I agree, I'd reglaze them. I think the natural wood with a touch of the old green paint over it would look great. Personally? I'd just put a polyurethane sealer on it and call it a day. That would protect the wood and prevent the paint from peeling/chipping. I bet your window looks very cool. I'd love to see a picture of it! And welcome to a great forum, erica!

I wouldn't be concerned about structural damage though the roofers should be alert for any weakness in that area. The blackened or otherwise deteriorated sheathing probably needs to be replaced. There may be some mold to clean up but eliminating the water source should keep it from recurring. Remove any wet insulation and let the affected areas dry out. Then evaluate any wetted drywall or ceiling in the living space below for possible repair needs. You might only need to apply some stain blocking primer and repaint discolored areas. A one year old roof should not have leaked. Was there some storm damage or did the roofers do a poor job there?

Yes, by crumbling I just mean little pieces crumble out in the holes where nails were removed, or where the niches were. There are also some larger cracks running along the sides and base of the wall, where the wood furring was nailed in. The niches were boarded up with drywall and then plastered over, so we knocked out the plaster and ripped out the drywall pieces, so there is some plaster crumbling around the edges of the niches (how to fix those up will be a separate post because I can only deal with one thing at a time!). We are definitely keeping the niches -- we didn't know they were there when we saw the place, until we realized all the other apartments in the building had them. Once we removed the mirrors and saw the outlines in the wall I became determined to restore them at all costs, and I'm so glad we did. I'm all about trying to incorporate the original style/design of the place and honor the pre-war glory that this place once had. The rest of the apartment has archways so niches match nicely and really tie things together. We were definitely planning on using plaster patching compound rather than regular joint compound after reading that the latter is not good for plaster walls. I had not heard of using TSP before but that sounds like a good idea. So far we have been using a wallpaper stripping spray (Chomp), which works pretty well. We've used up one bottle already though and are about to buy another -- you think the TSP will work better?

Wow, looks like the Ponderosa Ranch on the old show Bonanza! Time for a change. I would start with painting all the wood panelled walls and window frames (advice given above re. primer 1st is key) One of the nice thing about wood walls is that you can hang a painting anywhere you like. Change the lighting to something modern and brighter. See how you like it at that point. Personally I would paint everything as the beams look too small to be interesting and the wood panelling isn't that interesting.I would go for a rustic Swedish country look which would be not that much of a stretch with your great rustic house. The furniture layout looks like it could be tweaked a bit as well. And just curious about the stair railing? Is there glass in between the posts or is it really empty space?