Fall 2002: Front Parlours

Note: this is a former static page that has been entered here. These events took place from October through December of 2002.

We began our renovations with the two front parlours, because they could very easily be closed off from the rest of the house, and also they would contain the greatest number of fussy things to move (ie, the books).

First we tore down the wood panelling:

Some of the original wallpaper

The old fireplace had been boarded up and a room furnace installed, so we unboarded it to see how bad it was

Note the newspapers sticking out of the edges of the opening

In the mean time, our plumber disconnected the bathroom that had been illegally installed:

We began pulling up the floor (yes, that is more wood panelling used to level the floor)

And pulling down the lowered ceiling

Then we began taking down the plaster in all the rooms, so that we could do earthquake retrofit, insulation, and rewiring

Here I am pulling wet newspapers out of the wall in the bathroom. That was what they used for insulation when they put it in, in 1991

Here's the back wall of the second story, which is resting on... nothing over the bathroom

We held our Christmas open house in the two parlours after a bit of cleaning up

posted by ayse on 12/22/02