March 15, 2005

• Will rubber cement come off painted walls?

  it should do. depends a bit on the type of paint and the quality/age of the underlying plaster (if any). the more glossy the paint, the easier it should be to remove cement-like material.
• Tinfoil, ah tinfoil. It's fun, gives an easy Factory feel. You'll want to wear more black and have mylar baloons floating around as well :) Make sure it's secured well to the wall. Otherwise at 3 in the morning when it starts to come down, you will be utterly freaked (unearthly rumbly staticky noise). Rubber cement should come off a painted wall, but you should test to be sure it doesn't stain. Also, please keep your windows open and use a fan--those VOCs will make you sick! A better option might be the double-sided stickers you can use in photo albums (again, test in a hidden spot ont he wall).
• Cool! I'm experimenting on my hideous radiator which is painted with the same paint as the walls. Never even thought of double-sided stickers. BTW, I googled Using Tinfoil As Wallpaper...heh. Details on how that went on blog.
• This is a really cool idea that I don't have the guts to try on my house. Using paint and tissue paper, your walls will look like they're covered in leather. Which, as you well know, is what we in the blogosphere refer to as "big pimpin'."
• Completely unrelated, but once on Trading Spaces they attached real growing grass to walls. Had to put wire mesh up first, then sort of weave the grass into it. Dumbest thing I'd ever seen.
• How about this? http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000679.php
• Holy crap. mecurious wins.
• I would like to do away with walls.
• Instead of physical walls, I just build an emotional wall around myself. Not only does it keep out the pain that comes with human contact, you hardly have to pay anything for upkeep!
• Also, I get to see cool hallunications of fanged vaginas and marching hammers.

• ...once on Trading Spaces they attached real growing grass to walls.

  this has been done quite effectively at the palais omnisports in paris. the (sloping) sides of the building are covered in earth and a mesh. the grass grows through a mesh. it's very pleasant to roll down the sides on a sunny day.
• I really like those texturized thick paint formulas that render a rugged, uneven surface. They're a bitch to clean, though. A friend went overboard in his living room, covering an entire wall with mirror tiles, glued with double sided adhesive tape. Again, cleaning is the problem, mirror looks hideous with smears and dust. And chair-smashed tiles look worse, too. Ended up taking them down. Tinfoil? That's cold. How about some ester foam walls? Cons: maintenance, expensive, probable fire hazard, one might begin to like banging against the walls. There's some special paint being develope for preventing radio/WiFi emissions in specific areas, but don't know if that's what you're after. Provisions, emergency training, tinfoil walls? You're starting to make me nervous, MJ...
• mj: Is the radiator functional? If so, it shouldn't even be painted with wall paint.
• Flagpole: The foam will mess with the room acoustics to the point where you hear a persistent ringing in your ears from the silence. Ever been in an anechoic chamber? It's quite unsettling.
• roryk, that building looks a bit steep to comfortably roll down the sides. But I like how it looks and I would like having the smell of grass inside if it was done for a home. I wonder how they mow it. I haven't tried but would like to have inexpensive fabric on the walls. I think it's done with stapling after cutting out the proper size pieces.
• Visited a very swank apartment with, no kidding, red velvet walls. Myself I've done a room in circus tent -- had nice a nice muted-tone cloth hanging from a point in the centre where the light fixture goes to other points along where the ceiling meets the walls. Very gypsy. Been planning for a long while now to put artistic work into some blacklight designs on the walls. Regular light off, blacklight on, and poof, arcane-looking designs. Want to do a nice astronomy-inspired bit on the living room ceiling to start but it's gonna be hell on my neck.
• For the realistically cautious, or truly paranoid, there's this stuff: Of course, you could always try making your own with some latex paint and brillo pads. That's how the real survivalists do it.
• I used to have newspaper offset printing plates on my floor. Does that count? Very cheap: you can pick them up for the scrap metal price and it is cool to have your local (or even national or international) headlines all over your floor. Not suitable for high heels though... Might also works as wallpaper.
• Tinfoil is a window dressing, not a wall-covering material. I don't know about mylar, but my nephew has one great wall in his apartment: it's covered in 35mm film, the print from some movie he had stashed away. He ran it through a viewer, and it turned out to be some dull industrial film, so he ended up putting about ten thousand nails in the top and bottom of one wall and stretching strips of the film between them. It looks like a layered paint finish from a distance. He made a little swivelling light fixture for it, sort of like an oscillating fan, and when the light moves across it, it casts a lot of strange shadows. He's also got an ivy half wall in his house, growing up a huge iron grate. It's not a full wall of grass, as was mentioned by others above, but it looks great. I keep telling him he's going to get earwigs, but I admit it's a hell of a lot better than some crappy sponge-painted monstrosity. He also has some rubber floors and a wall he covered in sheet rubber that are striking, but I think that stuff is damned expensive. We're a bit boring in our home. No tinfoil or film or living walls, but my wife and I did put up some beautiful wainscotting last summer. We bought it from a farm sale along with a pile of reclaimed barnboard (which will probably become our new kitchen cabinets).
• Hey Moneyjane, my buddy was telling me that it is posible to actual turn a wall into a photograph! That's right, devolope a photo right on the bloomin' wall. You just need some emulsion fluid. Cool stuff! Tinfoil is so much cheaper than silver leaf ain't it?
• By default, in my computer room I tried using semen. The look was okay, but the smell was never quite right and the bees (who knew) were out of control.
• Three simple words: Flayed. Human. Skin.
• You can also slap some "mud" plaster on the walls, and go for that adobe look.
• Provisions, emergency training, tinfoil walls? You're starting to make me nervous, MJ... Shut up! Shut up! Commence evacuation to subterranean warren of interconnected life-pods immediately.
• Oh, and for the record, if I may just say: Don't wallpaper. Speaking for the next guy who moves in and has to take your wallpaper down, please don't wallpaper. Paint it cool colors, do some funky shit, but don't make him spend hours scoring and stripping the paper down. /spentfuckinghoursonthekitchenwalls
• Brown paper bags make for an awesome leather wallpaper. My mother is planning on doing this eventually. I'd have done it already if I had my own place.
• I've done the fabric thing twice, both times with jute. Different colours each time and depending upon your resources it can be obtained cheaply. I used a staple gun to affix it along the top and then pinned the bottom to strech and hold it taut before doing the bottom. Then i covered the edges with quarter-round. When using the blue jute I left one wall and chose an interesting wallpaper. The effect is dramatic. I saw a wall done in pink silk once, in a dining room and it was exquisite. mct, have you never heard of soap and hair conditioner to loosen wallpaper?
• Don't wallpaper Exactly what I'm trying to avoid; that's why I'm interested in the rubber cement. I've used it on windows, and when you want to get it off there, you can just scrub at it with finger, and it rolls up into little balls. Hoping for the same thing on painted walls, because my God, I ain't scrapin' no nothin'.
• "This is a really cool idea that I don't have the guts to try on my house. Using paint and tissue paper, your walls will look like they're covered in leather. " I like the tissue paper idea. Now I wonder, what could I wipe on the paper to get a nice deep brown color?
• My favorite thing in the world is rolling up rubber cement balls. Okay, not my favorite thing, but dear God, I love it so. I've not seen the tissue paper thing in person, but I've heard it's really cool. I don't know how hard it would be to remove, however. It would suck if you had to sand the wall down.
• You could give Crackpot's idea that extra radical frisson by going for a full-blown re-creation of the Maze Dirty Protest look. And I'm sure you could really make that blanket work for you moneyjane.
• Noooooooo! Not the Dirty Protest! Slightly Grubby Upset, maybe.
• mumblemumblehumbleMarthaStewartmumbledumblebumble
• My favorite thing in the world is rolling up rubber cement balls. Okay, not my favorite thing, but dear God, I love it so. Every grubby little kid in the world does this while shouting, "Boogers!" and flicking the little wads. I suppose your favorite is using the real thing.
• Ever thought about hanging thin metal plates from the ceilings? No muss, no fuss when it comes time to remove them.
• Actually, my favorite thing is having sex on top of a big pile of cash that's been given to me tax-free before getting absolutely shitfaced on 60-year-old lowland scotch, getting a seven-figure contract to blog about whatever I fancy, and discovering that the spice from Dune really exists. All while having my taxes done my hyperintelligent helper monkey. Oh, and world peace. But the booger thing is a close second.
• Rubber cement: check about fumes and possible fire hazards involving the electric installation and such. Back in the jurassic, used extensibly the kind that remains malleable and stretchy for paste-up work. It's great for repositioning, but the fumes are quite a bad thing; a temp girl passing out during pasting of big posters was a rite of passage at the studio (that, and a new hire self-inflicting a nasty cut with an X-acto). Ah, the memories of grabbing a handful of slimy, translucent, gooey rubber off the can, then stand behind a newbie and fake a big sneeze... then hold the dripping hand near their startled faces as they turned around to say "Bless you... EEEARRGHHHH!". Good times.
• Rubber cement: check about fumes and possible fire hazards I'm thinking if I just apply it in lots of small dabs rather than a-swabbin' the wall, I might get away with it. The whole reason for this hijinkiness is that in order to not die of heatstroke (at night, in March, in Canada, I was already having problems sleeping because of the heat generated by the sunlight coming in my big window during the day), I had to be able to fully swing the windows open - which my cats would promptly fall out. To prevent said cats from such action, I had to put up 20"x25" cardboard panels in front of the panes that swing out - nicely covered with white tissue; looks waaaay better than it sounds - thus blocking a fair amount of light. Light I want, heat I don't. Considering I've already got about 75% of the total window space covered with the white tissue - the thin stuff you get to wrap presents and make kites with - I need all the brightness I can get. Why, you ask, is the tissue there in the first place? For starters the ever-changing line-up in the five apartments fifty feet away in the next apartment building can scope me through their picture windows that face mine. Which, because I have a studio, means they're looking into my bedroom. And, again with the cats - not supposed to have them, so needed to hide their fat asses from the manager when they lounge on the windowsill. Really, I should just put the cats on a bus with a couple of bucks and a rusty switchblade - but I am weak and so came my plan to boost the light in my joint by tinfoiling the wall facing the window. That and the letters God's been sending me about preparing thine pad for thee Rapture. But I digress.
