Stripping wallpaper from plasterboard

Nest building continues (and yes, it *still* looks like a mess, I know), last week I had Friday off as a day's holiday (we had been planning to go away, but circumstances conspired against us actually going anywhere), so the day was spent (very pleasantly) in the company of my mum (and dad later on in the afternoon) wetting down the dreadful wood-chip wallpaper in the nursery-to-be with a sponge and painstakingly scraping until we worked our way back through the layers of paper -

- generating absolutely bags of rubbish (this was after a full large bin bag) and making the carpet look like we had been sawing wood in the room, all the way back to the paint on the surface of the plasterboard below...

Between the three of us we managed to do one of the walls, taking us virtually all day...and after all that effort it seemed like it really wasn't going to be a great idea to carry on and do the other three (or it would have taken absolutely weeks-worth of weekends)...however, Flyingpops and I bumped into our neighbour on Saturday morning and we happened to get on to the subject of decorating, and he mentioned that he had a steamer in his loft - ten minutes after we had got back through our front door after our conversation had ended, so he was knocking on it - a large cardboard box in his hands...

The steamer made a *huge* difference, both in speed and finish - taking our time on Friday had resulted in a perfect finish, but it wasn't until I was two meters along with the steamer in my hand that I had managed to work out how long I needed to apply it without damaging the plasterboard below, and even then, I was still managing to regularly melt the paint below the bottom layer of paper (making for an uneven finish), or dripping boiling water onto my leg sending me leaping into the air in shock and pain, so much quicker, but no way near as elegant...