After months of renovation and countless paychecks signed over to the contractor, our house is still an eyesore. This is not a problem of curb appeal; from the outside, our yellow and blue frame Victorian looks well loved and charming. While sitting on my front porch swing, I sometimes notice drivers slowing as they pass. If they only knew. Stepping into our foyer, you are attacked by a vast expanse of hideous wallpaper. The work of the previous owners, the paper is well nigh brand new, and expensive. In a last effort to spiff up the house for market, or perhaps as a cruel parting joke, that lady of the house found the most diabolical pattern of deep reds and purples, and applied it to every vertical surface. And there are miles of them, this being a three-story house. The wallpaper is apparently a famous Waverly pattern best described as a convention of drunken, overdressed butterflies. Each butterfly is the size of a regulation basketball. The colors are so dark, and the pattern so busy, that the paper has the effect of reducing my 11-foot ceilings to 7 feet. I hated the walls from the minute I walked into the house, so much so that I feel I must apologize for them. “Pardon the wallpaper, ” I say as I walk people down the front hallway to the kitchen. “It’s not staying.” Most people pretend to disagree, saying things like, “Well, it is a Victorian house.” Or, “At least it was expertly applied.” But there’s no getting around the facts. “Yes, it is ugly,” some will say, shaking their heads in sympathy. Perhaps I understand what the previous owner was going for. The paper screams Victorian, and the house has many Victorian architectural touches. I’m sorry, but this paper looks like Queen Victoria on a mushroom trip. Not satisfied with a room or two of the aesthetic equivalent of a row of church ladies wearing heavy, cheap perfume, my predecessor hung the paper in all rooms and hallways, including those lining our two winding staircases. Sadly, the paper is so pervasive that to remove it and either repaper or paint would be a massive undertaking requiring scaffolding, second mortgages, and upward of a dozen sweating men living among us for a month. Changing my name would be more easily done. My dilemma would be perfect fodder for the cable television show, “Trading Spaces,” in which neighbors team up with wacky interior decorators, and redo a room in each other’s houses. In my favorite episode, a couple returned to find their neighbors had, in effect, tarred and feathered their living room, using sticky black paint and straw. The finished room was even more gruesome than the butterfly Mardi Gras I wake up to every day. I would put up with almost anything short of straw if I could get on that show and have somebody de-paper my walls. Failing that, I’ll have to live with what I have for now. My husband finds the paper “too girly,” and has agreed that when our next ship comes in, we shall call up the sweaty guys and have them bring their scaffolds on over here. They will go on a butterfly hunt, using steamers and scrapers and hacksaws, if they must, to rip the awful purpleness out by the roots. Take a sledgehammer to it, if necessary. I will be right by their sides, holding their ladders, cheering them on like some crazed soccer mom. And what will replace the Victorian nightmare• Some nice, peaceful, gender-neutral beige.

---

Copyright ©2026— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---