on good authority...

... the second of the Ultimate Tests of a Sound Marriage: hanging wallpaper. I readily confess to having just a wee bit first hand experience, but by no means an expert. I can tell you that the process as it occurs is highly aggravating, messy, tedious with many opportunities for contentious comments if being done by more than one person, especially in close quarters. It has been so long since it happened here, as it is thankfully currently mostly out of fashion, I blessedly do not recall the details: not even what the pattern was, or where we put it up in this house.

I do remember it being a 'process', how the paper was already coated with glue, so you did not use a wide sloppy brush to paint the sticky stuff on the back side of the paper. Instructions had us dip the paper in a narrow long vessel of water, a fairly shallow tray that would soak the paper, and activate the dry glue that was already on the rolls of paper. Cut the paper the proper length to match the patterns, dip, and fold ends over towards the middle for a few minutes - giving the glue time to become viscous. Then apply from the top down, carefully matching seams and patterns. It's all coming back to me now. I'm even wishing I could remember which room it was installed in?

The amusing tale I can share is about my husband's adult daughter: I'd asked K. to come and help me put up a border, maybe about six inches wide, around the top edge of the wall in the small hall bathroom. Assuming it would be a very simple task. But when she stepped up on the edge of the tub, and put her other foot on the soap dish, with wallpaper in hand, the soap dish gave way. Can't recall if she fell in the tub, or caught herself before slipping in. The ceramic dish, in the tile wall, had a little hand hold on the top edge, that extends enough to grip if you are needing to steady yourself getting in or out. It popped right off.

She called her very handy husband, who came to inspect the damage, went to the tile store and got a replacement, quickly did the repairs to make it good as new. But thinking about hanging wallpaper, one of the things that will 'prove' a relationship, made me think of this story from years ago. K. is a good sport, with a wonderful sense of humor, readily laughs at life. She will get a chuckle when she reads this after all these years.

So now we have two out of three' Make or Break' events: hanging wall paper and installing sheetrock with your spouse. If you know of the third, please let me know. It is so telling, ways that will provide the proof of sturdiness of a relationship, it would be good fodder for printing on a wooden  plaque sold at Hobby Lobby.

December 32, 2016. This is the last one for the year. I plan to leave this year and enter the next one laughing. And hope it will not be at myself!