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!
In many respects door hanging/opening is such a minor detail within a property – however I totally agree that some rooms just seem awkward to enter. We did a similar thing with a bedroom door and re-hung it to open against the wall.
ReplyDeleteWhilst our kitchen door was hung correctly to open against the wall, the light switch was positioned on the wall that the door opened onto, therefore you had to enter the room, then close the door to access the light switch, a ridiculous situation! we moved the light switch.
Your house must be in a minority in terms of hidden gems, how those doors survived is obviously a testament to Albert and his ‘home improvements’ – did you have to buy new-old replacement handles though?
I must say, until this situation arose, I didn't think much about door hanging! It's interesting to see how differently people negotiated their houses (and light switches) than ourselves. Yes, we did buy replacement door handles, but I'm glad to say no need for replacement glass in the two doors with glass panels (Typewriter room + upstairs bathroom), underneath Albert's hardboard panels - though strangely no glass in the door to the bedroom, preservation of modesty?
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