Bedrooms

There are four bedrooms in the home: 3 upstairs and one downstairs. The bedroom downstairs (across the hall from the parlor), served as the bedroom for the Blues, and then later, to Mr. Blue’s mother when she moved in. The bed currently in the room belonged to John Blue’s mother, and the wedding quilt also came from the family.

The fireplace is coal, as the room was a “featured room” of the house. A feature (or lack thereof) that surprises many visitors is that this, the master bedroom, has no closet for storage or clothes. The reason for this is that when the home was built the property tax was determined by totaling the number of rooms — Rooms were defined by the number of doors. Therefore, a closet would have caused a higher tax rate.

You will also notice the clothes trunk in the room. The trunk has a rounded top on it. While more expensive, this was the preferred trunk shape for the middle and upper class. The preference was due to when traveling by train, the flat top trunks would be stacked one upon the other and the round top trunks would be stacked at the top. Consequently, they were better protected AND were the first to be unloaded.