Well, I can check one item off my Bucket List.

Operation Wallpaper Removal has been accomplished.I have some advice for those of you considering wallpapering a room … DON'T DO IT!Because sooner or later, you're going to want to take it down.Back in the early '90s, wallpaper was big. Everyone seemed to have at least one room that was wallpapered. I was envious. So when we put on an addition to the house, one room became my computer room/office. This was my opportunity to let my inner interior designer soar.Mistake No. 1: We paid to have a professional wallpaper it.Back in the '90s, I was a little bit country and a little bit Victorian. Since this was to be "my" room, I chose a beautiful print of tiny blue bows with tiny rose-colored flowers on an ivory background. Very Victorian. It was all girl. I decorated with hearts and my favorite pictures and knickknacks collected over the years. A bookcase was filled with my favorite classics from Shakespeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Charles Dickens. I could have hosted a tea with Jane Austen very comfortably in there.Over the years, I phased out of the Victorian décor, and country style took over, which morphed into primitive country. When I entered my outdated office, my fingers itched to pull down the wallpaper.Mistake No. 2: Don't be cheap. Hire a professional to take down wallpaper.For two years the conversation went something like this:"I'm going to hire someone to take down the wallpaper," I would say."Don't be silly. I can do it at little or no cost," my semi-retired husband would say.Finally, the day arrived. Last week he came loaded for bear with his weed sprayer filled with DIF (a solution to help remove wallpaper), putty knives, a handy dandy little tool to perforate the paper, and he rented a steamer, just in case.Hours later, still working on the first wall, I asked, "Can I please call someone to come in and do this?""Nah. We'll get it," he said."Well, shall I call the rental place and tell them we want to rent the steamer for the whole week?"Shooting daggers at me, he replied, a little testily, "I said we'll be fine." Then he added, "Now you know why I put it off for two years."My inner nasty wife thought, "Yeah, well, if we would have hired someone it would have been done two years ago."Still later, I asked, "Can't we just tear off the whole sheetrock and start from scratch?"Stupid me. I then received a very explicit lecture on what that would entail and its exorbitant cost.By the second wall, we found our rhythm, an easier way, and had it done in no time.Third wall … let's just say, tearing off the sheetrock began looking like a really good idea. But, we persevered, with a whole lot of cussing, gouging of the wall and our patience pretty much shot.Remember when I said not to hire a professional to put up wallpaper? I said that because I think our guy must have been the best wallpaper hanger ever, using magic glue to last a millennium!Ahhh. The fourth wall. Harry removed the sheetrock. No, not because we had had it, but because we were planning to install a pocket door which required removing it. Hallelujah!So, the wallpaper is off. The carpet removed. The pocket door installed. Electrical outlets moved. All that remains to be done is sheetrock hung, spackled and sanded on the pocket door wall, gouges and holes filled in throughout, walls painted, hardwood floors installed, stained and sealed. I'd say we should be ready to move furniture back in that room in, oh, I don't know, maybe Memorial Day?Mistake No. 3: Don't watch HGTV.I love watching all those renovation shows. They give you great ideas. They can have a whole house renovated in a half-hour to an hour show. So in Linda's World, renovating a little tiny room should be a snap! When reality hits and she has to actually do the work, she's ready to "List It" and start "House Hunting."In Harry's World, HGTV would be taken off the air, and when Linda would say, "I have a great idea for the bedroom," he'd tell her to "Love It" as it is or go marry the "Property Brothers."I guess I'm pretty lucky he hasn't taken me to "Divorce Court." Yet.That might come when I tell him what I have in mind for the guest bathroom.Stay tuned.