies.

The first plot she showed us was 5 poles, which is 1/32nd of an acre, or about 135 square feet.  We both agreed that was way too big.  Fortunately, they had a smaller plot of 4 poles, which we thought we could handle.  The rent is £24 (US $36) per year, and we are entirely responsible for our plot.  (This is not a "community garden.")  If we don't maintain the plot, they can take it back and give it to someone else.  I am more worried about losing the plot, as it is quite a distance from the gate, and right now they all look pretty much the same.  (I should have taken the GPS coordinates with my phone.)

It's actually quite ridiculous, as we already have way too much on our plates, but we're both quite excited. Today we're going to strip off the grass, piling it into the corner to let it compost, and began preparing the ground.  We have no idea what we're going to plot -- Jess suggested practical foods that are easy to grow, while I suggested we plot ingredients in "meals."  I suspect she'll win.

Kitchen rebooted

So, I've been a little stressed lately. OK, a lot stressed. The house we just bought has been completely gutted, the costs are spiralling out of control, and when we're all done the house will look almost exactly the same as when we started, except without wallpaper. (Or paint.)

But it will have a shiny new kitchen. Or at least, it would have, if we could ever decide on the kitchen. However, after trying literally hundreds of variations online, visiting four or five stores, and having a professional design done by a major vendor, we were still struggling to bring everything together. However, after we discovered we would also have to re-plumb the entire house, budgetary reality dictated we were getting the kitchen from Ikea.

So last night we spent three hours with an Ikea designer reviewing the mock up we did online. (Interestingly, they use the exact same program in stores.) We made some slight changes, she costed it up, and I thought we were done.

Jessica's first words to me in the morning were, "I don't like it."

It was not a good start to the day.

After we played with the design a little, and not making any progress, I went to see the house. The builders had finished gutting the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, and I got them to move the new wall 6 centimeters (about 2 inches) over, which was actually crucial because the old kitchen wall was 1 cm short of putting in a full cabinet. I also convinced Jess to put in a smaller, built-in fridge/freezer in place of the pantry, freeing up the opposite side. We moved the cooker, added some glass-fronted wall cabinets, and it was perfect.

I mean, literally, perfect.

We abandoned the professional range for a typical oven and hob (stovetop to you) and Jess wants to build a shelving "box" over the new window (which isn't on the pictures because the software won't let me do it). There will be twelve cells, each about 12 inches square and 6 inches deep -- perfect for planted herbs or other tzotskies (knick-knacks). The shelving at the end of the oven will be for cookbooks, maybe a basket of fruit. There's now lots of shelving, plenty of storage, a ridiculous amount of counterspace, and even a plinth (toe-kick) drawer for baking sheets! It's bright, open, and airy, and we both just love it. Plus, it is only half the cost of any of the kitchens we saw elsewhere, and Ikea kitchens have an enviable reputation for reliability.

Oh, and the fridge cabinet will also keep the upstairs wall from falling down. How cool is that?

Breeze blocks

The good thing about remodeling a house built in 1937 is that you get to learn a lot about 1937. The bad thing is that you then have to throw it all out and rebuild it.

In 1937, Edward VIII had just abdicated--after less than a year in office--and George VI had ascended the throne. (See The King's Speech. No really, see it.) Central London had just over 4 million people, with greater London over 8 million. Battersea power station had just been completed, but only had two stacks (the other stacks were built in the 1950s). London had escaped the Great Depression and had 37,000 factories, all powered by coal. And a major by-product of burning coal is ash.

Ash is gernerally considered to be carcinogenic, and disposing of it in a landfill causes the toxins to leach into the groundwater. In the US, ash is mixed with cement and used in dams. In London, some bright spark had the idea of doing the same in houses.

As we stripped the wallpaper, large chunks of plaster came away as well, exposing a black-grey gritty substance. I had no idea what it was until the electrician explained it. But I had no idea what it meant until the builder started moving the walls. And I do mean moving--as he pushed with one hand, the whole wall flexed, and looked as it would topple over.

The fact that it was toxic wasn't enough to remove it. The fact that the wall was in danger of collapse wasn't enough to remove it. The fact that the new plaster was likely to crack within months wasn't enought to remove it. The fact that the beam supporting the wall wasn't strong enough finally did the trick. The wall came down and was replaced with a timber stud wall, which is much lighter.

