We’ve been living in the house now for about two weeks, and the demolition of the larger of the two bedrooms has begun in earnest, and we’re moving ahead almost every day.

Taking apart an old house reveals the past: layers and layers of wallpaper (we’ve counted at least 6 layers), decades-old, brittle, yellow newspaper used as insulation, and window openings that were boarded up long ago. This bedroom, we can tell from the holes in the flooring, used to be the kitchen/dining area.

We’re getting a good feel now for how this house grew and changed over the last 90 to 100 years. Yes, we found newspaper going back to the 1910’s (more on that later). We’ve been reading what we can on the old scraps of newspaper and doing some research online.

And we found this wonderful surprise today, a hand-written note from previous owners, the Lutzmans, when they did their own renovation back in May of 1956 — fifty-six years ago.