Since the kitchen re-do has been put back to January we are ripping out the wood panelling in the family room (aka "the brown room"). We got a start yesterday morning and then I was off to work and Bob spent the rest of the day prying off trim, molding and interestingly unscrewing the electrical outlets from te panelling. They were mounted to the panelling and not the studs.
The panelling is interesting - a label on the back of one panel shows how much times have changed. It says "Weldwood Samara African Hardwood Plywood, Manufactured in French Equatorial Africa by CFG exclusively for United States Plywood Corporation. Interior grade." This label is classic 50s (the family room was added in 1955, four years after the house was built) in it's art, and also it's political and environmental incorrectness. (Love the spears, hate to think how much rain forest, albeit plantation was slashed for these panels.)
Tried to google weldwood and have found some newspaper ads from '57 and '59. I guess for that era it was all the rage which would be in keeping with our belief that the previous owners, the original and only, liked to be up with the trends of the day. Let's not forget they at one time had carpet over wide plank pine flooring over narrow strip oak hardwood flooring in the living room (the carpet wasn't there when we moved in and we pried up the pine very easily and laid and refinished it in the master bedroom.)
If anyone out there has more info on Weldwood, I'd be interested to here it just out of my interest to understand the history of the house.
1 comment:
Wikipedia has info about "French Equatorial Africa" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Equatorial_Africa
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