The Writing on the Wall

Although we've been spending a lot of time working outside this summer, we also have an indoor project on the go as well.  A few weeks ago, Jeremy started stripping the wallpaper in the front bedroom, or the "round room" as we call it because of the rounded wall.

Now that we are well into the adoption process, we want to make sure that we have a room ready for our future child.  This is the largest of our three spare bedrooms, and a favourite of most people who come to visit (my mom claimed it as hers the first time she came to see the house).  It's actually two rooms, divided by a set of French doors.  

 

When we moved in, the room had red velvet drapes, wild and tropical wallpaper, laminate flooring and mirrored closet doors.  There was also no ceiling light in the room, just an odd track light above the closet.

Jeremy started stripping the wallpaper one day while I was at work, and I came home to a great surprise.  The room seems so much bigger with the large pattern on the walls gone.  The more we looked at it though, the more we wondered about the laminate floors.  Almost everywhere else in the house has hardwood, so we couldn't figure out why this one room would have laminate.  After much debate, we decided to start gently lifting them.  If we found something horrible, we could always put them back...maybe?

Thankfully, there was hardwood underneath!  The floors in the front half of the room are beautiful and shiny. 

Unfortunately the floors in the other half of the room need some work, but we will do our best to patch and repair them, and fill the empty square in the middle with inlaid carpet.

With all of the wallpaper finally down and the laminate out of the room, we started sanding the walls to remove the glue and small bits of paper that were left.  And that's when we found the writing on the wall.

Written next to the door is "Susie & Jennifer were the last to see this wall before the paper went on.  

-Sunday March 1, 1909"

What an awesome find! I've done some research to see if the Courtice family had any children or grandchildren named Susie or Jennifer, but haven't been able to find any links yet.  

After a few days of sanding and filling, we're just about ready to start priming the walls.  It will be a shame to paint over the writing, but we know the plaster will just crumble if we try to cut it out.  I guess a picture and post on this blog will have to do!

We will be spending some time over the next few weeks working on the floors and I'm hoping to somehow update the mirrored closet doors.  Hopefully it will all come together over the next few weeks, before we head back to work.