The Room That Is All Wrong
posted by Pop Tart at
2:53 AM
Answers to the How Well Do You Know Your Victorian Rooms? pop quiz.
You thought I forgot, didn't you?
I didn't. I was A) hoping you folks would actually guess & B) I decided this would make an excellent poster for the bathroom -- you know, to give guests something to do while they were just sitting there...
Anyway, posters are now available and so I present the answers from page 3285 in The Book of Knowledge encyclopedias, circa 1910. (In some cases I copied the text direct because it's such a treat to read it as written.)
1 The door by which we enter the room has the finger-plates and handle and keyhole on the wrong side, being against the hinges.
2 The oval picture is hanging from a hook which is placed upside down on the picture-rail.
3 The landscape (next to oval picture) is upside down.
4 The picture hanging inn the corner has no hook at all.
5 The skirting board is reversed.
6 & 7 "We shall be surprised to find that the maid is about to shovel on to the gas-fire some coal she has taken from a coal-scuttle which has quite an impossible handle. The handle is round the bottom of the scuttle in such a way that it could not possibly be swung round for the purpose of lifting the scuttle."
8 The hands of the clock are wrong (the little hand would point to a minute or so past the hour, not before it).
9 & 10 The window fastener is the wrong way around -- and the handle to lift the lower half has been fixed on back to front.
11 The support for the curtain pole is fastened on the top, instead of at the side, which would prevent putting the pole over it.
12 The knob to open the shutter is on the wrong side.
13 "Moving round the room we come against a hassock, the lungs of which are on the sides instead of on the ends. Let us take it up and we shall notice how very awkward it would be if hassocks were always made like this one."
14 "There is something strange about the dog too. It is a spaniel with a collie's tail."
(I guess Victorians weren't fond of mutts.)
15 & 16 The chair has been "very carelessly upholstered" -- the pattern is the wrong way up, the castor has been fixed on wrong and "it would soon break with the weight of anyone sitting in the chair."
17 The floor-boards have been placed in the wrong direction "and what would happen to them underneath the carpet is impossible to say."
How many did you find?
You thought I forgot, didn't you?
I didn't. I was A) hoping you folks would actually guess & B) I decided this would make an excellent poster for the bathroom -- you know, to give guests something to do while they were just sitting there...
Anyway, posters are now available and so I present the answers from page 3285 in The Book of Knowledge encyclopedias, circa 1910. (In some cases I copied the text direct because it's such a treat to read it as written.)
1 The door by which we enter the room has the finger-plates and handle and keyhole on the wrong side, being against the hinges.
2 The oval picture is hanging from a hook which is placed upside down on the picture-rail.
3 The landscape (next to oval picture) is upside down.
4 The picture hanging inn the corner has no hook at all.
5 The skirting board is reversed.
6 & 7 "We shall be surprised to find that the maid is about to shovel on to the gas-fire some coal she has taken from a coal-scuttle which has quite an impossible handle. The handle is round the bottom of the scuttle in such a way that it could not possibly be swung round for the purpose of lifting the scuttle."
8 The hands of the clock are wrong (the little hand would point to a minute or so past the hour, not before it).
9 & 10 The window fastener is the wrong way around -- and the handle to lift the lower half has been fixed on back to front.
11 The support for the curtain pole is fastened on the top, instead of at the side, which would prevent putting the pole over it.
12 The knob to open the shutter is on the wrong side.
13 "Moving round the room we come against a hassock, the lungs of which are on the sides instead of on the ends. Let us take it up and we shall notice how very awkward it would be if hassocks were always made like this one."
14 "There is something strange about the dog too. It is a spaniel with a collie's tail."
(I guess Victorians weren't fond of mutts.)
15 & 16 The chair has been "very carelessly upholstered" -- the pattern is the wrong way up, the castor has been fixed on wrong and "it would soon break with the weight of anyone sitting in the chair."
17 The floor-boards have been placed in the wrong direction "and what would happen to them underneath the carpet is impossible to say."
How many did you find?
Labels: 1910s, antiques, homework, illustration, poster, quiz
2 Comments:
That was too hard for my wee wittle bwain.
Just because it's here at KKC, doesn't mean it's easy ;)
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