Last week I tried to hang wallpaper, but it didn't go so well. My shoulder protested mightily, so I gave up after only one strip. It looks like this in the front parlor now:
Here's a close-up so you can see the pattern better:
The piece on top with the trellis pattern is just stuck up there with painter's tape. After the trouble I had wrestling the big flowered strip into place using pretty much only one arm, I wasn't about to reach way up there next to the ceiling. Ouch. (The doctor said, "If it hurts, don't do it," when I asked him what I was allowed to do, so I'm taking his advice.) Anyway, you get an idea of what the two papers will look like together. Keep in mind that picture rail will cover the seam between the two papers. The top edge of the picture rail will be even with the top of the trim around the door. (The horizontal top piece, that is, not the bullseye corner piece with the other trim above it.) I agonized over this wallpaper something terrible last fall, and now that one strip is up, I can't imagine why I worried so much. I think it looks pretty good. So far. A whole room of it might be a different story....There I go, agonizing again.
Since I couldn't put up any more paper, I decided to clean up the yard this week. I trimmed back the daffodils that were done blooming, planted a few containers, and weeded the fence row. This morning when I got home from work, I saw that Esther's great big iris are blooming along the fence.
Esther is the tiny little old lady who lived (and died) in the Kelly House just before I bought it. She planted these iris all along the fence, and lots and lots of daffodils around the patio, and that dratted vinca that I dug up from the front yard, too. When I was chopping away at the vinca, I found a 1970s-era necklace with an enamel owl pendant in the overgrowth. I like to think that losing that necklace there was some sort of karmic retribution to Esther for planting the dang stuff.
So I have flowers, inside and out, at the Kelly House. I love Spring.
