THE WALLS

We have been stripping the walls of the wallpaper to see what might be behind it. Removing wallpaper, even under the best of conditions, is a very messy undertaking. We have spent about three days at it and have successfully removed all the wallpaper from the first floor bedrooms. We found several layers of wallpaper and in some places there was even newspaper, which I guess they used to create an even surface for the wallpaper.
We started this project after being invited next door by Les Racinet (the neighbors in #16) to see the kinds of restoration they have done in the ten years they have owned their house. We saw how beautiful the tuffeau stone is when it is protected in the interior of a house. Metta encouraged us to explore our own house to see what treasures lay behind the wallpaper.

We also had a chance to see the inside of another house across the street. A gentleman came to the door to welcome us to the town. He introduced himself (don’t remember his name) and invited us across the street to meet his “amie” (whose name we didn’t catch either). She told us that she was cleaning out the house of her mother who had died earlier this year. She was getting it ready for her daughter who would be using it as a weekend retreat from Paris. She showed us how thick the walls are and the stairway to the first floor and the grenier (attic). She speculated that her house was probably built in the 16th century. She showed us a built over archway and said the house was probably built as a chapel but was never finished.

What did we find? We found two walls that are entirely tuffeau stone. We will have very little to do to make that look fine. The back wall of the house and the end wall appear to a combination of tuffeau stone and fieldstone. There are some areas where there clearly was a window or door in the past and that was filled with fieldstone and plastered over. In these areas we will have to remove the old plaster and have a craftsman mason replace the mortar between the joints in a way that leaves the stone largely exposed but nicely finished.