Our Library
Click on any photo for a larger version.
The stairs on your left are the primary means we use to get to the second floor. Just to the left of this photo is the door to the vestibule and then outside. |
The library connects to the birthing room (we used it as a dining room), and also to the living room (which was originally a formal parlor). Yes, that's an original door. |
See why we call it a library? What you can't see in this photo is that the room we now call a library was the house's original kitchen. Behind the middle three bookcases is a huge fireplace...we blocked it off to circumvent possibly-unsafe adventures on the part of the cats. |
This photo, showing the fireplace and brick oven, was taken before we moved in. You can see the metal arm protruding from the left, which was meant to swing a cauldron in and out of the fireplace. |
| During the winter months the fire in here would have been kept going constantly. (It would have been the job of a small boy to keep it going, and it'd likely have been banked down to smoulder overnight.) The house is designed to radiate the heat from this central fireplace throughout the rest of the house. The chimney literally towers through the center of the house, and there are side fireplaces in both parlor rooms (now living room and Sean's room) and in the master bedroom (now Tom's room). These connect to the main chimney, and hot coals would be brought from the main fireplace to heat up these side rooms. But the heat from the chimney column would also heat these side fireplaces as well as heat up the central beams of the house. While it was undoubtedly a cold house at night in the dead of winter, during the day when the fire was being tended one can imagine it being quite cozy. | 
The "beehive" oven is a chamber to the right of the main fireplace. Apparently this brick-lined enclosure would get hot enough when the fire was going to bake bread in. It is covered by an old wooden door, and we blocked this off by bookshelves because, like the main fireplace, we don't want curious cats poking around in there. |
Come closer to the bread oven... |
...look from another angle... |
Let's look inside. |
Look up... |
...it's cone-shaped! |
That's the back. |
Here's what the room looked like before we moved in. (See the fridge in the room, on the far right of the photo? Story of the appliances...) |
This is the same view, except with our stuff in the room instead. |
That's the usual entrance to the house. It's a huge, wide door, and just latches. (Yes, we have a coatrack on each side of the door...) Only the outer doors have locks. |
Another "before" picture, with drums in the birthing room/ dining room. |