Home Revision

My new house isn't exactly new. In fact, it's the opposite of new, having been built in the late 1800s, and this doesn't bother me.

I love old houses. I inherited from my father (by either nature or nurture) an ability to see what an old, well-used (and maybe abused) house could be with a little elbow grease. Really, home renovation, like a lot of things in life, isn't so much different from my job as a writer, to make a gem out of something rough. As long as the bare bones are there and solid, even revision will reveal the quality that was buried there all along, under all that grime and rubble.

 

We are only just beginning to uncover the secrets of this place. Tearing through the wall between the main house half and the apartment half, we found the old doorway that used to be there before the wall went up to partition the two sides. The door frame is signed and dated in 1960 by the homeowners and the contractor.

 

The next project is fixing up the main house living room, what will be our library. We painted it a deep peacock blue before pulling up the old, soiled carpet. Then, yesterday we shoved all the furniture against the far wall and began tearing out first the carpet, then the padding, on that half of the room. Underneath that was a layer of something painted a metallic silver color. Before my husband could start shifting the furniture to the carpetless side of the room to get at the other side, I took a crowbar and hammer to a section of the silver stuff, which ended up being some sort of MDF. Low and behold, below that was wood.

 



 

Carpet forgotten, we both took to the silver stuff, ripping it up in chunks and prying up nails as we went, so as not to step on their heads poking out a half inch above the floor. When it was time to call it quits for the day and collect my son in Sandusky, half the original floor was uncovered.

 

 

Of course, it's not a hard wood (looks like pine). It's too warped to refinish even if it was, but it's still a lot better than it was and will serve as a temporary usable floor until we level it with subfloor and put a hardwood on top of it (or maybe a bamboo pergo? Decisions...). By the looks of it, either the previous owners painted a faux wall-to-wall rug on the wood or they painted a yellowish tan color around a real rug, replaced that rug with a bigger rug later, and repainted the remaining visible wood a new color (a muddy rust color). Your guess is as good as mine. I'm all ears.

 

Meanwhile, on this same day in the other living room, there was a moth. Upon seeing it , I went into what could potentially be described as a deranged fit while my husband accomplished an insect seek and destroy mission. My natural fiber yarn is in a cedar trunk in that very room. It being cedar, the odds of a moth infestation are (thankfully) slim. Why do I get an intense urge to search through my stash for damage whenever I see a moth?