Adollting

No one tells you just how often, as an adult, you’re going to spend muttering “Leftie loosey, righty tighty” to yourself as you do various projects around the house. In this particular muttering session, I spent the better part of two hours disassembling the Glitter Girls shop into the base pieces.

I’m not sure if it was just an unlucky draw on my part, but I notcied it had a quality assurance failures - several internal screws were missing, mis-aligned plastic pieces causing “bowing” on one of the side shelves, chipped paint, and a serious texture/paint error on the flooring.

For me, this doesn’t matter so much, as this place is getting a serious makeover anyway. But for people who want to use it as is? Not so good. Needs some hardcore TLC, as that bench requires some major dis-assembly to find the mis-aligned screw. The plastic will need to be heated up significantly (I did this with a hairdryer borrowed from my neighbor) in order to straighten it back out, after the warping it was forced to endure for who knows how long.

I’m actually really happy with how far I was able to take it apart - the windows popped out, shelves were extracated, even the plant holder was just a simple screw holding it in place. Lots of little victories. Eventually, even Gladys released herself from the wall:

That’s when I discovered, to my horror, that the stripes weren’t actually painted on…this was glued-on, plastic-based “wallpaper”…

😱😱😱

It’s easy enough to peel off, but the sticky remnants are proving challenging. I’ve ordered myself some “gentle solvents” that might work. I’m going to test it on a small patch to make sure it doesn’t dissolve the plastic. Fingers crossed. Please, wish me luck, I think I might need it.

Have a great weekend!