The Blueprints Reveal A Big Surprise For This 1938 Cape Cod Cottage

Welcome to the 868th Metamorphosis Monday! Happy Monday! I hope your week is off to a great start. A few weeks ago, I shared an idea I had been mulling over for the master bedroom in the Ohio house, the house I affectionately refer to as the Dollhouse, since it has so many cute dollhouse-like features. Before buying this house, I had noticed in the real estate photos online that there was only one bedside table alongside the master bed. That’s because the two closets on the right side make it difficult to place a bedside table on that side unless the tables are really small, and then the bed has to be way off-center in the alcove.

I much prefer having a table or chest, with a lamp, on both sides of a bed. My mind craves symmetry, plus, decorating-wise, I think it looks much better that way.

Just before moving in, I managed to find two small tables that I could squeeze in on either side and still have easy access to the closet at that end/corner of the room. Note: All the bedroom furniture seen in the photo below is temporary while I decide if I should sell the Georgia house and move here full-time.

A few weeks ago, I shared a post where I talked about how I’d like to have those two closets moved to a different area/corner of the room. During that post, I mentioned a surprising discovery I had made. While standing outside, looking at the interior plantation shutters I recently had installed, I discovered that there used to be a window on the wall behind the bed. Not sure when, but at some point in the history of this home, that window was bricked in. This house continues to be full of surprises. I have to admit, though, I fall more and more in love with it every day.

Angie, a lovely BNOTP reader, shared a photo of how that area of the bedroom would look minus the two closets and with the addition of a Palladian window that I had mentioned I’d like to add to the wall in order to bring in more light. (Thanks, Angie!) The AI program kind of skewed where objects are in the room, so the windows on the left and right are not on either side of the bed as they appear in the photo below. They are actually further out into the room in real life. But this photo is so helpful for showing how much better that part of the room would look with the closets removed. Look at all that beautiful symmetry! Plus, there’s room for two normal-sized bedside tables!

As previously mentioned, this is the corner where I’d like to move the closets. I measured, and it appears that there is room for them to fit in that area where there’s a chair and a small table in this photo from the real estate listing. Ironically, the day after I shared that post with you about my plans of one day moving the closets to this corner of the room, a previous owner who had lived in this home for 20+ years, dropped by a bunch of beautifully framed blueprints for the home.

I was so surprised when I checked out the master bedroom on the blueprints! It appears that when the home was originally built, those two closets were not in the location where they are now. They used to be on the other side of the bed. Also, in the plans below, you can see where the now-bricked-in window once was, and it appears there used to be two windows over the window seat, not one as there is now. I’m not sure if the window seat was there back when the home was first built, but it appears to be quite old with its beautifully lined cedar interior. I wonder if all these changes took place in 1951 when the attic over the garage was converted into the room that is now my office. Maybe they did the work in the master bedroom at the same time—not sure.

I wondered why the closets started out on the left side of the bed when the home was built in 1938, but at some point, they were moved over to the right side of the bed. Hmmm, I think I may know.

After doing a little research, I learned that central heat and air started first appearing in homes in Ohio and the U.S. in the 1950s.

So, when the Dollhouse was built in 1938, it probably did not have air conditioning. The intake vent for this room is currently on the wall where the blueprints show the closets used to be. It’s in the wall just in front of the bedside table on that side. So, I’m guessing that they moved the closets to the other side of the bed when the HVAC system was added.

I wish they had moved the closets to this corner. I hope there’s not a good reason why they weren’t moved there. There’s already an elf door with storage behind on that side of the room. Maybe they didn’t want to expand outward in that corner, thinking the door to the room would be in the way. I keep that door open most of the time, so the closet door could just open in front of it.

So, the plot thickens. I wonder what that thing is that’s sticking out into the room near where the current window/window seat is located? That’s where the current vent is in this room, so maybe that’s showing where the vent for the furnace was going to be. Maybe the arrow is showing the direction of the air. I guess furnaces don’t need return vents since I don’t see anything else like that in the room. I find all this so fascinating, the evolution of home building and the mystery surrounding old homes. Please share your thoughts and knowledge on all this—reading old blueprints, old home construction. I love learning new things!

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