Newspapers in the Walls

We're frequently asked what we find in the walls as we renovate. Since the house was sliced up into apartments decades earlier, we're probably about 30 years too late to find big treasures.

But sometimes the walls do talk. In the form of old newspapers spanning the last century, crumpled up in what was the original ductwork of the gravity heat system of the house.

Through the walls, floors, and ceilings, metal ducts were built into the house during its construction. A heat source in the basement generated heat that rose through the ducts into each room of the house.

When the public water system came into the area around 1905, a water/steam radiator system was installed throughout the house, replacing the heat ducts as the source of heat. That's when newspapers started getting stuffed into the old ducts as insulation.

As we open up walls and original duct openings, we carefully pull the brittle crumpled newspapers out. Gently placing them in boxes and stored in the basement, we're slowly, and carefully, steaming the pages flat. The oldest we've found so far is the Thursday, March 2, 1905 issue of the Spokane Weekly Chronicle.

Their headlines, content, and context in local history are fascinating. And thinking about whose last set of hands touched those same pages, as we slowly pull them back into the light of day, gives us goose bumps.

If you're familiar with cleaning, flattening, and/or restoring old newspapers, please drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you :)