I can slightly imagine the strain the encounter must have been. Here's wishing it goes on well.
I did talk on a couple of occasions about my homosexuality to my father. My mother and I Do Not Talk about Things Like That. On the surface we get along quite whitout problems; she even at times uses me as a fashion judge. But there's a clear undercurrent of things being unsaid.
Of course you worry about her reaction. It'd be unhuman for you not to. From what you are telling us, I'd say you are doing good work on both being yourself and avoiding unnecessary distress on your mother. Not knowing either of you I cannot suggest anything, either. *support-hug*, dear soul.
And on quite another note,
I was scraping four layers [...] off the one wall that still had any wallpaper on it.
I am puttering on a 150-year-old house that has seen several rounds of remodelling. One of my bitter sorrows is that only small fragments of old wallpapers remain. It appears that in the big remodelling of 1930's, almost all wallpaper was torn down; only some pathces behind woodwork remain.
The antiquarian in me aches to hear wallpaper being taken down. Sometimes it is necessary, but whenever I have the opportunity, I leave the old paper in place. I may clear off any tears and damages, perhaps tear down some sections so that the different strata are exposed, and then put up an intermediate layer before the new wallpaper or paint job.
But that's just me in an old house. Still, I'd like to see the principles of conservation applied in modern buildings, as well; one day they will be the old, antiquariating ones.
I grew up in a house full of layered wallpaper, often alternated with painted layers. The living room had that faux wood panel pressed carboard on the walls. We lived with each new layer exposed for a few months in the beginning, and then got rid of it. By a couple years in, everything from the drywall up was ours; and often we'd done the drywalling, too.
The house was built in the 60s. That awful first era, when suburban track family housing with a white picket fence and a caddy out front became the american dream?
It had never even occured to me to preserve what are usually (what I have been trained to see as) the half-assed attempts to cover the walls applied by unskilled workers. Wood detailing, things that are valuable now (and possibly, I don't know, very OLD wallpaper) I can understand preserving... but ... isn't part of the point of wall paper that it's a covering, to protect and beautify the walls for a time?
Thank you for sharing, though, it is an interesting viewpoint. In the SCA, I learned how hard it is to figure out the detailing of textiles and other "disposable" items of the past. I honestly hadn't thought of applying preservation principles to making homes.
I've got comments to write about the house in general, old wallpaper, and the decision to paint, but my started getting long enough that I decided to put it off until I'm more awake and make it its own entry
Patches of three layers of wallpaper have been photographed, and I'm going to try to scan a scraped-off piece of the other one.
My house was built in the 60s too. The 1860s. (At 136, it's not quite as old as juuro's though.) It's actually a pretty neat house; it just needs lots and lots of work (and money) to bring out the glory lurking in it.
(no subject)
I can slightly imagine the strain the encounter must have been. Here's wishing it goes on well.
I did talk on a couple of occasions about my homosexuality to my father. My mother and I Do Not Talk about Things Like That. On the surface we get along quite whitout problems; she even at times uses me as a fashion judge. But there's a clear undercurrent of things being unsaid.
Of course you worry about her reaction. It'd be unhuman for you not to. From what you are telling us, I'd say you are doing good work on both being yourself and avoiding unnecessary distress on your mother. Not knowing either of you I cannot suggest anything, either. *support-hug*, dear soul.
And on quite another note,
I am puttering on a 150-year-old house that has seen several rounds of remodelling. One of my bitter sorrows is that only small fragments of old wallpapers remain. It appears that in the big remodelling of 1930's, almost all wallpaper was torn down; only some pathces behind woodwork remain.
The antiquarian in me aches to hear wallpaper being taken down. Sometimes it is necessary, but whenever I have the opportunity, I leave the old paper in place. I may clear off any tears and damages, perhaps tear down some sections so that the different strata are exposed, and then put up an intermediate layer before the new wallpaper or paint job.
But that's just me in an old house. Still, I'd like to see the principles of conservation applied in modern buildings, as well; one day they will be the old, antiquariating ones.
*huh*
The house was built in the 60s. That awful first era, when suburban track family housing with a white picket fence and a caddy out front became the american dream?
It had never even occured to me to preserve what are usually (what I have been trained to see as) the half-assed attempts to cover the walls applied by unskilled workers. Wood detailing, things that are valuable now (and possibly, I don't know, very OLD wallpaper) I can understand preserving... but ... isn't part of the point of wall paper that it's a covering, to protect and beautify the walls for a time?
Thank you for sharing, though, it is an interesting viewpoint. In the SCA, I learned how hard it is to figure out the detailing of textiles and other "disposable" items of the past. I honestly hadn't thought of applying preservation principles to making homes.
Re: *huh*
Patches of three layers of wallpaper have been photographed, and I'm going to try to scan a scraped-off piece of the other one.
My house was built in the 60s too. The 1860s. (At 136, it's not quite as old as