• Maybe instead of wallpapering, you might want to try covering cardboard panels with tinfoil, stringing them together (possibly pairs of them, four or five long), then hanging them up like picture frames from your wall? That way, nothing is permanent (you can even use 3M type hooks, rather than regular ones), so you can check it out to see if it's ok.
• Compromise: insect screen over open window? Air flows thru, outside visibility is hampered (if the screen is a clear color, incoming light isn't that much blocked), cats don't fall out window. Or one-way mirrored adhesive screen for windows. Light gets in, voyeur neighbours stay out, cats don't fall out (really, are they narcolepsic or what?). No air in, though.
• Peeps.
• I saw someones house who'd used an old road atlas and matched the pages up into a big map.
• My boyfriend's favourite thing in the world (the one with the sex and the cash and the blogging contract and the tax accountant comes a close second) is being able to do maths/programming problems at all hours of the day and night, so in every room in his flat he has an area of dry-wipe whiteboard. In living room, kitchen, bedroom and study these are 'normal' boards (albeit with rather more square-metrage than normal). In the bathroom this takes the form of a wallpaper-like substance which goes over the painted wall. Don't know how it got there, though - I came along after he developed the propensity for leaping out of bed at 3am, putting the light on and scribbling something.
• Sounds like you want to have the stylish decor but might have to take it down (renting). I did this: go here http://www.justmurals.com/allmurals.html Get yerself the Hawaii sunset (or whatever you like). Take the sheets (comes in 8 very large sheets) down to your local hobby store and have them mount each sheet on foam core. You'll need to cut the sheets down to a manageable size (mine are 2'x3' with a 2" spacer on the top and right) and then hang them on the wall. I originally used plastic frame hangers and tacks, but you have to paint the wall when you move to fill in the holes. Now I use elastic plastic adhesives that 3M makes. End result, I have a view of a hawaiian beach at sunset in my room. It's kind of artistic (because of the grid effect) and a nice conversation piece (get yourself some luau music and some mai-tais). Best of all, I can move it easily (have done so twice) and since its modular it can fit any room by leaving pieces off or going around corners. Total cost: about $300, but worth it since its reusable and framing pictures would cost about as much.
• Wibbleflex, I'd like to do that in my office at home - but you'd need two identical atlases because half the pages are backed on to the others.
• Compromise: insect screen over open window I have those stupid bloody windows that you can't screen because you can't open and close them if you do. You would need to remove the screen each and every time you needed to deal with them - plus I'd still have to make the bottom 20" semi-opaque so the landlord can't see I've got two cats lounging on the windowsill and kick me out. Because I've declared bankruptcy, I'd never pass a credit check to get another apartment for at least the next 9 months or so. are they narcolepsic or what? It's an unsettling combo of 4" ledge with a thirty foot drop, and one very curious but clumsy and easily distracted cat, the landlord seeing the cats from the parking lot below and no money for vet bills. Or one-way mirrored adhesive screen for windows. Been looking for the stuff that isn't permanently stuck to your windows, as I'm renting, but not available around here. Which is pretty funny considering every drug dealer I ever knew applied the stuff liberally to their windows. I'm actually fine with the windows the way they are; just looking to boost the light levels another way. The mural thing, I need to look into. The place is really small, so something monochromatic would be best, and something that brightens the room. The walls are already painted in a very light tone, so painting them any lighter would have minimal effect.
• Ha! poo for you! ha! gives new meaning to chocolate brown. Aw Christ 'dem irish.
• moneyjane, I may have an answer for you. I had to do something similar for awhile, at one window that the dog would jump at when he saw the mailman coming. I used those cafetaria style, swinging blinds. With horizontal slats, so you can allow light in and make a brace that will place it so the cat can no longer access the ledge. Wouldn't that work? If you try it be sure to use the prefinished ones, because finishing/painting all those little wedges of wood is a major pain in the... Now I use just an old wicker headboard leaning against the window, and it's functional and decorative. Perhaps some kind of wicker barrier would work for you as well.
• How about some big mirrors (not tiles), from the thrift store or Zellers? Cheap, might make the place look bigger, add some light and amuse the cats.
• Oooo - you know what makes a cool window covering when you want privacy, light, and awesomeness? Bubblewrap.
• I wouldn't have the self-control. I'd pop it all to hell. We had a shower curtain that looked like bubble wrap, and even though I knew it wouldn't pop, I couldn't resist giving it the occasional squeeze.
• You are simply incorrigible...fisticuffs at dawn, monkeybars.