Demolition of the Master Bedroom

Kevan, Kevan's dad and I started the demo work of tearing down the wall paneling and taking up the flooring in our master bedroom here in Tennessee. When you start looking behind the walls and under the carpet of a 1930's home you are bound to find something you were not expecting.  Unfortunately, I did not take a before picture of the bedroom, but here is a picture that shows the old paneling as well as the wall underneath.  Click the picture to make it bigger.

I'm sorry for the blurry picture, but I wasn't using my good camera.  As you can see from the picture we were very surprised when we removed the paneling and found a shiplap wall (sort of like tongue and groove). 

You can sort of see that the wall was wallpapered with old newspapers.  I was able to find a date on the newspaper that was 1913.  So, I am unsure if the house is older than 1930 or if they wallpapered with older newspapers.  We haven't decided what we are going to do yet.  We had planned to tear down the paneling and then drywall, but we didn't know that the wall would not reveal normal framing.  Also, we need insulation so we may have to do spray insulation between the boards.

The next surprise was that there were 2 layers of carpet and padding on the floor.  Under the carpet and padding we found tongue and groove quarter sawn oak flooring.  You can see the condition of the floor below.  The backing of the 1st layer of carpet has stuck to the flooring.  The floor seems to be in pretty good shape though.  If we can successfully remove the black backing and sand the floors they may turn out to be quite nice. 



We aren't sure if this is good news or bad news yet.  We'll keep you updated.  My body is so sore...who knew demo work would be so tiring.  I thought it was supposed to be the fun part.