Jeremy's Blog: Foam Jigsaw

Well, after being in this house for around 5 yrs (wow has it been that long? We moved in November of 2001 if I recall correctly), I finally decided to take the butt ugly 70's style brown paneling out of our hallway. I feared what I would find behind the paneling, since people put up paneling to hide problems that they don't want to fix. I never expected to find...a foam jigsaw puzzle.
A foam puzzle behind butt ugly 70's style brown paneling?!?! How can that be, you ask yourself.
A little background.
We have about an 85 yr old house with very old plaster walls. In some cases, the plaster can be difficult to repair. The folks who lived here before us for about 30 years obviously did not like repairing plaster. They put up butt ugly 70's style brown paneling on every surface they could get their hands on. We have been slowly taking the paneling down and repairing the walls as we have had the opportunity. I was amazed to see the lenghts of stupidity the previous owners went through to put up this paneling in the stairwell.

This is the hallway halfway through tearing it apart:

You'll notice the beautiful framework of wood that they nailed into the walls to keep the butt ugly 70's style paneling in good shape throughout the years. They also filled every crack with FOAM. Perhaps this was to achieve an insulating effect. I guess I'll find out this winter. You'll notice at the top of the picture the desire till make sure every crevice is filled with foam.

See exhibit #2:

This insane desire goes even further when they stack foam pieces Tetris style and wedge foam between the poorly cut pieces of wood. Just to make sure no crack goes unfoamed.
Yeah we need a law entitled "No Crack Unfoamed." Interpret that however you like.
Anyway. The Piece de Resistance...

I mean what the hell is that??!??! Lets take every piece of spare foam we have and spend hours painstakingly piece together a solid block of foam so that the guy who rips this crap apart can take pictures of it and mock it in a public forum.
NO CRACK UNFOAMED!!!
Ah well, I digress.
They actually were hiding something bigger with the paneling.