Arriving at The Blank Canvas

Unlike the owners of some older homes, we are not faced with the issue of fidelity to any previous interior design schemes. Our front hall, for example, was "decorated" with thick seafoam green wall-to-wall carpet (bearing numerous stains of suspicious origin), and refrigerator white, texture-coated walls. At some point the door between the hall and the next room (the dining room, to be used as our library) had been removed, perhaps in the interest of creating a more modern "open floor plan."

Fortunately, the missing door was located in the basement, and had not been cut down to accommodate the inches added to the floor by the plush carpet. Less fortunately, a past-handyman had attacked the door with a disc sander, in an effort to remove the old, darkened finish. I imagine we should feel grateful that Mr. Past-Handyman quickly abandoned his efforts, probably because the heat-softened shellac gummed up his sanding disc and hopefully burned out his power tool. 

A single-leaf pocket door between the hall and front parlor was immobilized, having been walled in by the removal of its floor track during the carpet installation. A good friend of ours with welding skills was able to replicate the missing pocket door track.

The previous occupants of the house owned pets, and were smokers. I have allergies to both. So... that carpet had to go, and fast! When the carpet was removed, we found that the floor was softwood, probably pine, and that it had been damaged very near the front doors by a previous termite infestation. Never painted, this soft pine was the 19th century version of a modern sub-floor, and had always been covered, either by carpet or sheet goods (linoleum or oilcloth.

On the second floor, the boards were painted a particular shade of butterscotch brown, which must have been the industry standard, for we have seen floors painted the same color in Victorian houses from New Jersey to California. The staircase balustrade and newel had been stripped and refinished in modern varnish, the color too light and a jarring contrast with the shellacked trim and doors.

Texture coat had been applied to the walls (and some ceilings) on the first floor to hide cracks and other damage to the plaster. Removal of the texture coat from both walls and ceilings yielded but a single hint of any previous decoration: a thick black line, as if from a grease pencil, on the walls about 18 inches down from the ceiling, perhaps to indicate where a wallpaper frieze and fill once met.

Time and taste had also wreaked havoc on our front doors. Mid-20th century hardware had replaced all the original, save the cast iron hinges. An especially nice streamlined deadbolt lock, which could have been the invention of Henry Dreyfuss is a great period piece worthy of display... in MOMA, but not on these doors. Cheap slide bolts that shouted "I'm brass plated" and rattled every time the door was opened or closed were a constant reminder that these doors needed attention in the worst way. 

The cherry on the top of this sad presentation was the imitation stained glass. A nod to actual stained glass, this noble attempt at providing color and privacy possessed all the charm of refrigerator art. All that was missing was a signature in pre-adolescent scrawl, followed by 'age 9'. Only a parent or the artist themself could stand back and admire this artistic genius. A razor blade quickly swept away the illusion. The product of what must have been hours of intense labor had vanished and clear pure light once again shone through our entryway doors.