Believe it or not

I know it is hard to believe, but there was yet another undiscovered layer of wallpaper in our house. When are we going to find that bag of money hiding in a wall? Why do we keep finding layer upon layer upon layer of wallpaper? I will trade eleven of those layers for one bag of cold hard cash.

I don't think our house was built in the way most other normal houses were with beams, joists, pylons, etc. I think when we get down to the studs it may just be layers of old glue and wallpaper stuck together like paper mache holding up the house. We could have turned this place into a museum of wallpapers from centuries past.

This most recently discovered wallpaper, however, was pretty baller. I am actually quite bummed that there was no way to reuse or restore it. The contractor discovered it in the kitchen behind casing for a door that was not original to the 1886 construction. So, when the door was added and the opening was cut, the original wallpaper just remained behind the casing that was added to the new door. Sadly, it was nowhere else to be found in the kitchen. I, with all of my expertise in historic reno's, am thinking the door was added no later than 1920's. That should mean nothing to anyone, I am just creating my own theories in my head.

And now, so you can see for yourself:

You can't really see much of the details, and the colors look entirely more orange-y red than they did in real life, but it was this amazing Chinoiserie style paper with red roofs and pagodas and Japanese botanicals. Quite lovely if I do say so myself. 

And to think, Laura Ashley has been hiding that all these years. Que Nicole Curtis, "Why the hell would you cover that up?"