Robin came along and began demolishing the piano room. I had her rip out all the wood paneling and the trim moulding. She discovered that the wall that backs up to the kitchen was re-framed, re-wired, and sheathed with plywood rather than drywall under the paneling. This will make for a perfect structure to attach the sheetrock to.
She also discovered the old wallpaper on the plaster walls was in fairly good condition under that paneling. But the best thing she found was some writing on the wall in the corner where the south wall meets the west wall:
Yep, we found the build date! I had estimated the house to be built in 1875 from photos I found online, but this is the first piece of evidence found during the renovation that indicates that the house is actually fourteen years older than my estimate!
Rob and I had found a date on the lumber of the second floor addition when we demo'd it three years ago, but it was a date that the lumber was milled. It was in the 1940's and it had the name of the customer who ordered the lumber: Dr. Maxwell Cohen. This extremely cool message that Robin found is signed by Christine Cohen, the doctors granddaughter. The house was built in 1861.
So cool!! 1861! Love the old wallpaper. I took tons of pics of the many layers of paper when re-doing my last house.
ReplyDeleteWe were originally planning on stripping all the walls in that room down to the studs and hanging new sheetrock, but now we're toying with the idea of leaving that one plastered wall with the wallpaper.
DeleteThen we could sheetrock the other two walls and paint them a color that compliments the colors in the wallpaper.