Do you like peeling back old wallpaper to discover the previous lives of your house? Are you a house detective? I know some of you are from a current discussion at Sheep's Clothing.
When we re-painted our early Arts and Crafts (1919) home earlier this year we were able to do our fair share of detective work.
When we re-painted our early Arts and Crafts (1919) home earlier this year we were able to do our fair share of detective work.
We found apple green paint under the wallpaper in our bedroom.
This original (C. 1920) hand-cut wallpaper border was under two other layers of wallpaper in our upstairs hall.
The only thing holding up the plaster on this wall was the wallpaper... (the wall literally peeled off!)
The downstairs walls were painted a delicious brown colour. This paint was wallpapered over in 1959 according to the notes left behind on the wall.
Not so secret now. What secrets has your house revealed?
10 comments:
Unfortunately most of the houses (of which there are many) that we have lived in average an age of about 8yrs so maybe we will be the ones leaving the secrets for future generations - now that I think of it maybe we should make our mark on our current place before we leave.
Our old house is such a mish mash. But I do love that under the loose carpet in one of the bedrooms you can see where the hall runner must have been, marking the original entrance to the house.
The only secrets we've found out about our house are dirty, scandalous secrets hidden away and only whispered about at family gatherings...such as gutters that are shot, airconditioning that doesn't work, and resident rodents of both the possum and rat kind.
Stop trolling for me :p
Hey - cool finds. I should post the pics of the embalmed CAT we found under our first house ( its eyes had turned to amber ! ). It was cool & macarbe at the same time.
It looks like you have lather plaster ? I think that's the term. Our builders were less than impressed to find it in our first home ( well, it was an 1800's home !! ). Apparently slow, dirty, messy, tedious work getting it down, or fixing it ? Can't remember now...
:)
Ooh, old houses are better than any mystery novel. I just love them. The older the better. They just don't make wallpaper like they used to.
Did you find any hidden stashes of cash or pound notes? I also love looking at the sale history of houses on title deeds and imaging who lived there and what things were like.
Team SAK: no hidden stashes but I remember mum and dad found old newspapers under the floorcoverings of their old house. They were used as underlay in those days. A great way to find out when the floorcoverings went down...
Aren't old houses just treasure troves for history? You're sure to find someone's name and date scribbled on a board here or there.... and old receipt or jacket.... maybe some photos. It's like a treasure hunt! I was disappointed we couldn't buy a house and had to build. I've always thought older homes have so much character.
We've just demolished the interior of our bedroom. When we took out the carpet and ripped out the built in (but out, if that makes sense?) wardrobe, we found a section of the floor boards were cut out in a nice neat square. When we lifted them, we found a box with a glass jar inside. No doubt where the money used to be kept. Not a penny to be found, but the glass jar was lovely!
Its so exciting isn't it? I bet your house looks lovely now.
I can't wait to see what else our house has to reveal.
My parents house has a false ceiling which has been put over the original pressed metal. Why anyone would want to hide that is beyond me.
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