A glance back over my shoulder ...

I just HAD to sneak these in! (I thought it would be ok to look back over my shoulder at the upstairs landing as I was going back down the stairs). The week before last we stripped the wallpaper(layers and layers!)off the walls from landing and down the stairs - and all of these fragments were found after peeling off the last whole layer. It was the very first wallpaper to be hung here - isn't it an amazing pattern!? You can see how bright the blue colour was in the detail pic (which also shows a very fetching crack going upwards from the corner of the bedroom door).

We were so excited about finding the first piece - we did some super speed-stripping and had the rest of this wall done in half an hour  phew!

(The rest of the stairs took much longer - covered in anaglypta, varnish, lining paper, emulsion, gloss paint, plaster, and layers and layers of paper.)

Landing wall - the first layer - found just like this, as if someone had got fed up with stripping it off and just left...

First layer showing details of nature themed and art deco wall papers. Second and third layers respectively.

Bright blue printed detail (and BIG crack)

Nature themed details ... layered over the top

Art Deco paper added at a later date to nature themed wallpaper.

Have been saving this rather gummy fragment of wall paper to add on to this post - found it the other week, when we had got down the stairs and were carrying on stripping the hallway.

We also managed to take down the brackets and pedestals (not shown) from beneath the arch in the hallway, and to our surprise, underneath layers of a distemper-like gunge, there was some details of acanthus leaves and flower. This had all been covered up to make a smooth shape instead - we liked the detail, so S cast some new ones, so we'll always have spares!

The banister. Feel

Ok – I think it is about time to start making our way upstairs. Satisfyingly smooth – I love the feel of the banister and cannot help put run my hands along it every time I walk down the stairs or across the landing. It is one of the few original features that remain in the house – and is by no means grand, however I like the way that it doubles back on itself along the galleried landing (that sounds grander than it actually is too). Whilst the spindles are painted the top rail is the original wood – probably stripped back by the previous owners. In winter the landing banister is used to hang wet washing on, it’s particularly good for duvet covers as there is plenty of room for them to hang into the stairwell.