Once that wall fell, the rest followed. The wall on the stairway came down after the electrician tried to channel in a switch, and the wall practically disintegrated as he went. The wall in the bathroom came down after we removed the tiles and found the bottom half was made of bricks on their sides (a definite no-no) and the top half was ash. The only ash wall remaining is downstairs, and even that we removed half of it to open up the living room.

Of course, removing the walls has significantly impacted the electrician, who has left and will come back when the stud walls are up. It also will impact the plasterer, as we no longer need a specialist who can reconstitute the cracked walls, but someone who can plaster over drywall. However, I can't fire the plasterer because his brother-in-law is the plumber, and I don't want to upset him.

We accidentally gutted the house

Seriously, we've only left two interior walls standing. I'm not quite sure how that happened--it certainly wasn't the intent! We were only going to take out the kitchen wall, but the builder decided the wall in the hallway (which already had a filled-in doorway) wasn't very stable, so he took that down as well.

Then we found the 'new' kitchen window, which meant we had to fill in the kitchen door (for more cabinet space), which meant the hallway was just a path to the downstairs bathroom, so we decided to convert the it into a large 'utility room' and took out that wall.

Then we decided, rather than have a small hallway with a couple of doors, we'd just remove the door to the living room (and the wall it was on). So right now, there's only half a wall left downstairs.

Upstairs, of course, we needed to move the bathroom wall about 6 inches if we ever wanted (read: can afford) to put stairs into the loft, so we took that down. Now you can sit on the toilet and look down the stairs! Then the builder discovered the wall in the small bedroom wasn't very sturdy, so we're probably going to take that out as well.

So that only leaves the wall between the two big bedrooms, and one of the bathroom walls, standing. Oh, and we took out the chimney breasts while we were at it, so it looks like we took out those walls as well, since they are just covered in rubble brick at the moment.

The funny part is that we've completely gutted the house simply to avoid asking for planning permission for an extension.

Hopefully by the end of this week the builder will have stud walls back up, and in two weeks time the plasterer can start making it look like a real house again. Right now it looks like Barbie's Remodel Nightmare. Ken is probably in the hospital after having fallen off the toilet and down the stairs.

Oh, and did I mention we still have no idea what's going on with the plumbing?

Flight to nowhere

I boarded the plane today, took off, got halfway to Norway, then the plane turned around and came back to Heathrow. Exactly as scheduled.

Last year I mentioned Comic Relief, one of two UK "signature" charities. (The other being Children In Need with the perenially damaged Pudsey Bear.) This year, for "Red Nose Day," British Airways hosted "the highest stand-up comedy gig" -- a show at 35,000 feet.

You'd think, with Jess being an employee of BA, that's how I got a ticket, but you'd be wrong. BA created a lottery, with tickets costing £3, and a friend of mine won. They said they raised nearly £100,000 -- so over 30,000 entries -- and gave out 75 tickets. How lucky is that?

They put on quite a fete, letting us into the business class lounge with a full champagne and buffet, with more champagne on board, and they sent us all home with a bottle of champagne! Needless to say, quite a few people were pretty legless by the time we got off the plane. The ground staff were equally bewildered -- apparently, nobody told them there would be a flight leaving from Heathrow and going to Heathrow, and they were very curious about what was going on. (I even took a photo of the departure board.)

You wouldn't recognise the comedians, but they were all famous in the UK, and it was a lot of fun. They've promised to put up a highlights reel on YouTube next week, so watch this space, You may even see me wearing a red nose.

Oh, and it also won a Guiness World Record. Tomorrow I think I'll participate in the Guiness Record attempt for largest kazoo ensemble...

Fun, fun, fun

It's been a crazy week. Wednesday morning, Jess and I raced up to the house to beat the skip. (That's a dumpster, to you.) There was a car parked in front of our house so we went and introduced ourselves to the neighbor. She was still in her robe but happy to move the car. We've since gotten to know Anna and her cat, Mitchie. (I'm writing their names down so I don't forget...)

The builders arrived at that time, and immediately got stuck in. We were expecting three but we had four, and they made short work of the kitchen wall. Jess and I had to go to work, but when we came in that evening, we immediately breathed a sigh of relief--the opening looked great, the guys had done a fantastic job, and they even cleaned up! When was the last time you heard of builders who cleaned up after themselves?

