The end is near….
After a year of removing the hoarding damage, deep cleaning down to the bones, pulling up rotted flooring that in areas housed decaying animals, assessing the structural issues, discovering rotted 200 year old floor joists, finding a leak in the roof destroying the plaster, disintegrating and in-secured plaster in dozens of areas…. I can finally see a room coming to life. It’s so exciting!!
I don’t think we counted the multiple layers of wallpaper in this room. They just kept coming off and coming off. It seemed endless. I think there were at least 5 layers in this room. And the years had done their toll on it. It wasn’t like the other rooms where remnants were priceless keepsakes. This room had, well, for lack of a better word – just ruined, faded old paper on the walls. We kept none it. But let me tell you, layer after layer, it just kept coming. I thought it would never end! I even had the help of our neighbor’s daughters. It was an incredibly hot day, but these girls gave me their all. They’ve loved the house for years and are thrilled to see it come back to life. Their observations of Bloomfield were so fun to hear. They saw details that I hadn’t ever noticed. They brought a young beautiful vibe to the work that day.
All that sweetness came with some good elbow greese and determination. But try as we may – we were no match for the ceiling wallpaper!
And the ceiling wallpaper was on with what seemed like crazy glue. Not to mention the feeling of vertigo I’d get up on the ladder, trying to peel it off. There are just some jobs that I’m no match for! That’s when I enlisted the help of the professionals. The plasterers were a godsend!! They got all the wallpaper and glue off the ceiling.
Not only was the wallpaper a wicked task – but we came to discover the floor joists were all rotted out. So up the tongue and groove floor boards came. And of course a lot of them didn’t survive the removal. And a lot were rotted as well. Felt like when you pick a thread on your hem… and suddenly the whole thing comes unstitched. That’s what kept happening in this room. On a lighter note, It was fascinating how the joists once tied directly into the stone exterior walls. But years of water damage, bugs and just plain old rot had done it’s damage. The floor boards were resting on nothing but sawdust in some places.
Not only had the floor joists rotted away, but the exterior corner had been rubbed by a tree for decades. This has damaged the roof and water had been pouring down into the cavity of the home. The plaster in this area was falling off the walls. If you touched it, it was just like touching loose dirt. Here again – the plasterers came to the rescue!
Unfortunately they found a few too many areas in the room like this when they started poking around. It was a bit scary for me. I had no idea that they could repair/restore the walls so perfectly. These gentlemen are true artisans. These craft workers are few and far between. Once again, we have been so blessed to find just the right people for the job. I always think Bloomfield somehow has a hand in finding these folks. Just about everyone we’ve had work on the house so far has a story of when they came through decades ago and had worked on her before. They seem to almost love her as much as we do. And are happy to be a part in bringing her back to life.
That’s all for now. In the next 2 weeks we will have paint on these walls!! And I’ll upload that then. Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments!!