Days 4 and 5

 This wallpaper is on the bottom of the wall, as you can see from the two pictures there are two different wallpapers.  I wonder who used this room.  If walls could talk, what a story they could tell.

 This was a very exciting find in the dining room.  In the following pictures you can see what it looks like. 

 These two pictures show the side view and part of the front of the fireplace.  It is shaped like a triangle.  We will leave the back side uncovered.  After it is cleaned up it will look amazing.  I had Joe stand in the doorway so you can get a feel of how tall the doorways are and the height of the ceilings.

 The new living room without the true 2x4's.  We still have the supporting 2x4's to remove.  We are waiting for the structural engineer to come by.  Will also see what to do about doing more earthquake proofing.  There is a cable running about a foot down from the ceiling in the middle of the living room and at the far wall.  This will be a wonderful large living room.

 The front windows in the dining room.  The above is with the wall still in place.  And the below with it removed.  The ceilings were lowered in 1941 as we found on page of a old newspaper dated Oct 1941.

 Wonderful pipes and huge holes cut in the wall going to the kitchen from the dining room.  These can easily be removed.

 The old knob and tube wiring.  Still being used--for a few more days or weeks then good bye.  The wires are just laying on the floor of the attic.  Very scary.

 Just one of the huge piles of old ceiling.  We have filled one dumpster and have started on the second one.

Old wall paper.

Day Three

 This is the view from the front door.  More of the wall on each side of the stairs will be coming out.  Will be so grand looking compared to before.

 This is quiet disappointing.  No ceiling medallion.  But still very impressive.

 The old wallpaper.  The solid wallpaper goes up about 18 inches on the wall and onto the ceiling.

 These two pictures show the room from different ends.  We were going to have it be two room, one a small office and the front would be the living room.  After seeing the two rooms opened up we both decided we like the idea of one large room.  The door at the end of the above room will be moved to the right side of the picture. 

 Fun wall paper from long ago.

The big disappointment, only one ceiling medallion, but it is so impressive.

The Remodel Begins

We started the remodeling of our four front rooms this past Monday.  We are opening up the walls between the rooms, taking out some of the doors in the foyer that lead to the upstairs, living and dining rooms.  As they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are the pictures, before and during.

 Wall paper near the floor.  I can't tell if it was a border or was on the whole wall. 

 Is that not cool.  I assume that it is original to the house.  That was almost as exciting as if I could have found so gold or silver.  Still might, lots to uncover still.

 This is a border that is just below the ceiling, I think it looks original.  When the room is cleared out I will climb up on a ladder a hope I can remove some and clean it up.

The cut outs in the wall would have most likely be used for heating.