Ground floor

Dalton House is beginning to look more like a house than a bookshelf, at last.

If you don't think you can bear a tour of ten wooden holes this is the place to leave me for four days. I thought I might show you a floor a day and explain where I am up to.

The hall

The hall is a relatively small area as it was with many of these houses the inner hall and stairs was the larger grander space.  This was a means of keeping the cold and unwanted visitors out. There will be three doors.  The one at the rear will be very slightly open to suggest it leads to the inner hall and stairs.

I am considering two corner niches to display some fossils and maybe some posh doors.

The door on the right leads to the Parlour.

This is the room most used by the sisters.  Breakfast is taken here and often their other meals when they don't have visitors.  This is where they entertain informally and sew and read and pass their evenings.

The door on the left of the hall leads to the dining room.

dining room

This will be one of the challenging rooms to decorate and furnish as it needs to be impressive but not too grand for a modest house in Lyme Regis.  Inspiration for the period comes mostly from very grand houses preserved by the National Trust (etc.) and I keep being misled by perfect Adam rooms and then mad Rococo and have to reign myself in and realise it would be like trying to make my real house look like something from a Homes and Gardens magazine.  I haven't quite got the pitch for the house yet but I hope I will have before too long.  That way I will get to sleep at night.