Part 3 : Unearthing The Masterpiece
The Upstairs
We didn't do much to our bedroom except remove all the wallpaper and paint the walls and ceiling. We had to repair a lot of holes in the wall, including a mysterious coaxial cable that just appeared out of a hole and apparently hooked up to the external antenna. We tried to clean some old paint splatter off of the woodstained beams on he ceiling and hardwood floor, too, with limited success. I would like to eventually put some custom-cut swaths of carpet down in both of our closets (got the carpet, just haven't done it) but that's pretty much it, except for the half bathroom we have up there. It's dreadful. It might get painted, but it needs a whole new sink and toilet and floor.
Before : yellow drapes, yellow walls (which were all once "white"). Gone, gone, gone.
This was a near miracle, considering how much trouble the wallpaper gave us down in Tristan's room. This came off like a fruit roll up. In one big pile.
After : purple walls? yeah. They of course match the purply-accented bed set, which also matches the green chair. Naturally. Circa April 2006.
The horrid half bath. God awful yellow toilet, with cracks... a sink and faucet literally with about 5 cm of space between it and the back of the sink, so you have absolutely no room to put hands or a cup or anything actually under any water coming out. And we had to get a wrench to shut it off enough so that the water stopped dripping. And that floor tile, ugh.
Here's my closet, which is totally fine - I just like the slanted wood paneling. There's a Judas Priest sticker in there that I kept up. Righteous. It also came with a bag of neckties and a cane, presumably belonging to the deceased former male resident. They will be staying in this closet when WE move out.
Semi-normal current (August '07) picture of my closet. Still with horrible linoleum floor that is curling up at all the edges... still planning to eventually put down loose carpet on top, and in Steph's closet (which just has wood planks on the floor).
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A great and wondrous thing happened on that fateful day when I was not at the house and Steph & her mom had begun taking down wallpaper in the master bedroom. Luckily, it was coming off very easily in large sections. It also revealed something quite extraordinary. A series of drawings by children of unknown age, in ink, underneath the wallpaper and on the wall. Including two large men with top hats and capes, fangs, and high heeled boots. Star Wars-like tie fighters, bombs exploding, two tributes to the band KISS, two names (Billy and Alain), one extra-long limousine-type car and one tank with a year inscribed within it: 1978. Words cannot do this justice... so here are the pictures of what we found UNDERNEATH all the wallpaper you saw in that pile.
That stuff is just unreal. Frankly, we'd love to find out who the owner was when that was done and track them down and send them the pictures... what a memory trip that would be for them. I would certainly love to see it if I were them. Maybe someday.
What was even better was a large, 4-foot tall wizard painted in red with stars all over its body and a pointy hat that was in the little atrium where the closets branch out by the window. I didn't have my camera when I found that and didn't get back with it before it was painted over... so sad. It was fantastic.
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