Bedroom Secrets

So after walking back along the upstairs hallway from the Typewriter Room, this door on the left leads into the bedroom. The door has been re-hung (as have a few others in the house) to open inwards, but the other way round i.e. opening left to right (with the handle on the left), instead of right to left (with the handle on the right). I believe the doors were hung right to left orginally, so that there would be a few seconds from when you opened the door, before you set eyes upon who was inside the room. This was to protect one's (Victorian) modesty, and allowed the person within the room a moment to adjust themselves/make themselves presentable for their visitor. Where as if you open the door left to right, you see inside the room immediately.
I just found it quite a cumbersome way to enter a room, and the arc of the door opening took up unnecessary space within the room so decided to re-hang the door, so that it would open against a wall, rather than into the room.

This door as you can see, needs to be stripped down and re-painted. Like a few other doors in this house, it had pieces of hardboard tacked on both sides completely covering the original panelled door underneath. What a find!

Musical chairs (and sofas).

The final room downstairs (apart from a small cloakroom) is what we refer to simply as the front room (or according to your recent list, the sitting room, living room or lounge). This space has good proportions, which makes it flexible and easy to reposition the furniture, which I do quite often. During the process of this tour the room has actually undergone a quick makeover. The photos show three different views of the room – each with a before and after photograph. 

The stripped floorboards and gas fire were inherited from the previous occupants, and the only thing we changed in here was to remove some fitted cupboards to the left of the chimney breast – this was so we could accommodate the plan chest (although in the latest re-organisation this has moved). I have owned the plan chest for about 25 years, I love it, and it’s very practical, but accommodating it can be quite challenging.

I miss the fact that I don’t have a mantle piece, so instead the hearth has become a display space. The wooden decoy duck was a present from some Dutch friends. This arrangement isn’t fixed and things get either added or removed sporadically.