Putting The Bits Back
In the NE corner of the Cross House kitchen are three grouped doors.
LEFT: This goes to the basement. The actual door is not original to this location, and was moved from the butler’s pantry. I did a post about this discovery.
MIDDLE: This goes upstairs. The actual door is original.
RIGHT: The main pantry. The actual door is missing.
So, the door in the center was originally way over to the far left, the butler’s pantry. Why it was moved I do not know.
But look what I did today! After many decades the butler’s pantry has its door back. Of course, now I have no door to the basement. And WHY was this door removed?
Whoee! The butler’s pantry door swings in/out.
The glass panels allow light into the windowless butler’s pantry. I AM SOOOOOOO EXCITED the door is back in place!
Yesterday, while emptying the Aladdin’s Cave in the basement I found most of the huge kitchen window trim.
Which I installed today. I have all the bits but, inexplicably, one corner block. Drat. Drat! I find corner blocks all the time on eBay and in antique stores but have never seen MY corner blocks. Poo.
The double window is HUGE, faces south, and overlooks the carriage house.
Today, I was astonished to discover the original door to the main pantry (the right-most door frame). Except, I do not want a door to the pantry. So, I will use the door as the basement door (left opening). It fits exactly. Whoee!
While the kitchen looks like a bomb has gone off in it, as do most of the rooms in the house, it is actually rather intact. Most of its bits are extant and I look forward, immensely, to recreating the original colors and finishes.
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I can’t WAIT until you get to doing the kitchen. I’m so eager to hear about all the bits and bobs.
Who knew doors could be so terribly exciting? Well, now we know.
I LOVE this kind of stuff. Did you paint those walls that lovely purple? I also love the details on the double floorboard/doorframe bases.
Would it be that hard to make a corner block?
Can you cook on that stove? Looks like the sink is plumbed.
I love the stove, too. I cook daily on one of these.
Electric is electric, what? Oven controls a bit eccentric, but nobody’s perfect
Fabulous!
Wow!
Ross, I was wondering if you had set that up for cooking.
I had a wonderful stove like that. It was great until my ex tried to use it as a source of power for a thermostat. sigh.
Wow! What a gorgeous stove!!!!!
The stove works. I put it in last week.
I had it in storage. It is temporary. The “real” stove will be narrower and fit into the brick niche.
I was wondering why you’d order a stove that didn’t fit! But – yay, a stove!!! A kitchen that looks like a kitchen! yay!!!!
I love the sink! And I love how it is all falling together. I agree that there is no need for a door to the pantry- it would block the light coming in that window! You are doing an amazing job, Ross.
Ross! I’m 70 years old! It’s not good for me to stop breathing for as long as I did through the last 2 posts. But…thank you for the excitement! I love that sink too.
Seems like the sink has repositioned itself onto a mock up of the proposed modern island element (sans the floating shelf)??? Might it be a hint of more to come? The excitement and thrills of the chapters yet to be revealed in the Cross House restoration continue!! May you have a grand day after Thanksgiving party, Ross! Those of us not in attendance will just have to wait to hear the stories later!????????
Ross? How high are the counters in the pantry? I know that in a previous post about the kitchen, there was a big discussion about the placement of the sink and it’s height. What is important about that measurement is that the standard for height placement would have been the average height of a kitchen worker and over the past century people have been getting taller due to better nutrition, especially the explosion of vitamin use in the 1950s. I know that my grandmother (b.1916) was a fast 4’11” and she wasn’t especially short among her friends. My mom was 5’3/4″(always claimed that 1/4 inch so that she could be “tall”)and I remember that she was comfortable in the kitchens of the 60s. Counter heights have risen to accommodate this height difference over the years, so perhaps this might account for the low height of the sink. One other thing. In the article I posted about Victorian kitchens a couple of days ago, one thing screamed out at me…”much of the work was done SITTING DOWN rather than standing as we do now.” Sooo, could the height have to do with sitting to do the dishes?
I can’t believe you find pieces of wood in the basement and figure out where they belong. “Hmmm, let’s see. It is a strip of wood, about a yard long, brown color. Hmmm. I know! It goes on the east side interior sash of the south facing kitchen window!” Amazing. 🙂
Agree
Is that the original range? Just kidding, LOL…
Ross, if you happened to include a close up pic of the corner block, your international band of helpful minions might be able to find something. (*HINT*)
Oh, and my wild guess is that when the house was split up, that either it would have been in a spot where strangers could look (or break) in or that it isn’t a lockable door.
Those doors are gorgeous–I love a good butler’s pantry too.
Bit by bit… door by door… recreating the original space!! how exiting!
I was lucky when I bought my Victorian house(ca.1900), it had nearly all of the original woodwork, which was chestnut and never painted. Except in the first and second floor bathrooms. Which luckily only had one coat of paint, which I stripped. I am envious of your classy woodwork, but I do not envy you for the amount of work involved in stripping it.
Maybe the newly discovered pantry door is really the basement door anyway?
You have probably already asked Bob, but just in case you haven’t… Do you know for sure that Bob wasn’t the one who moved the pantry door? If he did, he probably has the missing door or at least knows what happened to it. Also, you said that Bob replaced the 3rd story door with an old beveled glass door. Did he get it from somewhere else in the house or from your famous Aladdin’s Cave? I always found it interesting that every entrance has at least one glass door except for the north entrance. Your doors are like a giant puzzle and it’s fun to try to figure it out!
Hi, Kerri!
The original main pantry door was removed LONG ago. Bob found it stored the basement. The hinges on the door do not mate with the hinge imprints on the lost abasement door.
The original basement door was also removed LONG ago (current whereabouts unknown) and replaced with, inexplicably, the butler’s pantry glass door.
The beveled glass door Bob installed did not come from the Cross House.
Thinking about a possible reason for moving the butler’s pantry glass door to the basement doorframe – I wonder if it was because the laundry room was in the basement, and the danger of coming/going through a solid opaque door with a large basket of laundry and steps immediately on one side made it necessary to have a door that could be seen through? Whereas the butler’s pantry didn’t particularly need a door. Even easier to go through with a laundry basket if the door swings, but I seem to recall you saying the swinging didn’t work on the basement opening in either direction and perhaps you wouldn’t want a swinging door at the top of steps anyway!
I bet you could 3-d print a corner block. I guess the issue is would it be painted or stained, which could be done by faux-finishing.
What colour is the kitchen going to be, Ross? I am picturing spring green. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Victorian kitchen that WASN’T spring green.
Yay a stove in the kitchen in time for Thanksgiving Friday at Cross House!!! Yay yay yay!! It made me smile when I saw it–
Love love love all the intrigue about missing bits & then locating in Alladdins cave!!!
How remarkable you can tell where obscure pieces will fit when I have trouble with the macro of Cross House layout, it is so immense that when inside it is bewildering. I easily could get list just on the first floor like a labyrinth.