Thursday, Jess met with the structural engineer and architect, and today I met with the building inspector, to discuss our ideas for the utility room and opening the wall between the hallway and living room. Fortunately, there aren't any issues, and in fact the engineer found the dropped ceiling in the cloakroom (downstairs bathroom to you) wasn't structural, and we can remove it. (Who knows why they built houses like they did...)

The inspector did note that if we do the loft conversion in the future, we will need to "protect" the staircase. This means having doors that can be closed, to prevent smoke coming up the stairwell. However, think about it: if you're on the third floor, are you really going to run down to the first floor to close the door to stop the smoke from going to the third floor, that you're no longer on? It's stupid, they all know it's stupid, but it's the law.

In any case, we'll deal with that in the future. Today, we had to deal with another stupid regulation -- that a new staircase has to allow 2 meters (about 6 feet) of clearance. The middle step on the current staircase is only 1.8 meters, but we don't have to change that because it already exists. When we put in the stairs to the loft, however, it will allow only 1.8 meters on the top step, which isn't allowed. So to avoid that, we have to move the bathroom wall 15cm (about 6 inches) so the staircase can start higher, and clear 2 meters.

Let me repeat that: We have to move a wall 6 inches because a staircase that only has 1.8 meters clearance in the middle can't have 1.8 meters clearance at the top.

That said, I've learned there's no point in arguing common sense, and today they busted out the bathroom wall. Coming upstairs (after the rubble had stopped raining down) was a little surreal, with the bath and toilet exposed, and a sheer drop from the bath down the stairs. However, in the next few days, there will be a new wall that will imperceptibly replace it.

While that was going on, the electricians were making a right muddle. Even though we'd told them we were going to be changing the door swing in all the bedrooms (and thus needed to move the switches to the opposite walls) and they had written it on the copy of the plans we gave them, they still managed to screw up two of the bedrooms. They also informed us that new regulations required the electric outlets to be 18 inches above the floor. 18 inches!! (Apparently this is so handicapped people can reach them without getting out of their wheelchair. That's after they get the wheelchair up the stairs, of course.)

Fortunately -- and even more strangely -- qualified electricians are allowed to "self-certify" their own work, which means the building inspector can't complain, even if he sees they don't meet code! And our electrician is perfectly happy to ignore the code and put them lower. (I'm thinking three inches.) What a country.

So that's where we are today. The builders also stripped off the bathroom tiles, the kitchen cabinets, and remaining bits of wallpaper we had missed. Tomorrow (on Saturday!) they will be removing the chimney breasts. They've already filled a 10-yard skip, and I'm having it replaced tomorrow.

Also tomorrow the plumber is going to do a "pressure test" on the plumbing, to see what would happen if we replaced the gravity-fed system with a "mains pressure" system. He's pretty sure it will leak like a sieve, and we'll have to replace all the pipes.

And we'll save the story of the plasterer for another day...

Kitchen v3

In the UK, kitchen terminology is out of proportion for a country that makes dishes like 'bubble and squeak.' You have a hob (cooktop), oven (stove), a cooker (range and stove that is 24 inches wide) and a range, which is a large cooker.

The mother of all ranges is Aga, which I discovered when outfitting the B&B. I swear, I've never felt so passionate for an appliance in my life. However, it's $8,000 price tag was enough to cool my amour.

As we were looking for a good builder, a co-worker of mine invited me to see his new kitchen, which included a 'pro' style Rangemaster. While not inspiring the same level of desire as an Aga, it was still impressive. However, we just wanted something simple and straightforward...until we realised how boring that was.

Over the weekend, we spent 3 hours with a kitchen designer at a major high street shop, and when we were finished it was twice the cost we wanted, and we weren't excited at all. Jess suggested we put in a range, and I made the mistake of looking up Agas.

Agas were developed as an alternative to coal-fired ovens of the 1920s. Rather than loading, lighting, and waiting for the coal to heat the oven, the Aga stayed hot all day long. It was so well insulated, it didn't waste much heat, and so well-built that many of those Agas are still in use today. It could even provide hot water on tap--a luxury at the time--and power the radiators.

