The library is a wonderful room, with floor-to-ceiling shelves on three walls and dark wood paneling everywhere. One of the former owners was an English professor who need a lot of book space. Over the years, however, like everything else, it had become a little worn and needed some TLC to get it back into shape. This was largely Dominique's project.
The worst part was the wallpaper, as usual. Turns out there were 4 layers of wallpaper, and we think we got down to the original one. There was a small square of it that was in pretty good shape - not torn and not too faded - so we saved that as a sort of window into the past. The rest was eventually stripped off.
There was a tremendous amount of prep work that had to be done and at the time we were only spending about a week a month in Oberlin, so it was very slow going. We also had to move our tool area from the dining room to the library which provided another little obstacle to work around.
One good thing was that we learned about the very wide plastic sheets that can be used to protect furniture, bookshelves, etc. It would have been nice to know about them before we took all the shelves down. As it was, sanding powder got all over everything anyway; I'm not really sure why we bothered.
In a surprising departure from his usual conservative approach, and against our painter's recommendation, Dom painted the small area that wasn't covered by bookshelves a bright but warm yellow. Ok, it's not to everyone's taste, but we really like it.
This has turned out to be one of our favorite rooms, if not the favorite room. We have coffee here in the morning, and an aperitif in the evening. It's comfortable and cozy.
Like all the rooms, it's very much a work in progress. We're planning to put a small bar in here, and we're in the process of moving our books in. I'm sure we don't have as many books as Professor Ganzell but we'll fill these shelves up before we're done.
The worst part was the wallpaper, as usual. Turns out there were 4 layers of wallpaper, and we think we got down to the original one. There was a small square of it that was in pretty good shape - not torn and not too faded - so we saved that as a sort of window into the past. The rest was eventually stripped off.
There was a tremendous amount of prep work that had to be done and at the time we were only spending about a week a month in Oberlin, so it was very slow going. We also had to move our tool area from the dining room to the library which provided another little obstacle to work around.
One good thing was that we learned about the very wide plastic sheets that can be used to protect furniture, bookshelves, etc. It would have been nice to know about them before we took all the shelves down. As it was, sanding powder got all over everything anyway; I'm not really sure why we bothered.
In a surprising departure from his usual conservative approach, and against our painter's recommendation, Dom painted the small area that wasn't covered by bookshelves a bright but warm yellow. Ok, it's not to everyone's taste, but we really like it.
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