Today, we finished taking down the wood paneling in the nursery and the guest room. We now have a good idea what kind of condition the plaster walls are in...not very good. Jim thinks it would be best to tear down all the plaster and put up drywall. This means that we have quite a bit of work ahead of us. Also after removing the paneling, we have a better view of the wallpaper underneath. Apparently, before the paneling, the wallpaper was a pale blue. Before that, it was a salmon pink color with gold glitter swirls and blobs.
To continue with our demolition, we also took apart a huge dresser that the previous owners left behind. It was a nice looking dresser (or rather it used to be before someone painted it green and then someone else tried to remove the green paint). Essentially, the exterior was ruined. It is still a mystery to us how that dresser even got upstairs because it was way to big and too heavy to get it there. We ended up having to rip it apart with a crowbar and hammers. We managed to save the front legs/corners of the dresser. I think they look spiffy, and I want to try to use them for something else in the house. I'm not sure what that might be yet though. I hope I can salvage them because I think they would make a neat detail somewhere.
Here are some pics of what we did today...
Pics of the nursery before the dresser's demise
Pics of the nursery after the dresser demolition
You can see the dresser legs/corners leaning on the wall behind Jim.
Jim is picking up dresser fragments in the last pic.
As you can see, we have a lot of work ahead of us. It will get even messier once we start tearing out plaster. Yikes!
One of the interesting things we discovered is that it looks like the closet had molding on the top once upon a time. This is quite evident by the wallpaper border near the closet. It seems they removed the molding when they put in the wood paneling...that is a shame.
Oh well, Jim and I are going to be destroying this closet anyways to make a much more functional one.
Since we were on a roll, we also removed the one wall of paneling in the guest room. I was expecting to find the same orange flower wallpaper behind the paneling that is in the rest of the room, but nope.
Instead, we found this!
This wallpaper matches the curtains that were in this room almost exactly. Which makes me wonder just how old those curtains actually are. lol. As you can see from these pics, a pretty tall baseboard used to border this wall. It must have been removed when putting up the paneling.
Did you notice the air duct vent in this wall? The nursery and the guest room share this vent, and it is a direct passage between the rooms. This afternoon, while Jim was busy removing paneling trim in the guest room, I went into the nursery to get our work gloves. I decided to toss the gloves through the vent to the guest room. Next thing I know, I hear a startled cry and some choice swear words, then laughter. Apparently, Jim had been removing the trim by the chimney when I tossed the gloves through and it scared him. He said it looked like some kind of frantic bunny creature coming out of the wall because of all the pounding he was doing. lol. I guess I got him good, and I wasn't even trying. :) Serves him right anyways! Earlier in the day as I was standing by the same vent, he had reached his hand through and grabbed my ankle while making a growling noise. lol.
Here is a pic of us looking through the vent.
Jim is in the nursery, and I'm in the guest room.
Fortunately, we did not discover any fossilized rat nests or anything else equally gross when removing the paneling. All we found were some walnuts, 2 marbles, and a penny.
Now to change the topic. Jim and I discovered some monarch caterpillars chewing up my milkweed plants. I am totally ok with this, since that is why I didn't let my MIL pull them up. I wanted caterpillars since that means even more butterflies someday. Yea! :)
Fatty Fat Caterpillars
Munch! Munch!
Well, we had a long day, and I'm tired. I think I'll veg out and read my newest edition of "This Old House".
Goodnight, Everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment