Decorating the drawing room

This week I have embarked on decorating our drawing room.  I was determined to call it that (rather than lounge or sitting room) because it sounds grand and is grand.  It is not too bad at the moment, but one wall has badly needed redecorating since we moved in, there was a broken floor board like a see saw, the carpet is (to put it bluntly) knackered, and the gas fire is crap (it is very difficult to switch on and is a garish gold “footballers’ wives colour).  So this week we were supposed to be getting a decorator in to strip and re-paper the wall, and a new carpet on Friday.    The floor I have repaired already, and we were supposed to be having a gas engineer looking at the fire while she was fitting our new gas hob.

But the best laid plans…  The carpet is still going ahead, but the gas people are too busy for the fire at the moment, and today the decorator injured himself and can’t come until next week.

So I had a look at the wall myself.  On bits of it the paper came off in huge sheets, but in other places it was quite firmly adhering to a strange shiny cream and burgundy plaster type substance, which seems to be immune to water, and can only be removed with considerable patience and effort with the edge of a scraper.

In this picture the residual paper is on the left, the gypsum plaster is in the middle, and at the top middle you will see a patch of the glazed stuff.  Research indicates this is oil based distemper (OBD) which was used from late Victorian times up to WWII.  It is indeed not water soluble which makes it a pain to remove and apparently it is often not a good thing to remove it at all in case it is all that is holding the wall together.

Anyway this seems like one for the professionals.  I tidied up and will leave what is left of this for a professional to supervise.