Those of you who followed the transformation of the mid-century modern may recall how Debra and I love dedicating some space to books and reading – a library, a spot to relax without electronic distraction (e-books excepted, of course). In the SoMoToHo, we knew immediately which space that would be.

This room is to the right, immediately as you enter the house, sunken about 6″ below the foundation grade (why, I have absolutely no idea). In another configuration, it might have been an office – you know, if they had separated it with nice french doors and built in some bookcases or a credenza. As it is, there is no separation. The original intended purpose of the room was a mystery until Debra was able to find some old listing photos that showed it furnished as a dining room. Here’s a shot from inside the room, looking toward the front door.

This pic actually displays several cringe-worthy features. In no particular order: there is the truly horrid wallpaper, then you have headache-inducing tile on the floor, next the baby-poop yellow wainscoting. From there, slide on over to the frou-frou leaded glass in the door and the transom window. Many folks probably wouldn’t mind the leaded glass. Frankly, in the right space, with a different vision, the glass might work quite well. But not for us and not for how we envisioned this house. So. We decided to make it our library.

The first thing we did after closing on the purchase of the home was to walk in and start stripping the wallpaper. Luckily, it came off in large sheets and didn’t require soaking or turtling or scraping. We had to do some wood work on the floors elsewhere in the house (which I’ll talk about in a later post) and, while we were at it, had cork flooring floated over the tile in the library. Then we started playing with colors. The photo above shows the change in the flooring and the walls, naked of their paper and, all in all, much happier.

Our original thought was to go very dark on the walls above the wainscoting. The sample above is Benjamin Moore’s Iron Mountain. We rethought that and ended up using a slightly warmer shade, Chelsea Gray, also from Benjamin Moore. (We did use the Iron Mountain as the background color for some shelving in the room that we converted into the dining room, using the technique that I discussed in the mid-century modern, here.) Here are a couple of shots of the Chelsea Gray. The baby-poop yellow has been covered with the paint used for all of the trim in the house – Benjamin Moore Super White .

Typically, wallpaper hangers will wrap switch plates with the paper. This one was no exception and we briefly considered leaving it as a small reminder of the room’s previous incarnation.Better sense prevailed, however, and that will be the first facet of the continued transformation that I’ll show you in the next post.