Eliza's Wallpaper

Eliza Sikes, who lived in what we call the Sikes Adobe Historic Farmhouse from circa 1870 (when it was just a one room adobe that she and her husband and children built) until 1893 when the widow's property was foreclosed on and she moved to live with her grown daughter, loved wallpaper. We have evidence of many purchases of wallpaper over the years she lived there. In those days, the purpose of wallpaper was not entirely for decorative purposes - it also helped stop the drafts coming in between the boards of the rustic frame construction. (The "newer" parts of the house, built by 1881, were of frame construction, not adobe.)

As part of returning the house to what it would have looked like in her day, the historians have recommended that the wallpaper that she had on the walls in 1881, considered to be the "period of significance", should be reproduced and put up on the walls.



The wallpaper conservator examined all the scraps of wallpaper remaining on the walls when the restoration of the farmhouse began, peeling back layer after layer.

Finally, the determination was made that the scrap below, with the red roses on a grey background, is the wallpaper that was on the walls of the sitting room and the enclosed east porch in the early 1880s.

The San Diego Chapter of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in California agreed to fund the wallpaper project. They hired Burt Kallander of Burt's Wallpapers to reproduce the rose pattern. All Burt had to go on was the scrap below.





























Below are two pictures of the sample that he has created. This new pattern will be produced in many rolls, and installed in Fall 2006 in the sitting room and enclosed east porch.

UPDATE! 2/7/07

Below is the enclosed east porch after the new wallpaper has been installed. Eva Maher was the installer. A blank liner stock was put on the wall before the new wallpaper was applied. Ranger staff sealed the cracks in the old walls as the first step.









Below, observe the unusual method of applying the wallpaper around the wall studs. When the old wallpaper, applied during Mrs. Sikes' time in the 1880's, was removed, it was found to have been applied just as seen below. Fragments of tattered wallpaper scraps were found on all sides of the studs.

The new wallpaper will be installed in the sitting room, beginning the week of February 12, 2007.

UPDATE - MARCH 12, 2007

Thanks to the San Diego Chapter of the Colonial Dames of America in California, both the enclosed east porch and the sitting room have been wallpapered! The sitting room is shown above. It all looks so nice that it really does look as if the Sikes family could still be living there. Below, wallpaper installer Eva Maher demonstrates the difficulties of applying the wallpaper in the unusual and uneven spaces in the room.



Below, Eva points to the unwallpapered section that shows visitors what the wall looked like when the restoration began.