LESLIE: We’re going to talk to Dawn in North Dakota who’s having a paint situation. What’s going on at your money pit?
DAWN: Hi, we purchased a house recently and on the entryway, about halfway up – from the bottom halfway up – they put a textured paint. It’s kind of like a velvet paint, I think is what they call it. Feels like there’s sand in there.
LESLIE: Oh, yeah, yeah.
DAWN: And then from about halfway up from that point then all the way up to the ceiling – which is a bi-level, so it’s quite a ways up – then it is just a regular, you know, texture that a person would put on the wall. And we’re wondering – so then put a piece of wallpaper border in between the two and we’d like to take the wallpaper out and then just basically make it one color. But of course there’s that line there, you know, between where the texture paint and the rest …
TOM: You have – so you have a smooth wall and then a textured wall below it with a piece of wallpaper as a border between the two? (Leslie chuckles)
DAWN: Right.
TOM: That’s pretty creative. (chuckling)
LESLIE: It’s the wallpaper chair rail.
DAWN: That’s right.
TOM: You know, of all the texture wall horror stories we have heard, that’s a unique one for me right there. (laughing)
LESLIE: Alright, Dawn, how is that wallpaper border attached? Any idea? Is it really firmly stuck on there or can you sort of peel it away in some places?
DAWN: (overlapping voices) No. In fact, we have started peeling away, thinking that we could, you know, do it and it’s actually been peeled away for about six months now. And so yeah, the wallpaper border comes off fine but now there is definitely that ridge there, you know, between the two and I suppose a person could sand but I feel that you’re going to have to really basically retexture that whole area. I’m not really sure though if there’s another way to do it.
LESLIE: Well, I think the paint texture that you’re talking about on the lower half is something called a sueded texture; which you’re right, there’s sand in there.
DAWN: OK.
LESLIE: And I mean it does lay on a pretty hefty texture. So your best bet is to try some sanding. If that really becomes a major pain in the butt you might want to think about texturing the entire wall surface just to sort of even everything out.
DAWN: OK.
LESLIE: If that’s not an option for you, you can think about covering that lower portion with like a beadboard wainscoting with some beautiful molding that maybe you cantilever out to make a little rail to rest, I know don’t, a candle on or something as you enter into that front entrance area.
DAWN: That’s a great idea. I’ve never thought of that. Yeah.
LESLIE: And that could help really, you know, given that you have such a high ceiling there you can do a paneling or the wainscoting to an even higher height and that could create sort of a nice entranceway.
DAWN: It would be. Yep. No, that’s a great idea.
TOM: And it’d probably match the shag carpet underneath it, too. (all chuckle)
DAWN: No, we’re not quite there.
TOM: Alright, Dawn. I’m only picking on you. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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