Good News: MPR says that "meteorological winter is over."Bad News: The weather doesn't care what they say, there is still a foot of snow on the ground and <0 wind chills.
Good News: Since it's been too cold to go out, Rob and I stayed in and spontaneously ripped up carpet and took paneling down! Now our stairwell looks naked, but in a good way.
Bad News: When the carpet in this house comes up, you are always sprayed in the face by a shower of grainy, yellowish grime from the carpet backing. Judging by the age of the carpet (300 years) and my luck (horrible), it's probably asbestos.
Good News: It has about the same exfoliating properties as my apricot facial scrub.
Bad News: Without the carpet, we can see that these stairs were built to go under carpet and next to the paneling. And behind the paneling, we can see the grody lathe-and-plaster walls that are a) probably also asbestosy, and b) need some TLC.
Apparently the previous ownerwas really lazy and/or batshitcrazy and/or thought times would never change, cheap wood paneling would always be pretty, and carpet would never get disgusting, so poor craftsmanship was ok.Good News: The hallway leading off the stairs is miraculously the same beautiful old wood as the bedroom and office.
Bad News: It probably also used to have beautiful old baseboards, but they got ripped out at some point and now there are 1/2" gaps between the floor and the wall.
Good News: I learned how to install baseboards and build stairs on thisoldhouse.com, so as soon as we get a new table/miter saw (hint: wedding present) we can tackle those. In the meantime, the stairwell is much louder than it was, but also less like a cheap, dark, ugly deathtrap.
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