Quite Curious

Whoever remodeled this house did a terrible job. The house we are renting was built in the 20s, and I’m guessing it was probably remodeled in the 70s or 80s. The original parts of the house look great, but the parts that were patched up were…well, patched up. As in, “let’s nail this cupboard door with one nail instead of two”, or “if we paint just the surfaces of everything, we can save double the paint”. The shortcuts are everywhere, and not only do they show, but they become painfully obvious with use (like the drawer that falls out because the wheels are gone). After the owner sold the house, it became a rental property, which didn’t make things any better.

So now we move into this old house, which overall, is in ok condition, but there are parts of it that are truly an eyesore to look at. Namely, the nook in the our entryway, and the gazebo in the backyard (this is a whole other post coming later this year). Our landlord is kind enough to let us make changes to the house, as well as pay for the materials, so long as he approves of it. So first thing first: the nook with the disgusting wormwood paneling.

And I mean disgusting. If you haven’t seen wormwood before, you’re not missing much. The first time I set eyes on it, I wanted to immediately jump into the shower. Wormwood is exactly what it sounds like, which is wood that has been chewed on by termites or something of the like.

The original parts of the house look great, but the parts that were patched up were…well, patched up. As in, “Let’s nail this cupboard door with one nail instead of two”, or “If we paint just the surfaces of everything, we can save double the paint”.

What’s fascinating is that my next door neighbor told us that the previous owner chose to cover up the original white paneling (photos below) with wormwood. Now, I’m dying to know why the previous owner decided to refinish the nook area with wormwood over all the other materials that were available, because 1) wormwood has no particular use and 2) I highly doubt this was a recommended material for house interiors - it belongs outside, if anything.

Well anyway, here are photos of what we did with $40 and the ugly nook in the entryway. The credit goes to Mike, who did all the real work. He actually started working on it at midnight one night because we just couldn’t take the ugliness anymore.

Here’s the “before” picture of the nook in the entryway. Not only is it hideous, but there’s a panel missing.

Here is the disgusting wormwood. Termites ate through this, and for whatever reason, it’s sitting in the house as decorative paneling. The choice of material was…not good.

I already started to feel better when it came off.

The previous owner was really frugal. Not only did he paint just the surfaces of the drawers white, but he haphazardly nailed in the boards - with crooked nails. Yes, they didn’t become crooked, they were crooked to begin with.

Yay! Taking off the wormwood paneling. The previous owner also did not have a level, as nothing was nailed in straight. There were huge gaps everywhere that had to be filled with putty.

Peeling off the top panels.

The wormwood was so unhealthy it started to crumble. But look! While Mike was taking off the wormwood, we discovered something underneath…

…beautiful white paneling! Even more confusing - why did the previous owner even bother to cover it up?

The nook in progress - wormwood gone, handles and shutters taken off, and ready to paint white. As in, the same color white as the trim. We were also irked at how the white colors didn’t match. Maybe the guy just found some paint or something.

It already looks a million times better, and we’re only halfway done.

Ta-da! The nook, before and after! We painted the entire thing white, and painted the face of the drawers an accent color (we just painted our living room wall with the same tan color).

The entryway was a bit drab, so we decided to paint the adjacent wall a bright green color.