Grandma's creepy wallpaper
I live in an unusual house. It was built in 1974 by a husband and wife who immigrated from Poland. They built the house around many features they collected from prominent local buildings and homes of the late 1800s that had been demolished for a variety of reasons. We have fireplaces, windows, staircases and more from the bank, the opera house, a doctor's home and other long-gone structures.
Overall, it's a pretty cool and interesting place to live. But there are some bizarre touches here and there, things I've gotten used to for the most part and usually no longer think too hard about them. On most days.
Yesterday was not one of those days. For some reason the wallpaper lining the hallway to the laundry room caught my interest once again and I thought you all might be able to help me solve the mystery surrounding my creepy wallpaper.
From what I understand, the wallpaper is one of the touches from the homeland of the original owners. It appears to be illustrations of cautionary tales, much like Grimm's Fairy Tales, but of a Polish bent. The illustrations are fine and good and understandable when considered as part of an old-time nursery book. We all know fairy tales and such can be, unfortunately, weird ... and violent. Which is exactly what the illustrations on my wall are. But why would such images be taken from the page and placed upon the wall?
Take a look:
Creepy, huh? That is what I see every time I do laundry, every time I use the ironing board, every time I change the litter box.
And every time I show people around my house, I have to explain the creepy wallpaper and why I don't remove it.
I don't remove the paper because it's antique. I think. If nothing else, it's unusual. And like all the other unusual features in my house, there's a story attached to this wallpaper; I just don't know what it is. I'm pretty sure it was put there by the couple from Poland, but that's it.
My biggest question about the wallpaper, though, the real mystery to me, isn't why the builders of our home put it there, but why anyone -- no matter where they lived in the world, no matter what period of time -- would think these pictures might look great on a wall, why they should qualify as print for wallpaper, why that wallpaper was ever manufactured in the first place. Did people in Poland line nursery walls with these images? Were resident children better behaved when they had these constant reminders of a horrible fate that might befall them if they misbehaved? Was such wallpaper used in places other than nurseries? Did anyone and everyone who ever saw it have nightmares?
It's a mystery I'll likely never solve.
Unless, of course, one of my dear readers has knowledge of Polish fairytales, the ones featuring drunks who fall in the lake or drag kids through the forest by their hair. If so, please enlighten me. Give me the "rest of the story" to regale the next group of visitors to my home and provide me with details on why these wacky illustrations figured so prominently in a culture that people adorned their walls with them.
Then maybe -- just maybe -- I can move on to seeking assistance with yet another mystery of my home: the one involving a discoverer of sunken treasure who has seemingly gone missing and I think just might be buried in my front yard.
Like I said, I live in a very unusual house.
Today's question: (If you read this early, yes, it was a different question. I like this one better.)
What's the creepiest feature of your house?
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Reader Comments (17)
I looked up "Polish Nursery Rhymes", Polish Faerie Tales", and such on the internet; all I found out was that all the stupid Polish jokes I've ever heard were well deserved.
I agree. Very Creepy pictures. I hope someone can solve the story and hope that it has a happy ending.
Rock-a-bye-baby has always bothered me. Why does the bow have to break and the baby fall? How does that lull a baby to sleep?
Ack! Just when I had gotten that creepy wallpaper out of my head. But then, nursery rhymes and children's stories used to be VERY scary. I guess to keep kids in line. Can you imagine being a kid and having to sleep in a room with that wallpaper? Almost as bad as having clown wallpaper.
The creepiest part of our house? Hmmm...maybe the basement. It's not terribly creepy but I go down there as little as possible.
My house is small and I really don't have a creepy feature but I guess my laundry room is the creepist place in my house. It's in the farthest corner of my basement, doesn't have much light and we also use it for storage space. I have killed a few spiders down there and it still has the 70's red, shag carpet my parents put in when they originally bought the house.....now that's creepy!
Your house sounds so interesting, but that is indeed the most unusual wall paper that I've ever seen! It seems to tell many different tales. I'm sure there is a wallpaper expert somewhere in the world that would be able to give you information. I wonder if one of the past owners was an illustrator and wanted his/her illustrations made into wallpaper? Stephen King would be able to write an entire novel about these walls..lol
I do think you are right not to remove it, Lisa, at least until you find out more about it.
The creepiest part of my house has to be the unfinished attic. Broiling hot in summer, freezing cold in winter, no natural light. It's just storage space for Christmas ornaments and old lamps, etc.
Excellent idea, Pat! I just Googled a wallpaper expert and sent them an e-mail with the link to these photos. We'll see what happens.
I think it looks like some version of Hansel and Gretel. But that's just me.
The creepiest part of my house is the creepy neighbor. I don't think that counts. I'd love to have something truly creepy.
It's not my house, I rent an apartment so I'm not responsible for this, but the creepiest part of my building? The laundry room/basement very much looks like it could have a horror movie filmed in it. And on particularly bad days I'll find species of insects down there that I didn't even know existed in Colorado.
Sounds like laundry rooms and especially laundry rooms in basements are the absolute creepiest ... other than creepy neighbors, of course.
The gal from the wallpaper place graciously took a look at the photos and had this to say: "It's totally fabulous, and yes, probably European. From the 70's. That's all I can tell you." That's a start.
Antique or not, I'd get rid of that paper. It is definitely creepy. When I was a little girl, my bedroom had wallpaper that was reeds or some kind of long, billowing grasses all over it. I'd wake up in the night and think the room was full of snakes. That was creepy, too.
The only creepy thing about our house is creepy crawly things! We have woods behind us so we get a lot of those big, wolf spiders and nothing can creep out 5 women like those things! The cats love them, they torment them then finally eat them but the rest of us can feel our skin crawl for a hour after we discover one.
Well I have no answers about your wallpaper, but I just wasted 5 minutes looking through very cool Novelty wallpaper at The Secondhand Roses site--fairy tales yes, but much cheerier.
I had to do a quick Internet search for your wallpaper also, but I didn't find anything. I love a mystery! I could easily spend an hour looking, but I forced myself to stop.
I don't find any part of my house creepy. It's quite modern and light-filled. But in one bedroom I have my husband's grandmother's furniture, circa 1920s. The grandkids think that room is creepy!
Don't you dare remove that wallpaper, ever, it's the stuff of family legend and lore! Think of all the coming grandkids that can gather around that wallpaper and freak each other out on overnights!
Creepiest part of my new rental house? Unfortunately its the dining room chandelier. We call it the robot light. Nuff said.
Yea, creepy, but way cool, in that you have no idea what was going on with the artist. It would drive me crazy wanting to know, and I would never tear it down. How many people can say they have some that unique in their house? Creepy, but unique. Wow, hope you're able to get more info.
Nothing creepy in my house. B O R I N G
Yeah, that is some weird and creepy wall paper. And, quite interesting. I hope you'll find some answers about it. There's not much creepy about my house (thankfully!)
If you go back and read the nursery rhymes/stories we grew up with, many are indicative of child abuse or creepy things. I'd rip that wallpaper down, folklorish or not, and put up something more normal. Nothing really creepy about my house because it's fairly new by some standards. I just think it's wierd that there's no electrical outlet in the laundry room. I mean, there are outlets for the appliances, water heater and furnace but nothing as far as a simple outlet for an iron or sewing machine. I know some don't iron or sew these days but I do, and consider it wierd that a builder wouldn't think of installing one. Now, every time I want to do either of these, I have to stretch an extension cord to somewhere else.