A Discovery!
Looking up to the second-floor of the carriage house. See the hole in the wall, lower left?
Of note is the exposed original plaster from the circa-1921 conversion. This means that some kind of trim was on the wall. Also of note is the cobbled together stair bits to the right. Huh?
See the top-most step edging piece (right)? See how it has a bevel cut to its left?
That likely means that the edge piece turned at a right angle, and went along the wall. Under, was a small trim piece. Then a flat board.
If you draw a vertical line up through this image, everything to the left is plaster, and everything on the right is sheetrock.
Which means that the wall to the left is not original. And what WAS there was likely a railing. Squee!!!!!!!!
So, this opening is not original, and the wall to the left? Its last few feet were also not there in 1921.
At some point the carriage house was converted into three apartments:
- Studio in basement.
- First floor.
- Second floor.
I am gonna guess that this alteration was done at such a point.
I would love to recreate the lost railing. The upper hall would become more interesting and spacious. But…sigh…I cannot. The ‘niche’ you see (center) opens into the turret room, which will soon become a bathroom (Ross very excited!). And the door the room is being shifted to the right so it can be an en-suite to the main bedroom. The niche will then get closed up and turned into a closet for the bath.
In addition, being able to close off the second floor will make a significant difference with the heating/cooling costs, particularly as it is already a 2-zone system.
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Intriguing find…
Now, hold on a gosh darn minute…
Not shown in this photo, at the back of the “niche” is another closet that already opens into what will become my fabulous master bath. I thought that the “niche” in question was to become a closet with a door servicing the hall – not as a second closet for the bathroom.
It could be either, Cody.
Why don’t you wait until you open up that wall? If the railing is still inside, maybe you can reconfigure things to save it and still have all the closets you want, just in different spots.
It might be nice to be able to turn and go directly into the bathroom, but have an additional door from the bathroom to the bedroom to still keep it private, plus a bedroom door of course.
Will there be a bathroom on the ground floor for visitors? When people come over they need to go somewhere.
Whatever you do I’d still itch to get rid of that drywall just to see what’s in there and if necessary, do a new patch with lime plaster.
BTW, love the transom over the turret door. I have a transom window in my bedroom only it opens from the top and into the room. It’s above head height on the south wall so at night I can open it and still have complete privacy. I thought it was funky to have in a bedroom at first but now I love it. I even have a pole with a brass hook/pusher on the end like we used to have in the school classrooms growing up. I had to send away for it.
I’m curious: Are there architectural drawings of the carriage house, as there are for the Cross House? It’s so fun to look at those plans to figure out how the various rooms fit together (and line up the photos with the plans).
Only you would find this! wow! 🙂