Upward!

For a while now, we've been picking away upstairs as we focused most of our attention on renovations downstairs. In an effort to ready the second-floor guest quarters for some holiday arrivals, we're ready to share some photos.

A little background: When we purchased the house in the spring of 2008, the upstairs was a dark, inhospitable place. The ceilings were very low; the smallish space was broken up into three seperate rooms and squirrels ran rampid -- their acorns and other treasures spilling out of the falling-down ceiling and walls.

First, we knocked down a few walls ... stripping decayed horse-hair plaster as we went ... to make it one big space. After knocking down the low ceiling, we were pleased to find that average sized human could actually spend some time up there without developing a back problem.

We re-framed the walls/ceiling, threw up some drywall and smeared on a fresh coat of plaster. Because we didn't want the space to look "new" ... we were very liberal with our plaster strokes and applied several different coats of paint -- in various colors with a top coat of white -- then sanded the walls gently to make it look like many generations of occupants had made the space their own.

We sanded down the old wood floors, giving them new life. We were careful to keep much of the old paint splashes, a result of 235 years of renovations, because we liked the character it gave the wood.

And after almost two years of treasure hunting at flea markets, antique shops and yard sales to find the perfect pieces to make the room look lived-in country ...we have a finished (well, we've learned that things in this house are never really 'finished') product we are proud to welcome guest to. Take a look ...