2018 Fall Program Guide - Maple Ridge Parks, Recreation & Culture

FIND #3 : Patterns, patterns and paint. An investigation of the interior wallpaper and paint remnants helped to piece together the history of the house’s interiors, now over 135 years old. With the restoration in the early 1980s, very little original material remained on the walls and ceilings to help shed light on what was on the interiors. However, breakthrough discoveries occurred including: a) We discovered the original walls of Haney House were horizontal wooden boards, not lath and plaster, when investigating the master bedroom warming closet. Muslin support was later stretched over the boards to allowwallpaper to be applied. b) With the lack of original material through cuts into the drywall, we explored the inside floor vents in the master bedroom which lead to accumulated debris from rodents including wallpaper pieces and popcorn. When put together the pieces revealed a new pattern. c) With the changes to Haney House over time, many layers were removed and replaced without any record. The closets in the dining room and underneath the stairs yielded the most useful information for wallpaper records as these areas were relatively unaltered. Large pieces of historicwallpaper from the lateVictorian era, corroborated with the finding of additional wallpaper samples (hidden in a drawer of a piece of furniture in the collection) gave us more answers.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY The findings and conservation work will help to make Haney House more historically accurate and assist with interpretation efforts. It represents one step in many for Haney House Museum to be fully restored and utilized as a resource by residents, students and visitors to experience a unique site. Some lessons learned included retaining unidentified remnants and original materials, the importance of thorough investigation and research where possible and investigating further as structural elements of the property are restored, repaired or replaced. This historic house may give us its secrets over time! For updates and information visitmapleridgemuseum.org/restorationupdates

The 2017-2018 conservation work was managed by the City with support from the Maple Ridge Community Heritage Commission and Maple Ridge Historical Society. In addition, this project was funded in part by the City of Maple Ridge, Province of BC through the BC Canada 150 program and Heritage BC through the Heritage Legacy Fund.

Funded in part by Government of Canada and Province of BC / Ce project est finance en partie par le gouvernement du Canada et Province de BC

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