Off with the walls! Or at least the paneling...

As many of you know from our guest blogger (Mom, aka Sita) on Sunday, my family is on their way into town to give me a hand around the house so I'm taking the rest of this week off starting today. Since my circular saw decided not to work as soon as I started the day's initial project, I began pulling the paneling off the walls of Isthmus House's downstairs living room instead. More on the downstairs bathroom tomorrow!

To be fair, the paneling in the living room wasn’t dreadful. It’s just dark in a room that only has one small window. Here’s what it looked like before I got started.

The wood was pretty easy to pull since it was just nailed in to wood slats attached to the plaster. I tried to save as many pieces with both the tongue and groove as possible but only salvaged a few. Behind the paneling was dust. Not mold! But, holy cow, a lot of dust.

Interestingly, it looks like the top portion of the wall was white at one point, then lime green, then white again and now, of course, navy blue. I have to wonder how it did with the lime but I suppose it would have been lighter and brighter than navy. The bottom color is a kind of pinky beige.

 

I vacuumed as much of the dust off as I could, but the room will definitely need a good scrubbing in the next couple of days before anything else happens.

Here’s what I’ve got now that the paneling’s down. You can see exactly where the baseboards used to be (the dark area). I wonder if they were ever painted.

Since the family's around, it seems like a good time to consider adding beadboard or a panel wainscoting all the way around the room in white – what color do you think the top portion should be? Leave me a comment - we're probably going paint shopping tomorrow!