While I was painting I got a little tired and bored (painting all those tiny dentils in the cornice was exasperating) so I stuck the wet brush in a grocery bag and shuffled over to the second floor linen closet to start painting it deep blue (yeah, I love rich, dark colored closets.) In order to paint the wall near the baseboard I had to crouch down with my head partway under the bottom shelf.
"Dammit, that gap between the boards on the back wall of the closet will need to be patched ...."
Bugs give me the willies ... can't have any place where bugs can get in. I'm going to have to seal that thing up ... right now. Not knowing what to patch it with I thought, too, that drafts might be wafting thru there, so I stuck my finger into it (it was only about 1 inch wide) to feel for air and see how deep it was … nothing .... no air ... no bugs ... just emptiness. That made me nervous. Bugs or mice - or worse - could be in there, ready to run out at me any time, now.
I grabbed the flashlight for a look.
Kneeling down on the floor of the closet, knees to my chest, head scraping the bottom of the lowest shelf, I jammed the flashlight at one side of the gap and practically blinded myself shoving my eyeball into another side ...
"HOLY CRAP, there's a room back there ...
How … in ... the … ???
I need to get a better look.
I layed on the floor, flashlight pressed against one side of the gap, head pushed even more up into the shelf above, eye practically bulging through the gap .... I looked.
How could there be a whole other room in there? Wait, the closet's back wall isn't plaster, it's drywall. This is NEW ...
What's in that room ? dead things ? money ? antiques ?
The walls in there are glossy yellow - old oil based lead paint, I am sure - and in great condition. There was a bit of wood trim - or at least I thought it was wood trim.
I need to see even more … I need to cut out a chunk of this drywall and look inside.
I cut an 8-inch-square with my matt knife ... punched out the drywall ... was nervous and actually hesitated a breath before shining the flashlight inside.
There it was … looking freshly painted glossy yellow - the servants stair case.
Other evidence and some oral history confirms that the builder of the home had servants
It was filthy in there, but the door at the bottom was still framed out and the baseboards were in great shape. The stairs themselves were covered in thick chewy layers of dirt and dust, and there was even an old twist drill bit laying on one of them. Is that a Sylvania light bulb box at the bottom of the stairs ?
Of course I immediately started calling people. This is really exciting for me. The house seems so complete — sometimes I think I won't have enough to write about, here, and I'll have to start taking pictures of food or writing about making holiday decorations to fill in the gap — that I never expected anything of this proportion to show up.
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| one of the only decent understandable photos from my photo taking escapade. That's the old kitchen door on the left. It looks like there are 3 significant electrical lines (and their coordinating holes haphazardly hammered into the plaster) that run thru the stairway that will need to be dealt with |
I only have a handful of photos, most are confusing since I took them by shoving the camera into the dark hole and snapping, hoping to capture some evidence of whats in there.
I'd love to just open it up … but I need storage for linens, and the kitchen would loose 4 cabinets by opening the door back up. but the kitchen does need a serious overhaul, so … Or maybe it can be storage for both the kitchen and the second floor, or maybe I can open it and line one wall with shelving, or maybe ...
Thinking about the possibilities of "what could be" is often the best part of living in an old house.
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