The First Floor Bedchamber

A Best Guest Room

In the 1840s only the most modern houses had a bed chamber on the first floor. We believe this is what would be called a “best guest room,” for special guests. It allows family and guest, housed on separate floors, to maintain their privacy; and has stylish Rococo Revival furniture, more suitable to impress guests than the cottage furniture upstairs in the family bedrooms. It also incorporates elements that address people’s growing concerns about health and hygiene in the era: a change of air is facilitated by cross-corner windows, the woven straw or “summer carpeting” is easy to clean, and can be replaced every summer, and there was a bathing chamber located off this room—probably one of the first in Connecticut. For more information on the bathing chamber, see the Technology section in Architecture, Design, and Style.

According to family notes, Lucy used this earthenware pitcher and basin to bath her son Ned when he had typhoid in the fall of 1858.

This medallion, like the medallions in all the first floor rooms, would have had a chandelier suspended from the hook in the center, probably lit by kerosene. We  have no record of what the chandeliers looked like and so have chosen to leave the hooks empty. Except for the colors, the plaster medallion is identical to the one in the dining room.