Exploring First Floor of my Abandoned School! Episode 15

The bins in the pantry were originally for 50lb sacks of sugar,flour,rice or any dry comedy.

When I was a girl we lived in a house that had the same strange drawers/doors in the pantry and they were for potatoes, onions, beets, cabbage, and carrots. We had a root cellar but that is where we would put the things we brought up from the cellar. The holes in the door are for off gassing. Thank you for another really amazing video, and for all of your hard work.

The "dishwasher" is a sanitizer for the most part. Those trays under were filled with rinsed off dishes first. Once through the sanitizer the tray would be pushed down. When it steamed dry, it would be put in the cabinets behind you when facing it. Then the tray would go back in line for the next dishes.

Yason, here are some thoughts: the outlet you suggested might be for a clock is, in fact, a portrait light for a painting that hung below; the living room furniture placement would have been two matching sofas perpendicular to the fireplace to make a seating arrangement, usually with a low table between them...other areas of that room might have had chairs and tables with lamps between them in the corners or even a piano; the paneled room was the informal den or family room; the light switches at the bottom of the stairs most likely have connections to similar light switches at the top of the stairs. In order for them to work, one set would be off, the other would be on. My suggestion would be for you not to focus so heavily on how the house was used as office space, and focus more on how the house functioned as a home. As for things such as the incinerator, please leave that just as an homage to the heritage of the house. There'll probably be other things you can leave as well, things that aren't in your way, but that tell the story of the house. For inspiration, look at books that detail houses of this era, furniture placement, how rooms were used, etc. Isn't your intention to return this building to a home? Please don't modernize it, other than what must be done to bring it to today's code and to make it comfortable for you to live in. The glory is there, and has been for a long time. Don't mess with that too much.

The 'playroom' would make a good library/sitting room with a couple overstuffed chairs and a few tables, a darker wood for furnishings/shelves, lighter walls, colorful rugs, mature indoor potted plants and lots of books and paintings/pictures. I stage houses that are for sale. Can't help but imagine how I'd set up your buildings for a photo shoot or a showing.

11:55 i saw the carpet going right into the fireplace and had a flashback to my childhood at a sleepover with friends where we were playing the sims and put carpets going right up to the fireplace on purpose to get the house to burn down 😂 watch out for that

I get the distinct impression that you've never seen an actual "dumb waiter" . It's actually a mini elevator in the walls to carry food from 1 level to the next. Those wall plates are NOT dumb waiters. They are a type of junction box or alert box for personnel or entrance verification. If they were a dumb waiter, there would have been either a cavity or an elevator box ( about 3' square) either under, or next to it . Or behind it. What you see there COULD have been for tracking classes or personnel locations. Edit: kitchen bins were for flour, sugar, and salt. Standard. The trash all went in the incinerator. 😆

Originally before it was converted to a school from bottom of the plans to the top. The rooms are set up for formal entertaining. The front porch labeled instruction was all one long sun room. The called the office could have been a study (somewhere between a home office and library.) To the right of the entry hall with the stairs, would have been a formal living room. The little room with the tile would have just been a small private seating area before you get to the dining room with the wooden paneling around the fireplace. That would have been also used for a separate dining for kids while the grown ups were in the dinging room. The room with the paneled fireplace was the original dining room. Cabinets for linens and such. The original clock would have been a mechanical clock with a pendulum that was covered. Behind it was a butler's pantry which is labeled as faculty lounge/dinning area. That was the staging area where the get ready to bring out each course of the meal out of the way from the kitchen. They would plate the food and bring it out for the people seated for dining. The in-out displays were for telling when they were ready for service. When the people are running around doing stuff, they marked themselves as out and in to know where everyone was. The split door is called a dutch door. You could have the top open but still keep in kids/dogs/whatever by having the bottom closed. The rear stairway was for the servants to go up and down (out of sight). The kitchen was set up like a commercial kitchen rather than a kitchen where the owners cooked. They found no reason to make it pretty. :) The fold out bins in the pantry would have been for bulk storage. Flour, potatoes, rice. Just dump a whole bag into them and they tip out for access. The one labeled dining room would have been the informal living room/family room or possibly a music room or game room. A place for people to hang out away from the guests. The lights by the stairway were 3 way switches originally. They would have been able to turn off and on from the bottom or the top of the stairs so you don't have to go up or down the stairs in the dark to turn them on and off. The mystery room would have been a coat closet. The little room off the living room without the door would have been another sitting room. People would have split up and the men would have gone to the study to hang out and the women could have gone to that sitting room to hang out. Also it could have been for the kids to go to hang out to get away from the grownups.

