So the entire downstairs, besides the foyer, is covered in 1960s wood paneling. Now I'm not bashing wood paneling, it has it's place, but not through out the entire downstairs of a home. It gets to be a little much, feels like you're hanging out in your grandparents basement all the time. When we did our walk though on closing day the son of the the woman who previously owned the place mentioned that he had used Murphy's Oil and shined up all the paneling for us, and without hesitating I mentioned the paneling wouldn't be staying long.
So the process started, unfortunately is was both glued and nailed to the original plaster, just as it was in the kitchen. A sharp utility scraper helped out a ton in this situation, and it didn't take long to get the first few 4x8 sheets off the wall, and to discover a couple of really nice surprises.
First, on the back, west wall of the house, where we were planning on putting a couple french doors to lead out on to a deck, we discovered a piano window that had been hidden under the paneling 50 years previous. Since we're trying to do an authentic restoration on the house I didn't have a choice but to keep the window, so that was surprise #1.
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| Hello Mr. Window |
Now on to the south facing wall, which has a fireplace on it. Again, we took down the paneling and discovered a couple of nice surprises, two square windows flanking either side of the fireplace. So again we're keeping them, I can't wait to see how much light these 3 extra windows are going to add to the downstairs. Part of me doesn't understand why they would cover up all these windows, I suppose the trends of the 1960s had something to do with it.
