Unusual kitchen walls in old house. (painting, ceramic, ceilings, living room)

[MoonBeam33]

Hi everyone. I don't think this should go in the redecorating section because it is a little more involved that just painting, etc,

I have a 1914 Craftsman home. The previous owners did a slapdash kitchen remodeling about a year before they put it on the market. There are a lot of small things that I can change myself, or with a little help, but the biggest obstacle is something I really don't understand.

The previous owners covered the walls with cheap paneling (and I don't mean wood - it's crap) then covered that with even cheaper wallpaper. Here's where the problem comes in. Behind that paneling the walls *appear* to be concrete. I have looked behind the paneling in a few sections - there is no plaster (like the other walls of the house) or wood - just this bare concrete. Some portions are painted. I'm guessing they stripped the kitchen to the bare walls, but now what do I do? If I take down the cheap paneling, I don't know what do do about the walls - drywall? Plaster? Can I put tile directly on them? I have considered keeping the paneling and just replacing the wallpaper, but there are a few areas where the paneling will have to come down because they covered up a doorway and a window.

I will try to take some pics of the behind the paneling sections if that will help. ANY help/advice is appreciated.

Cosmic, where are you?

[Cosmic]

The truth is you never actually know what is behind there until you get into it. Lots of mysteries in the big city. I had it in every room in this recent rehab. Usually it was to attempt to cover up some other screw up. Usually poorly done and making it worse.

What you are thinking as concrete could be a form of stucco. They did know how to get wild and crazy. Tho I did see real concrete in the wall cavities of a bath once. Never did figure out the rationale of that one. I left that puppy, gave a couple mil plastic sheet vapor barrier and green boarded over top of it.

Yeah, do a ton of pics, lets see what it looks like.

Generally when faced with such a mess, you are better to just rip it all out, get it back to the studs. Then to a standard refit of drywall, tile or whatever suits your lil heart. You come out ahead and in the end probably less money. There can be surprises hiding in there.

You never know what else might be in there. I've even found money, pen knives, tools, old lunch wrappers, one 1915 nickel. The paper money was counterfeit from like the Civil War era. Wish I had held on to some of that, they claim is now worth big bucks.

Just treat it all as an adventure. Show us some general pics of the room, some pixs of the area in question. Get an idea of how to blend it all together.

You can hold on to the old paneling and make stuff out of it. I am now making shelving out of the stuff I gutted out of the living room. Waste not, want not.

Kitchens and baths can be tough. If old and slap jobs, I just gut them out and start over. Does not have to cost much money if done right. Not to worry, we will get thru it. One thing you can do with that paneling is put it behind new drywall or greenboard. I like that idea. Sometimes do it with old plywood. Cover certain wall sections of a kitchen or bath. Then can screw / attach anything to that wall without worrying about hitting a stud. There is always a use for everything.

[MoonBeam33]

I knew you would be able to help! You must have insomnia like me (or you live on the West coast...)

I will try to post some pictures of the weird walls tomorrow.

Thanks!

[windtimber]

There's a possibility the original kitchen was tiled and tile was set in concrete [Yes, right on up the walls.]. Though how [and why] they chiseled off the mosaic tile without bunging up the concrete is a mystery. I look forward to the pictures...

[desertsun41]

Behind those walls are concrete? Could it be that the current kitchen was an addition and behind that interior wall was at one time an exterior wall?

I too look forward to your pics.

[Cosmic]

While waiting for the pixs it is so much fun to speculate on what is really there. It could be recycled concrete from the great fire of San Francisco.

It could be part of the wall used in that car crash testing you see on TV!

I doubt they had tile on it but you never know. Maybe was ancient Chinese rare mosiacs destroyed by some clown. We will never know.

I would be guessing a crappy type of stucco type covering, somebody worked in construction and brought bags of free cement home. Happened so often, what ever they got their lil five finger discount hands on and was free. Could also be old quick lime mortar spread like plaster, it all would have been great ideas. Might even be a take off on that old English idea of mud and daub where they used tree branches, twigs and the like and then slathered deep with a cement product of questionable parentage. Such a thrill when viewing craftmanship of that vintage hidden for many, many years.

But we don't even have a clue if this is an inside or outside wall. If outside you can almost guess there ain't no insulation in there, if it is, probably old newspapers or cardboard boxes.

Sort of why I always say, you don't know nothing until you look in there. I bet it "Passed Inspection" by that keen eyed crew of roving maves doing their best Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot routines. For sure that was money well spent to pay for the dudes car payment.

What can I say, as the hours and minutes tick away the suspense builds, just like on one of them thriller TV what done it's.

[MoonBeam33]

I'm going to attempt to upload pictures, but I do have something to add. Upon further inspection of the sections I can see/reach, it appears that the upper part of the walls is likely plaster/stucco, however the lower part of at least some walls appears to be concrete that has rectangular imprints. I'm guessing that the lower part of the walls were covered with - tile? wainscoting? something? I can see drill holes where something was previously attached to the walls.

The kitchen is not an add on, but two of the walls are exterior walls, which might explain the concrete (and why the kitchen is so d@mn cold in winter). On a side note, the ceiling that the horrible dropped ceiling is covering appears to be in very good shape. Why do people do that?

[MoonBeam33]

Let's see how these look.

[MoonBeam33]

Here's one more.

So, from the first pic you can see the upper part (plaster?) and the lower part has the imprint. The second pic is (bad) of the drill holes where something was attached. The third pic is to show the rectangular imprint better.

I am fully prepared to find out that this is normal in old houses, and I am just an idioit

[Cosmic]

Need a couple of long range pixs to get better orientated.

That part you are calling rectangular markings look to me to just be a type of cement block wall.

Where those four holes are you can look in there with a bright flashlight and see if there are the typical voids of cement block. Can poke in with a feeler wire and see what is what.

So far with this muddy view I ain't seeing nothing worth saving. The part above looked more like crappy plaster. Probably one of those cheap mixes with more sand that it should have had.

My general impression from those muddled pixs is this puppy is due for a good rehab.

We need to see the overall view of the room better to start.

Dropped ceilings can be a giggle, you really never know what is under them until fully removed. Unless there is a reason, you don't have to strip the ceiling, can just map it and hang new board directly over the old ceiling, make a sandwich out it.

Does is look like a cement block wall on the outside?. There is also a baked ceramic type block that was pretty common basement construction in many areas. We have them all over my county, I got a basement made of it. Yours seem longer than standard block but I'm still guessing cement block, does not have the typical patterns of baked ceramic block.

So far I see nothing worth saving. Pixs are not the best, could shine more light in the area, see if that makes it better.

I hope you did not over pay for this puppy. Seems more potential at this point, we shall see what develops. What is the floor, rest of the room like?
Them boys must have been selling character.

Second good look, they might be the baked block, what do you guess the age? Where is this located? Were there lots of sewer pipe, brick type plants in the area back a ways. Those plants also made a building block, sort of before cement block became popular. Some had a coating that looks about like glass, see it in parts of NY, lots of in OH. Some of that block is very tough, can't cut it with nothing, even diamond blade it is tough. Baked block tended to be shorter in height than modern cement block, varied more in length depending on who made it. Lots of the baked block is just a hollow tube. You should be able to tell looking in them holes.