Friday, June 05, 2009

Nursery Before and After

We bought our 1870's farmhouse two years ago, loving all of the details: the beautiful crown molding in the living room, the carved oak leaves on the fireplace in the library (a library!), and the fountains in the yard. So much so that I was able to delude myself into thinking it would be no problem to deal with the acres of wallpaper that cover every wall surface, including the insides of the closets, or the circa 1973 carpeting that hid the pine plank flooring upstairs.

The first room I tackled was the nursery. The wallpaper was extremely difficult to remove, and I spent weeks soaking the walls and scraping off the paper, piece by piece. I left the carpet on the floor while I worked, and after I had painted the room pear green, my husband and I tore out the carpeting, he sanded the floors lightly with a rented orbital sander, and I applied several layers of glossy polyurethane.

Gloss because it's easy to clean, wears longer than satin, and because I like the brightness of the light reflecting off the floor. Light dies in matte surfaces, which is one of the (many) reasons I dislike wall-to-wall carpet. That, and the chocolate-milky water you get after you shampoo it, even if it looks clean.

I'm happy with the room now, which is bright and cheerful. Also, the color is easy enough to work with when we decide to change the room for another use.




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