Old Patterned Wallpaper

This is a piece of the wallpaper that was behind two layers of wallpaper and a layer of drywall in the middle bedroom. Under this was a layer of "Blue Willow" looking wallpaper (very poor condition) and two shades of Robin's Egg blue paint directly on the plaster. I held on to this scrap, because I thought it to be pretty, in a retro sort of way.

Like many old houses, ThirteenEleven has had it's fair share of "improvements" (butchering) over the years. The only room that still had any of it's original plaster was the sun room. The rest of the house has a very old version of drywall applied directly over the plaster. This was done by removing picture rail and crown(if there was crown) in the house. The sunroom has picture rail, but no crown, which was not to uncommon at the time. The base trim was also removed,however the base board remained, leaving a slightly odd looking profile at the base of the walls.

I believe that the drywall was added to the house when the Worthy's bought the home in the 50's. From what I understand, they preformed renovations in the 50's and again in the early 70's. The drywall in our house has an odd very thick cardboard covering on both sides. And this would have been a quick fix for plaster that was probably showing it's age and cracking at that time. For a quick drywall history click here.