I will never, ever use wallpaper anywhere in my home again, especially now that I have removed every last little flake left on the walls.

It is not that I did not love it when it first went up.  Actually, I still love the pattern, but with more than 20 years of wear and tear, it needed to come down.

I was pleasantly surprised that with a little help from chemicals, most of the paper came off without too much of a fight. There were, however, some spots that were stubborn, and it took me some time to scrape the remnants from the walls.

It was during these moments that I questioned why I could not just be satisfied with the way things looked.

So what if there were water stains on the wallpaper where my son had thrown his wet towels.

I was the cause of the water stains behind the toilet. That happened on a day I thought I could be a plumber. I was trying to fix the commode, and I let the tube from the fill valve pop off causing it to spray the wall and me.

Many lessons were learned and words spoken!

I come from a family of home builders, and I like to spend hours watching the Home and Garden Television station. It is this handyman mentality of mine that has elevated me to thinking I can fix and remodel anything.

Fortunately, when I find myself too deep into a project that I realize that not only am I not qualified to do or physically able to complete, I call in reinforcements.

Typically, I start with hubby, but there have been times that I have had to call in the big dogs (daddy and little brother) for assistance.

For instance, several years ago, I was insistent about redecorating the room over my garage. I had decided it needed to be a space that family and friends could hang out. I had the walls painted and picked out a beautiful special order green sectional that had a pull out bed in it, you know, for when the company comes calling.

On the day of delivery, I was beyond excited. The men brought it in the house, and for more than two hours, they twisted and turned the sofa trying to fit it up the narrow stairwell to the room.

Well, to make a long story short, they could not get it up the stairs, and my special order couch came with a no return and no refund policy.

I was in tears.

Those poor moving guys asked if there was any other room in the house the sofa could go.

I just wanted to say, “Sure!  All the rooms in my house need a large green sectional!”

Thankfully, little brother came to my rescue and got that sofa in the room.

Would you believe he had a crew remove the upstairs window along with all the exterior bricks, forklift the couch into the room, and then replace the window along with the bricks.

Yes, my family loves it when I do projects. Hey, they may be happier than me that all the wallpaper is gone!