Office Explanation
Although it is currently known as the office of the museum staff, this room was Gustav Adolph Jr.’s bedchamber at the time that the Roedde family lived in the house. During the rooming and boarding house period, this room also served as a bedchamber. When workers began to restore this room in the 1980’s, they came across a number of findings pertaining both to structural features and to wall spreads.
Structural aspects aside, workers also noted down aspects relating to the wall spreads of the room. For one, a paint chip was unearthed on the north wall of the bedchamber, on the immediate right of the second door. The restorers removed this paint chip right down to the plaster. Then, after having removed all the varied layers of wallpaper that had once filled the east wall, workers found a hairpin on the floor in the southeast corner of the room. For more details on this bedchamber, see the attached notes for Bedroom 1 III at the bottom of this page.
Among other structural features, workers found a 1/8” thick fibre board over the plaster on the east wall. Measuring 26 ½” in length and 8 ½” across, the board was situated 5 ¾” from the door in the west wall. Moreover, at the top of this board was a cut-out which indicated that a light switch had once been there. Apart from the fibre board, another structural feature that workers took notice of concerned the ceiling mouldings, or picture hanging mouldings. Mounted right up against the plaster with square nails, the mouldings were 102”, or 8’ 5”, from the floor.
