Have U Read the Paper?

Ok, so I bought a house that was built in the early 1900's. I really love it, beautiful wood work, huge windows (even a stained glass one!). The rooms are really big and airy with 12 foot ceilings and the vibe here is just so peaceful. I am starting to research the history of the house, but have not had much luck yet. I decided my first project would be the "living room". Everyone told me that removing wallpaper was awful, but I was pretty determined. Well, it only took me about 1/2 hour of squirting downy water on my wall to run to my nearest Home Depot and buy a steamer. Once I had that cranking, I thought this wallpaper removal stuff was a piece of cake! It was pretty much melting off the wall! What were all these people complaining about???? I had about 7 or 8 layers on there and it was not bad....until....I started on the bottom half of my wall and something was different. The top was some flat blue-green surface underneath all the paper...ugly, but smooth and looked like a somewhat familiar wall surface. When I was steaming about 3 1/2 foot up from the floor, the surface underneath changed. There was a seam between the blue-green stuff and this new stuff that looked like cement! The bottom 1/3 of my wall was cement? And one wall is a totally different substance, all white and smoother than the cement, but more crumbly than the blueish stuff. There is also a barf-gold colored section around for about 1 1/2 foot around the top of the whole room! I believed that when the wallpaper came off, I would find a normal wall, something I would just prime and paint. I don't even know what these surfaces are, but you sure can't just prime them, No one warned me that under 3 layers of wallpaper there would be one layer of paint and a layer of newspaper then 3 more layers of wallpaper (but only on the bottom 1/3 of the wall, covering the cement!). I was trying to read the paper to see if I could find a date, or something to try and date it, but it was coming off in little pieces so no such luck, I know it must have been quite old because one piece I pulled off said "in the negro section". I would really like to rip the plaster down and just hang drywall, but some of the websites I found said that it is more costly and time consuming to do that. I just look at my ugly living room and want to cry! I bit off way more that I can chew. I was better off with the stupid butterfly and roses wallpaper! Some of the rooms are going to have to be re-done because they have some water damage from before the new shingles were put on. I guess I should start playing the lottery, but then again drywall is not that expensive. I should hit the library and study some DIY books....carpentry has never been my strong suit!

Amazing

How did I end up here? I never planned on being a single mom with two kids, but that is me. I love my babies, they crack me up. It is also challenging being a single parent, but worth it. I am glad I had boys, I was so scared that I would end up with girls! Nothing against girls, but I wouldn't know what to do with a girl! Both of my boys ride dirt bikes like demons and love the outdoors.

I am not sure at this point if I will have any more kids, mine are quite the handful. Tyler (9) is out of school for the summer and playing baseball, Brayden (4) is into his dirtbike and has several girlfriends (uuggh already??).

I have a wonderful boyfriend and we both work in the motorcycle industy. He works at metric dealership and my company does both metric and HD parts.

I just bought a house and plan on moving next weekend....scary but exciting. It is kind of a fixer upper, and I look forward to making it my own style.

I really want to expand on my past, but it is time for bed!