Shiplap Wall

A tale of late-night woe.

Late one night last fall, Ryan was pulling out flooring in the living room, and I was chucking it out the window onto the burn pile below. I was taking yet another a quick break, and stood staring at the wall of drywall in the living room. Textured drywall no less, which is the very worst kind. Then it occurred to me…just pull off all the drywall. Surely there must be shiplap behind it. (This assumption was loosely based on the findings in the rest of the house.) Ryan liked the idea, and pulled off all the outlet covers to check. As far as we could tell, it was shiplap.

So Ryan started pulling drywall.

We ran into a hole.

Lots of holes.

And lots of wallpaper.

So we went to bed.

The next evening after work, we sat on the floor of the empty room and stared at the wall. Started discussing how we were going to find a product that matched 100 year old fir tongue-and-groove material. Craigslist? The Re-Store? Find an old saw-mill? An old barn to tear down? The ideas were getting ridiculous.

Then we looked down at the painted floors we were sitting on.  Back up at the wall. And back down at the flooring. We jumped up. It was the original flooring! It was 100 year old fir tongue-and-groove material. Just flip it over so the white paint was on the inside of the wall and BOOM! Insta-wall.

Over the next three days we garnered a new appreciation for salvage companies. Trying to pry up flooring without damaging the tongue or splintering the boards, and then banging rusty nails out of them was hard work. Ryan was incredibly patient with it, I won’t mention my attitude.

Ryan went to work patching the wall.

I went to work scraping away five layers of wall paper.

 Then I sanded for what seems like seventy-six years. Wearing a dust mask and ear plugs makes time go by more slowly.

But now it looks amazing. Ryan needs to finish patching around a couple outlets, and insert wiring and mounts for sconce lighting on the wall. Then I will dilute white paint (if we ever manage to choose our white for the house) and whitewash it. 

Next up in walls: patching a shiplap wall in the kitchen.