Excavating House Layers
As Will said, we’re busy excavating the layers of wall material in our living room. The top layer was ugly wallpaper, the next layer was wood paneling, and now we’re down to plaster. (I actually don’t mind wood paneling since it covered the walls of my childhood bedroom but it’s not the most attractive thing in the world, especially when it has been coated in wallpaper paste and patched up randomly with non-matching pieces of wood.)
Alas, we have no experience with plaster and haven’t found any friends or family that do either. There are holes in the plaster from where the paneling was nailed in and big globs of glue where the paneling was glued into place (you gotta make sure your walls don’t wander away) so *something* needs to be done. We’re just not sure how big of a project it will be.
Oh, and there’s also the 5′ x 6′ giant mirror that appears to have been installed to replace what used to be an outside window. We haven’t been brave enough to pry it off the wall but it looks like there’s no plaster underneath, so we’re not sure what to do next.
Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?
From an ecological standpoint, plaster doesn’t seem too terrible and it would make more sense to patch it than to cover it over with totally new material. I got a book from the library about mixing natural plasters but I’m not sure if you they would stick to the old stuff. I’m hoping to get a professional in to look at it and give us some advice. My biggest concern is if we need to get the glue off before we put fresh plaster on.
On the plus side, we also pulled up the carpets in the front room and the hardwood floors underneath look BEAUTIFUL. It was nice to reveal at least one treasure in our excavating work…
Jessica said,
July 15, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
Oh how lucky! Its great to find hardwood under carpet.
Will said,
July 15, 2008 @ 10:55 pm
Yes, we’re very pleased! I’m sure we’ll have pictures up soonish.
So far, the best recommendation we’ve had for the mirror is to cover it up with stained glass or a mosaic.
andar909 said,
August 10, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
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