What is it with Shelf Paper?

I don't know if it was the cure-all of its time or if it's just a thing with my relatives, but there is hardly a flat surface that hasn't seen shelf paper.  Perfectly good wooden surfaces were covered in shelf paper, sometimes several times.  I don't mind lining the insides of drawers and cupboards with shelf paper, but coating the top of a night stand with some loopy motif in depressing winter tones just did not improve the night stand.  In fact, it looks far better without.

My favorite was the rotting picnic table.  We know that this picnic table is old because the base is made of steel and it weighs a ton.  To make moving it even more challenging, the rotting wood on the ends crumbles in your hands when you pick it up.  And yet, a fresh layer of shelf paper had been neatly smoothed over the rough-hewn top.  Yeah, shelf paper really spruced that one up.

So when I started cleaning the kitchen this morning, I took a long look at the open cupboards, which have at least three layers of shelf paper.  Some layers only go a third of the way back into the cupboard, while others make it almost all the way back.  It all had to go.  So when I started pulling the layers off, I realized that the base layer was some kind of decorator board from the 1970s.  I pulled that up, to discover that the actual cupboard was a nicely painted forest green, in great shape.

It was good that we had been planning to work inside today.  There was a light coating of snow when we arrived, and naturally it didn't melt overnight.  So this is May 2, 2011:

Thankfully, the snow was melted by the late afternoon.

Overall, we've been pretty pleased with the state of things upon arrival.  The new well turned on like a champ, and once again, the local critters did not find their way in.  One tree that we wanted to take down anyway fell without damaging anything else.  I wonder if it made a sound on the way down.

There's plenty of work to do, so I better get back at it.
Smelling of Formula 409, Amy