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Tuesday, November 18, 2014

What DO You Do With A Wee Tiny Room?


Most of the rooms at That Old House have had
their makeovers in the six years since we moved in.


But a couple of them are still in their as-found state.
Including this one:
My, my.  Ain't that purty?
Especially that dingy old strawberry wallpaper, the shade at a rakish angle,
and the college-dorm plastic drawers as a nightstand.  Stylin'.

The Cell, as Annie has dubbed it, is the first of three
similarly sized rooms on our second floor.
Each is about 12 feet long, and 7 feet wide.

The second of the 3 wee little rooms is our upstairs bathroom.
(Yes, I did go there ... wee room.  Bathroom.  I crack myself up.)
I don't take wide-angled shots of this room, because that would include the ... well ... the potty.
No one needs to see that.
The last of the wee little rooms is Howard's walk-in closet.
I do not have pictures of that.  Do you have closet pics?
I thought not....
 Someday, this third wee little room will be our master bath.

Since this house was built before indoor plumbing, these wee tiny rooms probably
were nurseries, or hired man rooms, or even box rooms, for storage.

Or, maybe, they were simply ... teensy bedrooms.

**********************
The Cell is kind of out-of-sight, out-of mind.
It's at the top of the front stairs, to the right of the little landing, 
up the one step that you can see just at the right edge in this picture:
Since we almost always use the back stairs, which are past that tiny mid-hall step,
and not the front stairs, we really don't see this little room very often.
It's turned into a sort of modern day box room, and that's a shame.  It has potential.

I needed some inspiration.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw this picture, below, online.
I loved it.  And it put me in mind of our own tiny wee room.
I saved it, but forgot to label it with its source.
I apologize.  I'm quite twitchy about stealing intellectual property,
whether that be words or pictures, recipes, whatever ... and I spent
a lot of time today trying to track down this picture.  No luck.
If you know where it is from, please let me know so I can credit it properly.
I thought it was from Better Homes and Gardens, but I cannot find it on their website.

However, there is Houzz.
And Houzz has thousands of pictures of, well, houses.  (Houzzes?)
Inside and out.
Including bedrooms.
Even wee tiny bedrooms.

So I have been cruising Houzz, looking for inspiration for our own wee tiny room.
You can click on any of the following pictures to go to their source, or to their Houzz location.

See anything you like?

This is a little white for my taste, and a tad claustrophobia-inducing.
I wonder... do you squinch in along the side,
or walk onto the bed by climbing over the footboard?





I have thought often of doing The Cell in toile -- walls and
ceiling -- but as we'll probably be selling That Old House
when Howard retires, I'm not sure that's a wise choice.
But wouldn't it look grand?  It would be like sleeping in a lovely hat box!

A daybed is very tempting.
But I hate to change the linens on them .... so awkward.

Admitted -- this one caught my eye because of the
dress form; it's very much like Anne's old dress form.
But of course, that one lives with her in D.C. now.

If I were a little girl, I'd so want this!

Dark walls.  I like it.

This English room, at 2 meters by 4 meters, is just about
the same size as The Cell.  A little smaller, actually.
Nice end wall treatment.

I'd love to visit this room, below, but not have to clean it.
Some rooms are meant for admiring.
But ... I do love, love, love that bed.
That's a bed I can see in The Cell.  Sometimes bold is it.


First step: The Walls and Ceiling.
This explains why we have not done this room, and the one next
to it, yet.  Wallpaper stripping.  Worse than root canal.

And we'll keep the eventual sale of this house in mind, as we make our choices.  Because in 5 years or so, Howard will retire, and we'll decide that New Jersey is just too expensive, or too cold, or too far away from one or the other of our children ... and we'll move.

I'd like to go to some enchanted little place like this;
it looks made for grandchildren.

And convince all the neighborhood kids that I'm a witch.  :-)

Is it cold where you live?  It's in the 20s F here.  Crazy.
Just a week ago we were still growing tomatoes.  Nuts.

Link Parties!
At Coastal Charm, it's Show and Share #237.  Click here!
It's the 243rd Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life. Click here!

My Show and Share PartyA Stroll Thru Life

7 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, I love your little "wee" room. I would do it either really simple, or really fussy. I think either one would be fabulous.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Cell ... cracks me up! If the wallpaper is in good shape, leave it for now. It adds a certain Granny factor that you can use in your favor. Pick a bed from your stash, or CL. a small table for a night stand, change out the curtains and the shade, put a good-sized rug on the floor, add another shelf above the bed and style them with stuff from your stash, and you're done.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh my, that isn't a room I would want to try decorating...that register is in an awkward place, leaving almost no room for a nightstand. Does it have to be a bedroom? How about an office or craft room. If it were in my home it would become a dish cupboard, even if I had to make several trips up and down stairs! I will be anxious to see how you tackle it, Cass...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love that little room -- I wish Linderhof had that little room (wouldn't it be perfect for Lucy?) Sigh -- we don't have any wee rooms at Linderhof -- except for the "wee" rooms! LOL! I like the first and the last. However, on A Country Farmhouse, she had this wee bedroom for her children http://acountryfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-little-dumplings-room.html Perhaps too pale but the bed and chair seem perfect for a tiny space! When Howard retires you need to move to Kansas -- our taxes are ONE TENTH what New Jersey's are and you can buy really BIG houses for "nothing" (an 1886 Victorian sold this weekend for 145,000 -- and it wasn't a fixer upper either -- it was a fixed upper!) -- now really OLD houses are not all that easy to find (although we have a few 1850s here in our little town!) And I'd love to have you as a neighbor!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tell you what -- if Alida finds her teaching job at a Kansas City college, we'll be Ft Scott bound! I just took a look at the real estate listings and chose probably a dozen places with possibilities! We could do some damage together couldn't we? :-)

      Delete
    2. Is Alida looking at Kansas City? How cool would that be! And yes, what damage we could do! What fun!

      Delete
  5. Cass~
    you crack me up as usual..
    yes.. here in NW Florida.. we too are COLD!
    35 now after waking up to 29!!
    high today.. 55!!
    i too will be waiting to see how the WEE room turns out,,

    ReplyDelete

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