Work on the first, or front-most, bedroom began in February 2017 and ran until mid-June. The plan was to rip out an unusable closet and expose the chimney, strip and refinish al the woodwork, then paint and wallpaper. This was Judy’s’ project, I helped out only where some electrical wiring needed to be revised.
The bedroom sits on the North-East corner of the old house, with generous windows facing the driveway and the street. there are nice hardwood floors. It had been painted blue, with a white ceiling.
The interior West wall had a chimney encased in it, with a typical 19-century sort-of closet filling in the remainder of the wall. to the left of that you see the door into the hallway. Take note of the mouldings on the closet, you’ll see them again.
On the South wall, a mirrored door leading to the next bedroom (in these houses, every bedroom had inter-connecting doors), and next to that, a closet that some enterprising previous owner had created by cutting through the wall and building a box in the next room. It had been trimmed out with flat slabs.
Mouldings are important in old building like this. These are large, with a back-band. And, of course, unavailable.
The first step was to strip all the woodwork. Judy’s preferred method is a heat gun and careful scraping (mask required). The door mouldings were removed. The closet trim will go too.
Then comes the fun part: Demo! the brick is exposed, then the lath & plaster on both sides of the closet wall, leaving just the studs. Note the 19-the century technique of mounting the studs sideways.
With the studs framing the closet wall removed, it’s getting cluttered. You can see electrical wiring hanging down that someone had run through the closet. We want that buried, so the lath and plaster will come off the back wall of the closet.
First the plaster is stripped, then the lath underneath, leaving the studs of the partition wall between the bedroom and the hall.
With the wall stripped to the bare studs, we can clean up the wiring. We added an outlet in the bedroom and another on the side of the wall so we’d have one in the hall.
That’s the last of tearing down, now the building-up can begin.
Judy put up drywall and put down flooring salvaged from the Laundry Room project, then finished stripping the remaining woodwork. The windows were fitted with new sash cords and stops, then stained and varnished. The trim around the closet was removed.
The walls got a coat of primer, then wallpaper.
The closet got new doors. The chimney closet is gone, and the chimney has a coat of sealer.
The ceiling was papered with a tin-ceiling pattern, and a new light fixture was installed. For the closet, Judy used the side mouldings from the demolished chimney closet, but I had to create a matching piece for the top.
The end result.