Back during our discussion on vintage wallpaper, Allison1888 linked to an article that chronicles some fascinating facts from a wallpaper excavation in New York's Tenement Museum:
Historic Findings About Wallpaper
If These Walls Could Talk describes the removing of layer upon layer of wallpaper through the ages, and the analysis uncovered by museum workers is pretty enlightening regarding late nineteenth-century (and beyond) choices. A favorite excerpt:
As successive layers of paint and paper were removed from 97 Orchard Street, it became clear that tenants often took it upon themselves to adorn their own apartment walls.
Either because of landlord neglect or a tenant's desire to express his or her own personal tastes through decorative treatments, wallpapers eventually differed from apartment to apartment. In some cases, up to twenty-three layers of paper were found on the walls, suggesting that the affordability of wallpaper, as well as the high turnover of tenement dwellers, led to frequent re-decoration of the apartments.
Read the full article here.
Any firsthand accounts of wallpaper excavation in your own home?
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Den outermost layer: brown/beige vertical 80s stripes
Middle layer: can't recall
Bottom layer: large-scale harvest gold and avocado green houndstooth
Bath outermost layer: shell-pink and aqua pearlized 80s
next two layers, can't remember
original later: white ground with small black polka dots, splashed with large yellow daisies (and the vanity cabinet was painted black to match the polka dots)
The house was built in 1966 and I am sure it was quite mod at the time. However, the person who put on the first layers of wallpaper without priming the sheetrock must be in a special place in H*(# now.
view pvett's profile
My parents' summer home has been in our family since 1954 and in my bedroom there, paint will not stay on the walls for more than a year due to the damp sea air. It always peels down to a kelly green that was already covered up when the house was bought. We think it is from WWII when lead wasn't available to put in paint and they were sort of making it up as they went along.
view Lazy Line Painter Jane's profile