I'm out of my centenarian house, classic architecture, a five-bedroom Colonial Revival. I'm now in a row house with efficiency right for an energy/climate challenged future. But I'll remember the Old House for many charming, historic features that go back to its 1915-1916 origin.
A basement with a canning room and shelving because then the art of putting up vegetables and fruit was common. Or a basement with two side-by-side wash sinks and clothes lines for drying because dryers were non-existent.
A kitchen that recognizes utility with three pull-out wooden cutting boards at the counters.
A dining room with a small round brass plate in the floor that once had a foot button so the master could summon a servant from the kitchen.
Built-in storage: a china closet with glass-paned doors. At a pair of double-hung windows, window seats that lift to reveal more storage space. Here and elsewhere, wainscoting, generous crown moldings, picture molding to hang pictures from S-shaped brass hooks.
From the dining room, one passes through a pocket door--popular in Victorian times--through a foyer to the parlor with its fireplace, more woodworker's art and six windows.
A two-flight staircase takes you past the Palladian window to the second floor where a hallway connects four bedrooms. And interestingly one sees the first of surviving push-button light switches. White button for ON and a black button for OFF.
The master bedroom has a fireplace and a dressing room with a pocket door, closets and two windows, one with a window seat.
One important feature on the second floor is a laundry chute that delivers dirty clothes to the basement below.
From the hallway, a door and stairwell lead to the attic level, an attic with a bedroom on one side and a linen storage room opposite with capacious frame-and-panel cabinetry.
Besides the Palladian window, another definitive feature of Colonial Revival is working wood shutters. Yes, shutters with movable slats; hinged shutters that open and close to keep out the sun or hurricane winds like in the movie Key Largo with Bogey and Bacall.
However early on after moving in, I knew the shutters needed attention. Peeling paint, some a bit saggy. I had all thirty-two stripped to bare wood before repainting. And knowing my mortises from my tenons, I rebuilt about half the frames.
Restoring those shutters was my contribution toward the longevity of the century-plus house in which I was privileged to live.
Image credit: thoughtco.com
Read Charlie Dickinson's story collection The Cat at Light's End, as an ebook in these downloadable formats:
.mobi (Kindle)
.epub (most other readers)
.pdf (for PCs)
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