Case Study: Dining Room for a Former Dairy

GREEN AND GRAND-MILLENNIAL

After the reworking

The walls in this 1879 flat-faced Italianate's dining room were very mismatched. The sun damaged floors were warped. The whole thing was diiiiirty. But with some clever solves, it was all sustainably and cost-efficiently transformed without sacrificing the character of the home, and is now a garden-inspired oasis for a couple with an affinity for grand-millennial style. Leola handled the research on repair techniques, interior design, hiring, and project management.

DAMAGED AND DIRTY

Photos from the process

After 100+ years and many lives passing through, the walls in a historic home may no longer match. The floor may have seen better days. The wiring may not be to code. This room looked and felt rough... dirty, greasy, tired, under-loved. Not the kind of place for celebratory meals!

We started with the basics — a deep clean. Then, the sun damaged and warped floors needed a once-over, but our flooring contact made quick work of that and they’re now better than new. We also had the room rewired to meet modern code and the paneled ceiling put back together with wood glue and wood filler... and you can’t tell it was ever touched.

While the house was built in 1879, this dining room was added around 1900 and features thick redwood paneled walls and plate railing all around. And on just one wall, the area above the plate railing was smooth sheetrock. We came up with a solution that retained the feeling of a classic paneled dining room, but unified the mismatched walls. In one of our restoration reference books, we found an uncommon approach: cover the paneling with joint compound, sand it, cover with lining paper to even it out, and then add wallpaper. As an added bonus, this method is supposed to be easy enough to remove in the future, in case tastes change!