House Tour

lisa October 24th, 2001

Welcome to our house. As you come in the front door, please follow the blue arrows til you come to ?

? the magic closet! Feel free to put your coat inside. The light comes on automatically (there’s a switch in the floor). Notice the detail on the keyhole. The arrows on the floor will direct you on this guided tour. Enjoy!

This is the parlor. This is where the Christmas tree will go. The pocket doors won’t close now, because the house is settled so badly. But someday, we hope this will be one of three sets of working pocket doors.

We call this the Great Room. The floors in this part of the house are oak, and they will be very nice once they’re refinished. The fireplace is what’s called a Rumford fireplace. Its design is intended to send more of the heat of the fire into the room, rather than up the chimney. The wallpaper in this part of the house is in pretty good shape. It was probably put up fairly recently ? at least after most of the settling of the house had occurred.

Welcome to the dining room! We loves the Chinoiserie-style wallpaper in this room. It’s a style that was popular in 1920’s France. We also love the chandelier, the built-in cabinet, and the bay window. We bought this huge rug recently at a going-out-of-business sale. The door from here to the pantry/kitchen is a swinging door!

Now you’re in the “butler’s pantry.” It’s very ? yellow. Lots of storage space, though. It’s a shame they painted the cabinets, in a way ? open one up to see what the wood looks like, unpainted. Pretty wainscoting.

And the kitchen. Check out that wacky sixties floral wallpaper! And over by the stove, you can see a couple of older layers of wallpaper. The ceiling in here was damaged by the bathroom, upstairs. That strange storage space near the floor is actually the back side of the china hutch, and we have no idea what it might have been used for originally. The little room off the back of the kitchen leads to the back porch. One day soon, we’ll be putting a half-bath there. If you go through the door next to it, you’ll arrive in ?

The Mud Room. We’d like to put a sliding glass door in the wall at the back, and then build out the back porch (which is currently condemned). This room has a lot going for it ? all that nice dark wood wainscoting and the Arts and Crafts colonnade, plus the built-in shelves and, behind the door you came through, a built-in cabinet. We apologize if you detect a faint whiff of animal urine ? the sisters who lived here must have kept their animals in here, because you can tell they sprayed the baseboards. By the side door, there’s a bench with a storage compartment inside, and an old safe that is permanently locked. Anybody know a safe-cracker?

Going back out into the hall, directly on your right is the servant’s staircase to the second floor. And in front of you is the door to the basement. Let’s go downstairs first.

Just a few things to say about the basement. First, there’s an original, from the 40’s, central vacuum system here to the left of the stairs as you go down. Yes, it still works ? and we have the original hoses and attachments in the attic. Also, there was originally a half-bath down here. We probably won’t get that working, since the basement is below the level of the sewer lines and it would be a lot of work. Finally, the metal posts you see are holding up the house at the moment, and the hydraulic jack is what we’re using to level the house. If you face the stairs and look up at the ceiling, you’ll see a yellow string running from the front to the back of the house. This “level line” will show you exactly where the settling is, and how bad it is! This basement is where the most important work is happening right now.

Back upstairs, and up to the second floor.

As you go up the “grand staircase” please have a look at the banister. The places where the yuck has been scrubbed off are our pride and joy.

One of the things we like about this house is the floor plan. All the rooms on the second floor open up to the landing, which is a great design.

The first bedroom at the right of the top of the stairs is our bedroom, and we hypothesize that it was the parents’ bedroom. The glass fixtures are probably all original to the house, but they were originally gas lighting fixtures. When the original family lived here, the family Bible was on a stand in that alcove. Check out the closet ? there’s a built-in dresser and a window.

Proceeding left out of the blue bedroom, you come to the upstairs “sitting room.” This is where a Victorian family would hang out in the evenings ? guests normally wouldn’t see any of the upstairs. Here is the third pair of pocket doors. One alarming feature of this room is the extreme sagging at the very front of the room. Check out the crooked windows! Mark thinks there’s a rotten sill under there, which unfortunately means we will have to tear off the front porch at some point to fix it. But don’t worry ? we’re definitely going to rebuild it with the original pillars.

Next down the hall is “the ugly bedroom.” It’s got bare walls with a ton of cracks in the plaster, and it stinks. Seriously. We’ve cleaned and cleaned, and it still stinks.

Oh, by the way, all the floors on the second floor are maple.

Walk back down the other way, and you’ll come to the door to the attic. You’re welcome to go up there, but there’s not much to see. There are a couple of built-in cedar closets, a basketball hoop, and a lead-lined box which would have been used to store one’s furs (Lead keeps out the moths).

Past the stairs to the attic, you’ll come to the bathroom. Please note: it may be a little smelly. We need to take out some of the wood around the base of the toilet to get rid of the stink. The bathroom has some pretty interesting silver-and-pinkness going on ? but at least it’s big. We’re both thrilled to have a shower, which Mark put together recently, but be aware that it’s a little flimsy, so please don’t pull on it.

Okay, next up: look down the servant’s staircase and notice the wall’s odd markings on both sides. That’s from poor Virginia, who had a bad hip, and for however-many-years, she’d go down this staircase, leaning against the wall with every step. Yes, folks, that’s years and years of grime.

Just past the servant’s staircase is the servant’s bedroom. It’s where Mildred used to paint. We’re not sure what we’ll end up using this room for.

Okay, the final bedroom is the Rose Bedroom. It’s essentially a mirror image of the Blue Bedroom, except there’s no built-in dresser in the closet.

Thank you for visiting with us!

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