Old House Museums

[Willa]

A friend suggested we take a trip to visit Annadale house in Tillsonburg, ON. This is about half an hour outside of London. The museum is the original 1880's restored house, that belonged to a wealthy family that had business interests in the area.

There is a new section that is built onto the side of the house - where you enter - but the house has been very sympathetically restored. It's most noted for the very embellished handpainted ceilings, and mouldings. The house was obviously a very fine house - and no expense was spared in its construction, including fancy inlaid floors, loads of stained and etched glass, and many huge doors. Like many houses of this size, it had a period of decline as a boarding/rooming house, but was purchased by the town and restored, at great expense.

The museum interpretor was pretty good, and she explained that while some of the furniture was original to the home, that much of it had been donated from the area. As a whole I thought the restoration was really good, with many excellent paint colors and wallpapers, in complicated combinations. Sometimes museums in smaller communities become strange catch-all's for a community's nostalgic contents. I thought this one was very finely done.
They are emphatic that you are NOT to take any photos - but there are many online to give an idea. The (summer) admission was $6.00. It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

The scale of the house is impressive. The landing on the second floor was larger than my largest room ! Many of the original doors were massive.

Gothichome - if you haven't been already, you definitely need to visit.

(* Of special interest is the crazy horn chair, with velvet and chenille upholstery.That eccentricity got my heart beating even faster.)

https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1816

https://www.tillsonburg.ca/en/live-and-play/House.aspx

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[Gothichome]

Willa, we have been through Tilsonburg a couple of times driving back from antiquing excursions. I was not aware of this home or we would have incorporated it into the trips. Now I know it’s there it will be on the itinerary.
Isn’t that home a thing of beauty, well put together in classic Eastlake. Built about the same time as Gothichome. I see lots of B&B wallpaper in the pics you posted. Wish I could afford that, maybe i’ll Win a lottery.
We have a similar ceiling medallion in our dinning room, it shows evidence that it might have been painted. Not so sure if the ceiling was papered.

[Willa]

Gothichome - here's some more photos I found online to whet your appetite.

The most interesting thing to me was that the fancy ceilings were handpainted ! Even the pinstriping like detail. I am famiiar with the $$$Bradbury & Bradbury$$$ fancy borders and ceiling embellishments (and wallpaper, of course). I had no idea that these would have ever been originally painted though. One room shows a portion of unrestored ceiling, and yes indeed, that is original paint, not wallpaper.

The house has some new fangled things like some sort of heater with a very decorative cast iron cover in many rooms - even the rooms with fireplaces. The guide didn't explain how these were powered - ie steam heat or coal or ???

The one thing that is not on display is the original bathrooms. All the bedrooms have sinks - so there was running water - but what the toilet and tub situation was unknown to me, and not shown. The original kitchen (for the servants) is very plain and modest. The entry into the house from the museum side is through the original butlers pantry, which still has some of the original cabinets. The difference in SMELL between the new museum and the old house side was very noticeable to me. Neither smelt bad or odd - but the old house smell was very apparent within a couple of steps into the old house side.

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[Corsetière]

Oh my! Yes! There are 2 1850's home museums near me that are all hand painted! They are not managed terribly well and have quite a bit of damage and neglect at this point. I recently read that they are going to have to auction one off, unfortunately. Somewhere in my external hard drive I have photos of the ceilings and walls because I had never seen anything like it before. I was told that there were traveling interior decorators who specialized in this sort of work.

[Corsetière]

Maybe one of the mods could set up a dedicated thread to house museums? It would be great to have it organized by country, state, city, etc., so if you were traveling you could look up new places to visit.

[nhguy]

Maybe one of the mods could set up a dedicated thread to house museums? It would be great to have it organized by country, state, city, etc., so if you were traveling you could look up new places to visit.

What a great looking house.
There's a a great brownstone Victorian in Portland Maine worth a visit the interior is quite a bit like that of the one in this thread. https://victoriamansion.org/

Then if you are in mid-coast Maine there's the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. They have the 1850 Farnsworth homestead. A very high styled house of that time. https://www.farnsworthmuseum.org/visit/ ... homestead/
The museum also owns the Olson House if you are into Wyeth paintings. https://www.farnsworthmuseum.org/visit/ ... son-house/

[awomanwithahammer]

Wow! I noticed the portraits in the stained glass windows on the doors. Wonder who they are?

[Gothichome]

Willa, we drove up to the Annandale home a couple of weeks ago. All I can say is wow. We came back re inspired.

[Willa]

Willa, we drove up to the Annandale home a couple of weeks ago. All I can say is wow. We came back re inspired.

Glad you had a look ! There's a LOT to take in at that house. I found some of the paint combinations very inspiring, others off-putting. It was an excellent value for the $ 6.00 admission. I could have spent all day pondering the various design things going on.

[Gothichome]

Willa, I to would have liked to have a comfy chair just to sit and take it all in. What I found interesting was the medallion paint, it was all in flat colours. I have seen a few painted medallions in the past but they were all painted with metallic colours in the paint. Also, in the room with the quarter finished ceiling paint, from the lay out lines on the Unfinished portions it looked all to simple a design, just lots of geometrical partial circles and straight lines. I think the whole thing could be layed out with a compass stick and straight edge,a bit of simple geometry, and the golden ratio.