One room done!

The first room we started working on is what we wanted to become our "library" room. Like most of the house this room has flower wall paper and green trim. A few great aspects of this room is the bump out where the windows are and the beautiful hardwood floors. Also, there is a nice size walk in closet where I keep crafts, sewing supplies and a few other miscellaneous things.

Since this is the first room we have gotten into with this house we weren't sure what to expect. We got really excited when we began and hope this room is representative of the rest of the house. We removed the wall paper that went up to a chair rail height. There was only one layer of paper and the plaster walls seem to be in really good shape so we were able to move on to the trim. For the molding it seemed like there were only two or three layers of paint on the wood. So once we had most of the paint removed we began the process of sanding, sanding and more sanding. We used three different types of sand paper to get it nice and smooth again. We then were able to stain the wood to a dark cherry finish that is typical with our early 1900's bungalow. On the windows we (I really mean my husband for this part) did use some chemicals because we didn't want to crack and damage the original windows! This took him a long time to strip off the paint. We cleaned up the wood and then worked on staining the wood. Now that most of the wood was stained we painted the room a light gray color. The previous owners left behind two tall bookshelves that we were able to repaint. We would like to re stain the corner cabinet at some time. We have been told it was originally kept in the dining room and moved to this side room when the attic was finished. So with all of that said, here is the final result!

We are hoping to replace this door when we can find one we both like! The white bookcase is one that was left behind. The window is just to the left of the right bookcase.

This is the corner cabinet we believe was originally in the dining room. It has the same glass panes as a small window in the living room.

The door on the left had some stain underneath a single layer of paint. You can tell how much richer and deeper the color is compared to the one we had to stain on the right!

The door on the right in the above picture is this same door. You can see a bit of the bump out that I mentioned earlier.