My dad and I ripped the last wood paneling off the walls of our new house’s master bedroom. Each sheet that came down revealed the wallpaper underneath- blue, with white and gold leaves. As I hauled the last panel into the backyard, Marisa smiled and excitedly said “our house is coming together!”
I thought about all the paneling that still needed to come down and replied “it’s not coming together- it’s coming apart.”
We're Basically Archaeologists
One of the founders of modern archaeology, Heinrich Schliemann, set out to find the ancient city of Troy in the 1890’s. Amazingly enough, he found it. To be exact, he found a bunch of ancient cities all stacked on top of each other. So to get to the “real” Troy, he dynamited the other ancient cities and declared that he found the legendary city from the Iliad. Unfortunately, archaeologists now think that he mistakenly dynamited Bronze Age Troy and studied an even older iteration of the settlement. That’s beyond the scope of this analogy though. The point is, Schliemann had to clear away what was on top to get to what he wanted underneath.
I feel a bit like an archaeologist as we do some updates to the house. As we pulled down wood paneling in our bedroom, the hallway, and the living room, we unearthed what was underneath. We slowly rediscovered the updates that previous owners made. It was kind of fun to see what wallpaper or strange paint color the previous owners covered up.
The hallway was the color of mint chocolate chip ice cream, painted over an older style wallpaper. The bedroom was unpainted. And the living room was a mix- most walls were painted, with the exception of one. This wall was covered with a wallpaper that was some sort of Mediterranean-ish scene. The best guess we have is either Italy or the Azores (even though they’re in the Atlantic). We spent little time with the wallpaper up, but enough time to snap some pictures.
Almost at Coming Together
After the wallpaper is scraped off, the walls need to be washed to get the glue off. And then spots need to be repaired with a skim coat, sanded, and wiped down before painting can begin. The process of “coming apart” is all to prepare the walls for something new- new colors, tastes, and owners. And parts of the coming apart is satisfying. Getting a long strip of wallpaper off in one scrape is amazing. So is running your hand up and down a smooth section of wall. Certain steps are a slog, like when your Mediterranean scene wallpaper has to be scored and sprayed 4 times before it will come off. Or the glue cleaning process. But now, the efforts are bearing fruit. Like a well preserved artifact, the original wall is emerging from behind the paneling- in marvelous shape. As of now, the only coming apart we have left is some living room glue and we’ll be ready to fully commit our energy to the painting.
We Couldn't Do This Without Our Team
We are light years ahead of where we’d be if Marisa and I were doing all the work by ourselves. Marisa is at reduced capacity due to the whole “growing another human in her belly” thing. And I can’t commit to putting 40 hours/week in on the house because I already have a full time job. We’re very fortunate and thankful that so many family members have spent a lot of time working on the house with us. Being able to watch people with different expertise do their thing has been a learning experience and it’s really sped up the process. It’s another benefit to choosing to live close to family!
