05-Apr-2016

The "Birds´Room", restored

The "Birds´Room" got its name because my great-grant-aunt kept free flying woodbirds in this room in the 19th century who made their nests in the curtains according to oral tradition.

Until restoration part III it looked so:
As we had already made investigations of the stucco we knew the ceiling originally having been coloured. Therefore we decided: the wallpaper had to go totally and we would restore the original colouring.
After the restoration the ceiling now looks like this. To restore the stucco we had to reopen all the tear offs.
This picture shows the original colours. The grey flower chain shows furtheron the original paint from 1720 (not overpainted)
The entrance door urgendly needed a restoration as well, woodworms and the "tooth of time" had chewed heavily at one panel.
Now the restoration of the Vogelzimmer is finished and every item back at its old place

We knew already the middle trusses to the aisle being heavily damaged -being kept together on the outside only by its wallpaper- but we didn´t expect the following discovery: below our beautifull wallpaper -my parents papered it on in 1965- mould over mould!
After removing the overpainting we made an important find; Gold!
Now the stucco looks after the renovation as it did 300 years back. There have been put on only 4 layers of paint during the centuries.
Our restorers adjusted the colour of the new planks perfectly to the colour of the old ones.