The Truth About The Ghost Door

There was never an outside stairway up to the ghost door. 

It was a catwalk to the Inn next door.

 Guests would use the catwalk to come over for plays and other entertainment.

The Boot Room stairs WERE original to the old building.

The original building was a "squat T" shape, if you know what I mean.

So there are actually TWO additions on the back of the old building, one on each side of the original. On the left is the addition that houses the toy dept downstairs and the baggie backstock room upstairs. On the right is the addition for the Screw Room Really Called Nuts And Bolts.

Here you can see the window at the bottom of the Boot Room stairs and a boarded over window that you can find in the Boot Room if you are clever and waste a lot of time poking around... like me.

See the boarded over windows here? I found those in the chip room behind the Sather's candy storage rack. One is way to the back and really hard to see.

OK, just a couple more things but I am going to put them in separate posts becuase I get confused when a post gets too long.

That is becuase I am 

F E E B L E

M I N D E D

and

I only want to think about the simplest things.

If something is hard I just say,

"I don't know. I have to think about it."

Which is a lie. 

Becuase what I really do is --

I sleep on it.

Over and over.

Until the answer comes.

And it always does.

You must be willing to accept

NOT KNOWING

until you know.

I was SO wrong

I mean like STUPENDOUSLY wrong.
About the ghost door and the stairs to the Boot Room.
(Oh, and when I wrote that the ceiling was tongue in groove, I meant to say BEADED. Tongue in groove is flooring. Damned aphasia.)

Anyway, my doubts arose quickly.

Like...

(1) How could these stairs NOT be original stairs up to the Boot Room? Look at them! They are all old and beat up! They look just like the cellar stairs by the office.

Top of the Boot Room stairs. Don't you love this view? You have to walk through the chip room to get to the boot room. The baggie back stock room is through the door to the left.

Looking down from the top. Look at the worn edges!

Looking down from the landing.

These are the cellar stairs. See how they have the same sort of wear pattern?

(2) Why does that beam over the office take a 90 degree turn? That is just not normal.

The bent beam.

(3) Why is the ceiling so utterly different in the Screw Room if there is just one addition for the toy department, the office/Nail Bench/Boot Room stairs area, and the Screw Room?

Looking into the Screw Room (really called Nuts And Bolts) from in front of the Boot Room stairs. See how the ceiling is slanted, low and unfinished? Also see the Surveyor's Tape Department over the door? Classic. That deserves its own post, really.

Finally, common sense prevailed. I asked Got Dinner some questions. He knows a lot of stuff about the building. After all, he spent his childhood there exploring all its nooks and crannies. He tells great stories.

YAY!!!

He told me a crap ton of stuff. I learned SO MUCH today.
To be continued...

(FYI, Got Dinner is in charge of wood for all the stoves in the basement. The wood for the store is an amazing story yet to be told.)

The Ghost Door: Wrapping up the Foundation Revelation

If you feel you need to, you may review Foundation Revelation Part I by clicking  HERE.

The important thing in that post is my statement that the Boot Room stairs are in an addition,

not in the original old store structure.

This was a revelation to me becuase long ago I noticed this:

which is waaaaaay up in the air on the north wall thus:

See the air conditioners? One of those is the one that broke and flooded the wine cellar last summer. See the structure on the front? That is where the old original porch used to be and it is now the front of the store.

OK... so every time I noticed this door thing up the side of the building I wondered why it was there. It didn't make any sense to me. As soon as I realized that the Boot Room stairs were in an addition, I realized what this ghost door was for.

IT WAS THE ENTRANCE TO THE OLD TOWN HALL!!!!!

THERE WERE STAIRS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE BUILDING!!!!

I think.

Maybe.

I have been wrong before... but what else could it be?

To wrap things up I must explain what all my blather regarding the ceiling over the office area at the back of the store was about.

One of the things I find amazing is how thoroughly the old original structure is disguised inside. The old oak floor is uniform throughout the front part of the store. That is what we tend to look at -- the floor -- and the floor makes it seem like the whole front part of the store is one big old structure. BUT, if you look at the ceiling it tells the structural story.

I didn't start to notice the ceilings until I found those old basement steps and started to wonder where they used to come up inside the store.

 The ceiling in the original part of the store is tongue and groove, everything added later is just smooth.

Below you can see the old and new parts of the ceiling over the office. (The addition where the porch used to be, on the front of the store, and the addition on the south side, also have a smooth ceilings.)

Blue beams outline the original structure (more or less, there are exceptions to this statement that I don't quite understand, like in the above photo where the blue beam makes a sharp left.) They make a rectangle which defines the original structure inside and then there are cross beams running from old front to old back of the original store.

This is looking back into the rear addition, into the toy department, from the right of the office. See how the smaller of the blue beams ends at the support post?

  I feel very satisfied.

I hope it all makes sense.

The End.
But I really don't get why the north wall is brick.You can't tell by looking at the old photo.

Foundation Revelation Part I

I finally got down to the wine cellar to look at foundational things

and

I had a revelation!

