Friday, November 14, 2008

The Secret Room - A Journey

One of my good friends often comments on my blog posts via email. She is an avid reader (lucky me!) and is often making comments on this and that. For her last several emails, however, there has really been a common theme:

“Ages and ages ago, you mentioned a Secret Room in your house. When are you going to tell us more?”

Well, M, the truth is, the Secret Room is making me a little sad right now. I love it. But it is only being used for minor storage and that is part of the reason why it makes me sad. We currently have no development plans for it. The basement has come to the forefront of priority (it will give us more family space) and Iain’s wee ‘Secret’ room play room? Well, it is way back on the development back burner somewhere.

All that being said, one of the reasons why I fell in love with this house in the first place is because of the Secret Room. It is accessed through the closet door in Iain’s bedroom and is, really, the attic space above the living room. I call it ‘Secret’ because you do not realise that there is access to another part of the house when you glance in Iain’s room. You need to open his closet door. Seeing another door there for the first time was, for me, a bit like looking into the back of a wardrobe. Having been a fan of C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia ever since I can remember, (and resolutely stating that I wished to be buried with them when I was about nine years old. That might seem morbid for that age but, remember, my father is a minister so the subject of death and who might be dying were regular facts of life our house) any house that stirred up images of "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" could cause powerful things and force money being put down on any property.

Without further ado, join me on a quick journey to our Secret Room.

The innocuous bedroom closet:





The Secret Door:





The Secret Room from Iain’s closet:





Looking back into Iain’s room:


More of the (messy) space:


It really is a neat space and I had a design to finish it planned out before I walked out of it that very first time. Now the challenge will be to see if we’re here long enough to make those ideas a reality…

4 comments:

At Home Mommy Knits said...

Oh my goodness....I love that secret room. My siblings and I used to walk through our closet form one end to the other (it had sliding doors) and pretend we had walked into Narnia. If we had had a door like that it would have been infinitely more fun ;).

Yarnhog said...

I got little shivers! How cool is that?

Elizabeth said...

I LOVE your secret room. I hear you about priorities - but I don't know how you are resisting full claim of that space. It would SO be a crafting studio in my house.

Who am I kidding. It would be a totally cool kids play room.

Until they move out in about 20 years. Then it would be a crafting studio.

JustApril said...

NEATO! I love attic spaces with windows =) It would be an awesome place to hide out and play or read.

ps - I haven't exactly forgotten the blue ribbon thing, I just need more than a couple minutes to figure out who I'm going to pass the torch to. ack! I will do it sooner rather than later, maybe after finals.