Quote Originally Posted by laura* View Post
It was designed for different needs and customs.



Aah-yup! It was built as a two bedroom house. The attic upstairs was the storage area - probably meant to be filled with steamer trunks and such. Hence, there's no storage on the main level.



The dining area would have contained a stove of some sort. It provided heat and cooking. The area now take up by your kitchen, bathroom, and sunroom/office would have been the second bedroom and a pantry. The "bathroom" was out in the back yard.



If that's the case, then why do the bedroom shuffle? If you need to vacate rooms to renovate them, then the shuffle makes sense, but otherwise not. Right now you could claim three bedrooms - one downstairs, two upstairs, an office, and an itty bitty storage room.
The house was definitely designed by short people. The tallest room in the house only has 7' ceilings. Hubby used to hit his head coming down the stairs when we first bought the house. At 6'2" he's not excessively tall, either.

Yep, bathroom and rear mudroom entryway were definitely not original parts of the house. We're pretty certain that the sunroom was not original, either.

We do have to vacate rooms to repaint and do trim and finish some flooring, so rearranging rooms won't be a big deal. Our living room is currently too small for us to ride our bikes on the indoor trainers without taking one part of our (stupid) sectional sofa and putting it in an odd part of the room. Because our current bedroom only has one entrance we can put the sofa in that room in such a way that we have more room to use our bikes indoors or do other indoor workouts with weights and yoga ball. I'll also be able to store my workout gear in that closet, instead of shoved in a corner and looking unsightly.