This floor has so much potential and will be an amazing space. Keep as many character elements as you can.

This is how Jason thinks: The paper is a bio-hazard but the unwashed mugs from 40 years ago aren't

A Journeymen electrician should know what we is doing. A first year Apprentice on the other hand may not know much. Nice tour of the first floor.

The principal’s office (parlor) and living room is beautiful with the trim. The room with the brown trim was the gentlemen’s study. The split door is called a Dutch door please save all of the hardware and door operators that you can on original doors. The dead bolt holes can be repaired in the antique doors. The openers in the breezeway are from the 50s, makes them 70ish years old, slightly older than me. My husband’s career has been dealing with doors, windows and hardware for 45 years and knows these things inside and out. There were many doors in every room in the original home. It was how you kept the heat in the room you were in. Please consider keeping them in place so the house isn’t so open. The kitchen is probably the original layout. The one change would have been the sink cabinet has been widened. It would have been between the windows only. The original cabinets in the pantry are bins for things like flour, sugar, potatoes? Those are awesome! The hall between the kitchen and dining room, is a butler’s pantry. They’d have stored the dish ware, linen and silver. The butler would have decided what was needed that day on the dinner table, serving pieces, and linens. This house originally had servants. At least a cook, butler, and maid. How many bedrooms are on the 3rd floor. That’s how many house staff you would employ. Things like the incinerator door, leave that in place for the nostalgia of it. Ok the dumb waiter aren’t actual dumb waiters. A dumb waiter is a small elevator between floors for linens, or food. You probably have one somewhere. But they are basically early staff callers. The lady or man of the house would flip the room they needed the butler in and he’d come. You’ll find them all over the house. The electrical is bizarre because the building has been through 3 separate types of wiring. Originally knob and tube wiring, which would have been changed to wiring, with fuses and no grounding in the 50s, then to breakers and grounds in the 70s or 80s. But there is a reason why the switches on the stairs are like that. You turn the light on at the base of the stairs (or top), when you get to the top (or bottom) you’d turn them off. Common in older homes. You are so blessed to be remodeling this house. And I’m loving looking at it all. Thank you for sharing. Ok, now you have the cabinet in the janitor’s office, the door in the hall, the safe, the milk man’s door, to open.

I think the dark paneled room would be a great library/study. That dishwasher! When I was a wee lass in elementary school all the older students had to take a turn with the dishes. We used a dishwasher like that. The dining room is gorgeous! It's a good thing you have all those doors stored in the basement 😃Loving the more in depth tours!

Love watching this progress in real time. Thanks for the frequent updates for us Yasonites!

Great walkthrough! I hope you plan to keep all the cool, unusual features that you don’t find in homes today. All of the door and window hardware, locks, storage bins and cabinets, milk delivery door, swinging, French and pocket doors, etc. There are tons of really great elements that add to the charm and character of the property. Thanks for sharing the details. I find your project fascinating!!! Great job😄

I think the architect that designed the remodel into a school of sorts was on drugs. That said, there's a lot about the original layout that makes sense for mansions of the time. Fancy parlors, after dinner smoking room, billiard room, library, that sort of use for larger rooms. Especially if the second floor is smaller bedroom sized spaces.The current layout screams Special Needs kids. All those playroom areas would be required as not all Special Needs kids can get along, so smaller groups would help manage them. Plus many may have been wheelchair bound and likely were less mobile. I was an Adult Special Needs driver for a simillar facility. Very specialized layouts required. That would also explain the calming effect of clouds and blue sky wallpaper. Mental issues makes sense too as manageable special needs have been integrated into general education for decades.

Thank you again for redoing the tour and breaking it up into sections. I need to watch this again on my computer so I can organize my thoughts and get time stamps because I definitely have some thoughts about some of the rooms.

If you are going to leave the fridges and freezer off you might want to prop the doors open to avoid mold.

One of my old bosses use to host murder mystery nights. It was a big raffle item for fundraisers.

Thank you for sharing. Have a wonderful day