Heptagonal top, myrtlewood (I think) column. Really good condition.
Schrödinger’s cat
No cats, but there is a yellow box with some sort of fan painted on it. Should I open it?
By all means. Let us know how it goes.
You occasionally see a pull-down ladder behind a ceiling hatch for access to an attic, but I’ve never heard of one connecting to a basement.
“hatch” suggests “laundry chute” or “dumb waiter” to me – 3’ x 6’ would be the kind of space you’d need for one of those, plus a place to stand to use it. I have seen those in single-family homes from c. 1900.
Alternatively, the space could have been originally part of a staircase area, and partitioned to your mystery space and the laundry closet that you previously said backs it.
If little-used, such a facility might have been converted to a telephone cabinet (very commonly enclosed spaces when household phones were new), which could have survived to, say, touch-tone phone times.
Wait! Are you saying the call was coming from insider the house?!:eek:
I still believe that it is a laundry chute.
Post while you are opening it.
Just in case.
This forum requires that you wait 60 seconds between posts. Please try again in 1 seconds.
Those are some interesting visuals you’re bringing to mind. Any chance you could post photos of the room online somewhere, maybe when this is all settled?
“Wha…? The table…?”
So, it’s a 1970’s-style safe room?
I get the sense that the OP isn’t in the US, and I think laundry chutes in homes are very much a US thing. I’d never even heard of them till someone sent my kid a copy of Good Dog, Carl (in which the dog babysitter helps the baby slide down the laundry chute).
I’m a little confused about the layout. There’s some kind of opening into a subbasement below you and also a hatch in the ceiling?
No, he’s in the basement and the hatch goes up to the 1st floor (ground floor, since he’s in the UK).
So the hatch may lead to the apartment upstairs? Could the upstairs residents have been using the space as a storage area?
I know what it is! You know the saying, “They say that…” which introduces some sort of rumour, factoid, or gossip? Well, ‘they’ have to operate from somewhere, right? A nook with a table and phone is perfect for a rumourmonger to sit.
Anyone see the TV movie “Bad Ronald”?
yeah get Geraldo.
Trapdoor in the ceiling but no ladder? How well do you know the people upstairs?
“It answers the phone or it gets the hose…”
Yes. What was Kim Hunter thinking?