old, old wallpaper

From October thru January a lot of very old wall paper has been exposed. I will try to approximate the age. One piece may be original. I've kept samples of it all and will frame them for one of our "house history walls."

The following is behind our closet over where the old central stairs should have been located. We estimate the closet was added in the 1910's when they converted to a 2 family so this wall paper is any time before then (my guess 1880's -1910's). It's made to look like marble stones and would have been in the stairwell/hallway on the 2nd floor (near the bedrooms).

close up

This was a really "find". With the architect's error of losing 16" we had to take out the plumbing chase in the bathrooms. The sewer lines were installed to our house in 1877. They would have made a chase for the plumbing and vent. (Our plumbing thinks that there was a chase even earlier because there appears to be older pipes than 1877 in the house. His thought is that there was a cistern in the attic and the servants ran up water for a gavity fed toilet.) Two layers of wall paper was behind the chase. So one may be original the 2nd put up 20+ years later. The top layer is the brown with copper foil like leaves on top. You can see it behind the pipes in the 1st photo and a close up in the 2nd.

This wall paper was found under the above paper. It has blueish green dots and lines with gray flowers and columns and light yellow background (maybe white that was aged).

In the biggest parlor this wallpaper was behind our stairs that were installed in the 1910's. This wall paper is probably from 1880's - 1910's.

This is a better close-up when our stairs to the 2nd floor were removed.
It's mainly browns and gray urns with flowers. On one wall (under the trim) someone put a border on it with brown, greenish gray, gray, and gold. The brown is textured like velvet. (sorry I don't have a photo of that).

This wallpaper was found in the "other" parlor. The doorway was widened probably in the 1910's - but it could have been widened earlier. Similar in style to the other parlor.