The author shares their experience of renovating a basement apartment in their 1895 Victorian home. After discovering the space housed a tenant, they were inspired to convert it into a functional guest bedroom and office. During the renovation, they uncovered beautiful historical elements, including a brick hearth and pressed tin ceiling, along with sections of vintage wallpaper. The recovered wallpaper matched the home's overall aesthetic, emphasizing the surprising rewards of exploring and gutting 130-year-old spaces.
I quickly found the beauty in gutting a 130-year-old space is what you discover hiding inside the walls. Behind the drywall in the basement kitchen was a large brick hearth, a pressed tin ceiling, and the pièce de résistance - sections of intact wallpaper throughout the room that had been trapped for decades, if not longer.
But it was certainly old, and, in a serendipitous fashion, the colors in the wallpaper happened to match exactly the color palette I've used throughout the house - in my dining room, kitchen, and even the bathrooms.
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