#1: Into The Wine Cellar

First you come down the stairs by the office,
which I am SURE must be original old basement stairs.

 Then duck under the ramp (which you have done before here)

and you get into the wine cellar,

which is an amazing place all on its own.

This is near the north east corner of the original old building, to the right of the penguin in the above photo.

See the brick on top of the old stone foundation? That is the current outside north wall. Notice there is no sill plate!

Absolutely gorgeous.

 




The old beams are held up by brick pillars which are all over the old original basement.


#2: Into The BACK Wine Cellar
The wine cellar has two parts. 
If you turn left you get to the back part of the cellar.

You, of course, will notice right away that
 this doorway was busted through the original foundation wall,
which means there is an addition on the back of the original building
of which I was never aware.

#3 Parenthetical Back Wine Cellar Remarks
Remark  A: Just before you enter the back cellar you go past the Shelf Of Wines Special To Dan.

Once, last summer, an air conditioner in a window above this spot broke and flooded the north wall and floor of the wine cellar. We had to move every case of wine that was stacked against the wall and dry the floor. Dan's special wines got wet and we took every bottle off the shelf and dried it carefully. Dan was on his Annual Summer Jaunt (the only time he does not actually live and breath Store) and so was spared the pain of dealing with that event.

Remark B: The back part stores coffee as well as wine and so it smells beguiling in there.

Remark C: IT IS THE ONLY PLACE IN THE STORE YOU CAN'T HEAR THE MUSIC!!!!!

Doesn't it LOOK quiet?

Looking back out to the main wine cellar. Special Wines Shelf Part II is on the left. The very popular Vermont Coffee Company coffee is on the right.

(Shameless Coffee Company Promotion Link just for the fun of it)

   
#4 The Revelation Continued
Once I realized that there was an addition I wondered what that meant for
the stairs to the Boot Room,
the Chip Room,
the Baggie Back Stock Room,
the Nail Bench,
the Yet Unrevealed Toy Department,
and everything else beyond the office and the old basement stairs.
So now we must go back upstairs and examine the ceiling and beams by the office.
Which I am not prepared to do today.
In fact, I am exhausted by the organizational effort required to get THIS far.
And I need to go take some pics of what I want to show next.
It is worth the wait.
We are going to end up outside looking at the old north wall.
You are really going to like it.

More Venerable Old Stuff In The Boot Room and Another Store Mystery

This is one of the things I like to visit
 upstairs in the Boot Room.

The top one was for holding spools of thread.

It says "Eureka Spool Silk"

I think J & P Coats Fast Colors is Eureka Spool Silk's buddy,

but see how thread got a shiny new display case downstairs

 so Eureka Spool Silk ended up alone and dusty upstairs?

Check out Thread Thread

Anyway, the bottom thing is another store mystery:

I am not sure what the bottom case was meant to display.
It has dowels inside each display window,
like maybe for books or jars
or some sort of boxed item?
What sort of thing that rests on dowels would you want to keep behind glass? 

The Boot Room's Noble Past

It was the Town Hall.

It has cool old file cabinets.

And a stage -- see the proscenium?
See the doors on each side for entering and exiting the wings?

These steps up to the stage must have been added. There are steps inside each side door that go to the wings. Those really really long fluorescent tube bulbs are stored in the stage left "wing room."

There are venerable old things to sit on while you try on boots, but I am not sure if they are actually from the room's town hall past. The bench might be from the old Lewiston train station.

I have stretched out on this bench in exhausted desperation a time or two.

I Bet You Can't Wait See The Ammo Case

Sign Locator Clicky

The Solar Panels

Wow, it was a beautiful day yesterday. I sorta noticed. I was in a hard working mood and bustled around putting out all the new Stonewall Kitchen stuff which had come on Thursday. And Nabisco delivered so I had to stow that and then put out all the fresh crackers and cookies. And it was AG order day so I had to hustle around with the ordering gizmo zapping grocery shelf tags so the world would be safe for gum and sugar and flour and cereal and ham hocks. And I had to take a thousand photos of the world. So by 3 pm I was filthy and tired and the beautiful day was only a blip on my radar.

Anyway, here are the solar panels. And the Boot Room is behind those beautiful blue windows.

Hey! Look at this pic! I took it from one of the Boot Room windows last week when I was poking around up there. Back when it was still winter.

Things I Never Told You

There is an UPSTAIRS!

Turn left to go into the  the Screw Room. (Note the Surveyor's Tape Department over the doorway into the Screw Room.) Turn right to go upstairs. There are lots of things upstairs. Like the Chip Room. And the Baggie Backstock Room. Like Belts, Fan and the Spice Endcap Staging Area. But most importantly...

The Boot Room!

It is a wonderful place full of Venerable Old Stuff. It is usually quiet and empty and the floor creaks when you walk on it. You can hear things going on downstairs and it feels like you are all hidden and secret. It is a good place to go to be alone for a bit. Except it is cold in the winter. The wood stoves are, after all, a long ways away down in the basement.

My favorite boots. I like to visit them.

Sale Today. Yay!