Fast forward to today, with gas cooktops, electric ovens, and high efficiency boilers, and the Aga may have lost its competitive edge, but it is still perfectly functional, and it is beautiful. Even though cooking on an Aga is idiosyncratic -- there are no temperature knobs, but each oven and hotplate operates at a different temperature, so you just need to know which one to use -- people still swear by them.

The main disadvantage, in fact, is the fact that they are always on--even in the summer. And the best insulation in the world can't keep the kitchen from getting warm on a summer's day. As a result, they aren't as efficient as a modern gas range. But if efficiency is your primary criteria, you're missing the point.

So I looked into Agas and found a 'duck's egg blue' 3-oven deluxe model on eBay for £600 (US $900). Yes, it's over 36 years old, but that's part of its charm. And fully refurbished, these normally sell for over £3000 (US $4500)! The only problem: It's in Sheffield, 160 miles away. And it weighs 900 pounds, so not something that can be easily shipped.

Jess will no doubt be more pragmatic in this matter, and in the morning will convince me that a Aga is neither practical nor cost-effective, and of course I will agree, because she is right. But just for tonight, maybe I can hold on to this little fantasy a little while longer...

Oh, mock-ups of the new kitchen design:

Utility room

Great news: We have a builder! His name is Wieszek (pronounced Viashek) and he's from Poland (obviously). He was recommended by the architect, who was recommended by the structural engineer, who was recommended by someone I found in the phone book. Whatever. We've seen his work and while it's not perfect, it's quite good; he got great references; his price was reasonable; and most importantly, he can start on Thursday.

Of course, we're nowhere near ready. We still haven't decided on the design for the kitchen or the bath, we haven't selected the flooring, and we still have no idea what we're doing about the plumbing. We have a lot of ground to cover in the next few days.

One thing we have agreed on is to turn the downstairs cloakroom (ie bathroom) into a utility room. Currently, there is a hallway from the front door to the kitchen, but we're are going to close off the kitchen door to hang more cabinets. That meant the hallway was just wasted space, so by removing a couple of walls and putting in a new door, we'll have enough space to put in a washer and dryer, a coat rack, and (possibly) the boiler.

However, that means we're removing two walls which may be supporting the staircase and upstairs hallway. That would be bad. The structural engineer will be back next Saturday.

Sans wallpaper

There's a knack to stripping wallpaper.  I don't know what it is, but I'm sure there is one.

Most of the wallpaper comes off pretty easily (if by easy you mean about four hours per room).  The ceilings, in particular, just peel off, which is a lot of fun, but makes me wonder about the condition of the ceilings.  On the walls, some parts peel off in large swaths, while elsewhere it has to be scraped off in small pieces.  There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason.

The worse part is the embossed floral pattern, which wouldn't be so bad except that after I strip the wallpaper, the backing paper is left on the wall -- in the same pattern.  And when I steam that off, the glue is still in that floral pattern.  It feels like, no matter what I do, I can't get rid of it, and I'm starting to see it everywhere, even in in my sleep.  (I even saw it at the local home improvement store yesterday--seriously, they're still selling the horrible stuff!)

The good news is that, after three weeks, we're almost finished.  The bad news is that the plaster underneath is in pretty poor shape. (We expected this--it is the reason people apply thick vinyl wallpaper in the first place.)  If it were a typical California house--timber and gypsum board--it would be easy enough to replace.  Unfortunately, it is a typical English house--plaster over brick--and would be a nightmare to remove the old plaster.  I've talked to two builders about this, and one suggested using a glue-and-sand product that will consolidate the old plaster, and then skimming over that.  The other suggested putting a mesh on it and skimming over it, which will give it some flexibility so the old cracks won't come through...as much.  Both have told me to expect some cracks, however.  Fortunately, I know where I can get some wallpaper...

I'm meeting with a third person tomorrow--who only does plaster--and will see what he says.  In any case, I'm looking forward to living sans wallpaper.

Comparison

It's a bit difficult not to compare the current remodel with my last one. Of course, that was a different magnitude--six weeks vs. 18 months. Back then I was trying to save everything I could; here I'm happy to send everything to the landfill. Then it was horse-hair plaster and hand-forged nails; here it's 1970s kitsch. Back then I was stripping wallpaper because it was not period appropriate; now I'm stripping it because it's ugly.

But back then I was creating a business, and now I'm creating a home. And that makes all the difference in the world.