1/15/2006

One step forward...

But it feels like 2 steps back. Today we did our first house work in about a month. I stripped some wallpaper (going up the stairs now), and Shayne took down more paneling, ceiling tiles, and furring strips. And then we took up the carpet on the stairs, as well as the padding, nail strips, and staples. In short, we made a mess.


And uncovered some absoloutely lovely wallpaper!!


Like nearly everything else so far, the stairs are in really good shape. The wood has its original finish, but they were painted about 4" in on each tread. Another "but" is that they have some very elderly carpet padding and adhesive stuck to them...


The other unpleasant thing we uncovered was the ceiling. In some spots in the stairwell, it's in crappy shape. We lost two of the corners when Shayne was pulling down the furring strips... I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised. The stuff we lost was in bad shape; it was literally jsut hanging there by the horsehair. So we have 2 spots of bare lath right now (eep!).


It seems like every layer of this house we peel off just uncovers more work. Why couldn't the previous owners have done anything the right way?!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow is right- You said it was scary and all I could think was.. How bad can it be?? And to think- You guys are living there too!

1279

Di said...

No kidding... It is clean now, though. We picked all that crap up, so it's not like we're climbing over debris. We look like ghetto people, since it's all on our front porch in boxes and bundles. Why does the trash have to come on Friday?!

Anonymous said...

Heh- You guys need a dumpster..

Di said...

Nah... That'll be when we do the bathroom.

Seriously, the deconstructing part is just about over. We have the upstairs hall carpet and padding to remove, plus the ceiling tiles and furring strips. And that's it, except for the wallpaper. Then we get to start making it look like a house!