We have secret fascination with peeling paint, layers of old wallpaper, and architectural elements with a past. The need to uncover and discover takes over because we never know when a lost treasure will emerge.
While having lunch at The Snack Bar, we spied this wall of paint and paper. "Work in Progress" was printed on a sticky note and we were intrigued. It appeared that someone was stripping away old layers of plaster and paint to reveal vintage wallpaper. The same week, we were touring a stately old home in the historic district of Georgetown and once again glimpsed a potential prize. Underneath 1950's fake wallpaper panels, we saw a peek of red print (antique wallcovering, maybe?) It was all we could do to resist ripping that panel off right then to make a discovery.
What hidden treasures have you found in an older home? Have you found anything in a tiny closet corner or under the floorboards? Have you stripped away layers of old wallpaper to find something lovely underneath? Perhaps you walked into a wardrobe and ended up in a snowy other world? Okay, maybe that's asking for too much.
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In renovating our old New England house (built in 1874), we found layers upon layers of wallpaper. Here's the blog post I wrote about it:
http://2cats.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/wall-art/
Photos aren't great, but you get the idea.
We took off wood paneling in our 2nd bedroom to find a beautiful, hand painted wallpaper of a lovely tree on top of a boys bedroom ships and world map wallpaper, on top of some very adorable vintage flower wallpaper. I loved thinking about the history of the house, but none of it was salvageable in any way due to the years of smoking done in the house by the previous owners. In our current renovating, we are leaving little notes and artifacts in the walls and surrounding.
@mergirl. So did you frame scraps or leave a spot unpainted? Inquiring minds want to know!
Along similar lines, here's a post by someone who turned an unfinished, many-layered wall in his kitchen into a silly antique-looking map [or, his son did]:
http://blog.collinsmaps.com/2009/04/map-of-month-apr-09-unfinishtstan-wall.html
This kind of excavating falls under the "Wabi-Sabi" category that I love (along with feng shui). You can really get creative with the wallpaper layering thing...I think it is especially effective in chic retail spaces and restaurants.
@mergirl--the ships are wonderful (so Maine)! So is your blog! Would you like to do a link exchange? :-)
@sasharenee: We still have some of the wallpaper scraps but haven't gotten around to framing them yet. We took the walls down to the studs so that we could add spray foam insulation, so we weren't able to keep anything original up on the walls.
@FengShuiByFishgirl: Yeah! would love to do a link exchange. You mean post your link on my blogroll, right?
I second FengShiByFishgirl's love for mosaics of old wallpaper. Old houses are themselves artifacts and works of art. @mergirl, I also second the suggestion on your blog to keep all those fascinating scraps you've uncovered -- in situ, if possible.
Found a menu from the Mt Washington Hotel (Bretton Woods) from before the "World Bank". A cert to pratice embalming-there were two practices of this here. There was also a coffin shop on the property -found handles for such. Sweet dreams.
I moved into my current place and started repairing the walls from other folks' nails. I was scraping away some hanging paint when lo and behold, sheets of it started pouring down, revealing the most beautiful toffee-pink and metallic vintage floral paper. I stripped 2 whole walls. Definitely one of my favourite things about my apartment - people often lose their sh*t when they see it for the first time.
whenever we would redecorate when i was young, on the bare walls we were given markers and a day or so until the paper or paint was ready to go on, we'd graffitti up all over the walls. my brother once did life size cartoons of everyone in the family in when we did the living room. makes me think of what people thought of it the next time they redecorated that room after we sold it.
We had a really cute asian paper that I believe was hand painted in the kitchen, because of termite damage, we had to remove it, then we found the fruit, then we found the village people. We also have bookshelves that plank the fireplace. Below the bookshelves, it looks like it is just wainscotting, but after we moved in, I noticed two hinges about the size of a rice grain, I finally pryed them open and discovered they were both filled with travel books and brochures from around the world and old newspaper clippings from the 1930's. http://thevillagepeopleproject.blogspot.com/2010/02/kitchen-in-progress_04.html
Oh my god Alicia that sounds amazing! Are there any photos on your blog of this stash? I had a quick look and I couldn't find any.
Termite damage. :(