Twenty-Something: What I Love About Our New House

Since we're ripping out a LOT of what could be seen in the house (i.e. the wood paneling), one might wonder why we chose that house in the first place.

The thing is, here and there, there were bits of the original character peeking out from behind the 70s decor. Original trim, vents, the staircase, two stained-glass windows, and a whopping total of one original door. I just had to see what lay underneath the paneling.

One of the Stained Glass Windows

Original Banister

The only original door left, also the original trim untouched

An Original Vent

It turns out the original plaster walls covered with (most likely original) peeling wallpaper were hidden behind the updates. They wallpapered the ceilings, which is actually kind of cool. Also, I nearly cried when I saw the original window trim, hacked away in places to make way for that wood paneling. We discovered a hole in the bathroom wall where an original medicine cabinet once stood, as well as a boarded up window, which now leads to the fourth bedroom. A large window in the dining room was covered and turned into built-in-shelves because of the laundry room addition.

The built-in shelves are covering the original window trim

The original trim was trimmed for the wood paneling

A hole in the wall for a medicine cabinet

A boarded up window

I'm going to try my hardest to restore that trim, because the one window and the multiple doorways where it stayed intact are beautiful. I'm also hoping to find some five-panel doors and a front door at the local architectural salvage warehouse to replace the hollow doors that replaced the originals. I'm also hoping to restore the trim around the old dining room window/built-in shelves and create a more era-appropriate built-in.

The house was really dark with all that wood paneling. It's already brightened up since we took it down. The living room will also brighten up once we put a light in there.

I found out the house was a brick house just by looking around the enclosed front porch. The wall of brick was unfortunately painted an ugly tan and brown, but the original columns are still there, untouched. Un-enclosing the front porch will also help a LOT with brightening up the living room, even though it'll be some time before we can do that.