PKT25: Touring the House, Part 8: Third Floor First Hallway
OK, now that we've finished the second floor, we're at the long staircase in the back of the house. This staircase ran from the basement to a back door and on up to the second and third floors. It was utilitarian and not terribly large, perhaps not as narrow and hard to navigate as a spiral staircase, but small enough that getting large pieces of furniture up it could be pretty challenging. On the plus side, it had a decent number of windows.
When you reached the third floor, you were standing at the start of a hallway that led from the back of the house toward the front. About 2/3 of the way across the house it ran into a perpendicular hallway that ran from the wall of the house along the driveway most of the way across the house. Today we'll talk about the four rooms that opened on the first part of the hallway, and we'll cover the other four rooms in a future post.
In this first part of the hallway, there were four rooms. In order, they were:
- On the left at the top of the stairs was a small room that was nominally called the Computer Room.
- Just past it on the left was a full bathroom.
- On the other side of the bathroom was a small bedroom titled The Abyss.
- The only room on the right side was a slightly larger bedroom called The Loft, whose door was just a bit past The Abyss if I recall correctly.
- I believe there was a small fuse closet on the same side as The Loft, but don't quote me.
Let's hit them one at a time.
- The Computer Room was fast becoming a relic of the past in my freshman year. I don't think I met anyone in college who didn't have their very own personal computer, and the CWRUNet network is still possibly the fastest internet pipe I've ever been hooked to. I only recall setting foot in a computer lab twice in five years for class purposes, and both were to hand in final projects to a TA who was working that lab. The fraternity house was hooked up to that same internet pipe and everybody had one (if not more) computers, so nobody was actually using the older computer that was set up in the Computer Room for serious computing. A few brothers who didn't live in the house occasionally used it to check their email in the age before everybody walked around with a smartphone, but the more common usage was to print out papers that needed to be handed in. We had a "Computer Chair" as a fraternity office, but most of them spent more time on the chapter website or maintaining the chapter email lists, both of which were hosted on physical boxes in the house because the public internet was only a few years old. Most of those needs no longer exist, so it wouldn't surprise me if this tiny room was turned into a closet since I graduated, given that it was certainly not big enough to turn into a bedroom. MAYBE you could have fit a mattress in there, but I doubt it, and it would have been super loud by the stairs anyway.
- The third floor bathroom was the only bathroom on the entire floor, which meant that on a bedrooms/toilets ratio the third floor was the biggest loser at 6/1, as compared to 6/3 for the second floor, 2/3 for the main floor before the kitchen renovation and 2/2 after, and 3/1 for the basement. I seem to recall that Susan did some significant improvements to the shower during her tenure as Home Improvement chair, but I no longer recall the details.
- The Abyss was another very small bedroom. It was so small that some previous brother had built a combination loft/desk into the wall to free up some floor space. Part of the reason that it felt so small was that instead of having a full third floor and a roof above it, many of the third floor windows had roofing that came down around the windows. This meant that both the 3rd floor bathroom and the Abyss had lower ceilings near the window. Despite this limited floor space and lower ceiling, someone had managed to stick a full size fridge into the Abyss in the years before I joined. I bet moving it up the stairs was all sorts of fun. Anyway, The Abyss was vacant when I joined the house even though some people had roommates, which probably tells you everything you need to know about the size.
- Of course, The Loft was also vacant, and it was a substantially larger room, and it didn't have the lowered ceilings. If I recall correctly, this is because the Loft was really beat up and damaged my freshman year. I believe Tony repaired all the damage when he moved into that room, and he left the titular loft in place. Once those repairs were made this was actually a pretty nice room. It had a good closet, decent light, and enough space. Of course, it was pretty loud because it had hallways on of its walls, but then most of the third floor was pretty loud given the amount of traffic that was forced down the hallways all the time.
I never once lived on the third floor because it was loud, there was only one bathroom,you had to climb a lot more stairs and it was hot. Heat rises, as you may have heard, and while the house had a fantastic boiler, we didn't have central air conditioning. The third floor could be miserable in the summer, and even in the cold of a Cleveland winter it could get pretty warm.
Window air conditioners were a popular option throughout the house, although they weren't even possible due to the window structure in some rooms like The Parlor or any of the three basement bedrooms. In other rooms like The Abyss, putting in a window air conditioner would have blocked off the only natural light. Needless to say, common areas that had window units were very popular when it was hot. I think that through most of college if I could have snapped my fingers and changed only one thing about the house, it would have been adding central air!
