Michael has been working away at this project since I left for Little Rock, Arkansas to attend a PAII (Professional Association of Innkeepers International). The conference was fantastic and I came home with lots of new and good ideas for our Chestertown B&B. The color of the walls is “Biltmore Buff” and the woodwork and fireplace “Navajo White”. (How do they find these names?) We take recycling at the inn very seriously. The old drapes became drop cloths.
Walnut doors, windows and baseboards.
Next on the agenda is the floor. It’s a bit of a headache. The wood is in bad shape. We were told that the 1860 manor house fell on hard times from 1890 till 1937 when it became a tenant farm and the residents of the Brampton Inn were storing all sorts of interesting products, such as meat and chickens in the parlor. Michael ran into a friend the other day who is an architectural historian and asked him if this could be true. According to him it was indeed common to use the room farthest away from the kitchen for all sorts of storage. He also told Michael that in 1860 the parlor would most likely have had wall to wall carpeting. The Swiss “Hausfrau” in me wants to know how they kept that rug clean before vacuum cleaners??
We’ll stick to sanding and wax or varnish.