The house tour is near its end. Next time we'll turn down that last hallway and discuss The Ballroom, Whiskey's Roost, The Brewery and The Cave, plus we'll talk about the fire escape and the attic.
Addendum: Susan said she did very little to the 3rd floor bathroom. So much for memory.
When you reached the third floor, you were standing at the start of a hallway that led from the back of the house toward the front. About 2/3 of the way across the house it ran into a perpendicular hallway that ran from the wall of the house along the driveway most of the way across the house. Today we'll talk about the four rooms that opened on the first part of the hallway, and we'll cover the other four rooms in a future post.
In this first part of the hallway, there were four rooms. In order, they were:
- On the left at the top of the stairs was a small room that was nominally called the Computer Room.
- Just past it on the left was a full bathroom.
- On the other side of the bathroom was a small bedroom titled The Abyss.
- The only room on the right side was a slightly larger bedroom called The Loft, whose door was just a bit past The Abyss if I recall correctly.
- I believe there was a small fuse closet on the same side as The Loft, but don't quote me.
Let's hit them one at a time.
- The Computer Room was fast becoming a relic of the past in my freshman year. I don't think I met anyone in college who didn't have their very own personal computer, and the CWRUNet network is still possibly the fastest internet pipe I've ever been hooked to. I only recall setting foot in a computer lab twice in five years for class purposes, and both were to hand in final projects to a TA who was working that lab. The fraternity house was hooked up to that same internet pipe and everybody had one (if not more) computers, so nobody was actually using the older computer that was set up in the Computer Room for serious computing. A few brothers who didn't live in the house occasionally used it to check their email in the age before everybody walked around with a smartphone, but the more common usage was to print out papers that needed to be handed in. We had a "Computer Chair" as a fraternity office, but most of them spent more time on the chapter website or maintaining the chapter email lists, both of which were hosted on physical boxes in the house because the public internet was only a few years old. Most of those needs no longer exist, so it wouldn't surprise me if this tiny room was turned into a closet since I graduated, given that it was certainly not big enough to turn into a bedroom. MAYBE you could have fit a mattress in there, but I doubt it, and it would have been super loud by the stairs anyway.
- The third floor bathroom was the only bathroom on the entire floor, which meant that on a bedrooms/toilets ratio the third floor was the biggest loser at 6/1, as compared to 6/3 for the second floor, 2/3 for the main floor before the kitchen renovation and 2/2 after, and 3/1 for the basement. I seem to recall that Susan did some significant improvements to the shower during her tenure as Home Improvement chair, but I no longer recall the details.
- The Abyss was another very small bedroom. It was so small that some previous brother had built a combination loft/desk into the wall to free up some floor space. Part of the reason that it felt so small was that instead of having a full third floor and a roof above it, many of the third floor windows had roofing that came down around the windows. This meant that both the 3rd floor bathroom and the Abyss had lower ceilings near the window. Despite this limited floor space and lower ceiling, someone had managed to stick a full size fridge into the Abyss in the years before I joined. I bet moving it up the stairs was all sorts of fun. Anyway, The Abyss was vacant when I joined the house even though some people had roommates, which probably tells you everything you need to know about the size.
- Of course, The Loft was also vacant, and it was a substantially larger room, and it didn't have the lowered ceilings. If I recall correctly, this is because the Loft was really beat up and damaged my freshman year. I believe Tony repaired all the damage when he moved into that room, and he left the titular loft in place. Once those repairs were made this was actually a pretty nice room. It had a good closet, decent light, and enough space. Of course, it was pretty loud because it had hallways on of its walls, but then most of the third floor was pretty loud given the amount of traffic that was forced down the hallways all the time.
I never once lived on the third floor because it was loud, there was only one bathroom,you had to climb a lot more stairs and it was hot. Heat rises, as you may have heard, and while the house had a fantastic boiler, we didn't have central air conditioning. The third floor could be miserable in the summer, and even in the cold of a Cleveland winter it could get pretty warm.
Window air conditioners were a popular option throughout the house, although they weren't even possible due to the window structure in some rooms like The Parlor or any of the three basement bedrooms. In other rooms like The Abyss, putting in a window air conditioner would have blocked off the only natural light. Needless to say, common areas that had window units were very popular when it was hot. I think that through most of college if I could have snapped my fingers and changed only one thing about the house, it would have been adding central air!
The house tour is near its end. Next time we'll turn down that last hallway and discuss The Ballroom, Whiskey's Roost, The Brewery and The Cave, plus we'll talk about the fire escape and the attic.
Addendum: Susan said she did very little to the 3rd floor bathroom. So much for memory.