I recently purchased an 1830 Victorian house and while cleaning the attic to install insulation, a window was discovered. The window is laying flat across the rafters in the middle of the attic. It is attached to the rafters with a set of hinges so that it can be pulled up straight (90 degree angle with the floor) as if it were on an outer wall. There are no windows, no light source in the attic. Does anyone have any idea what this might be for?
Thanks!
Windows 1.0 ?
sorry, I simply couldn't resist...
Handi
It's unclear from your post where the window is. Laying flat across the rafters would indicate it is on the sloping roof, but other parts of your post seem to point to the floor. It's possible the window was for ventilation, or attic access, but I can't tell without more information. Post a picture on a free hosting site and post a link here. Let's take a look.
RMy guess is that someone put it there to get the curiousity up on the new owners on day ---- no just kidding. But keep us posted here, I am curious also and never heard of this.
Jsnipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:
Reminds me of a joke by Steven Wright, something like: "There's a light switch in my house that controls nothing. Still, I like to turn it off & on sometimes. One day, a woman called from Europe and said, 'Hey....quit playing with the light switch!'"
Maybe they just stored it there, and screwed it down so it wouldn't fall off and break.
My 2 cents- "The World is an Open Window." This ones to "NoWhere". Jack
At work one of the machines has a switch that had long been disconnected. If an operator working on that machine complains about it running to fast, we go and flip the switch. They can keep up after that.
If there is no insulation up there someone might have had it as a cold frame grow op for a few pot seedlings, who knows.
It is on the floor... attached to oen of the underlying beams (there is no real floor in the attic). Just sits there in the middle laying across the boards, but can be flipped up sp if you were sitting on the floor you coudl look straight through the window. I thought mabe there was some "old house" reasoning behind it that would be need to know.... but I guess maybe not!
Thanks everyone for your thoughts!
This actually reminds me of a house I know of with a mysterious light switch. It turned out it controlled the lights in a hidden crawl space beneath the house.
Old houses often have mysteries hidden in the walls and attics. That's the fun of renovating. Sometimes its odd choices of insulation, hidden door & window frames and even the odd rodent.
Handi
Sometimes the furniture's got even more secrets. A friend of mine bought a beautiful dresser at an antique auction. As he and he wife layed it on its back to put it in their pickup truck, they heard something metallic slam around inside. They pulled out a drawer and found an old, rusty metal box containing about $1500 in cash. They paid $200 for the dresser. They went out to dinner. :-)
Maybe it's a window to the hereafter.
Or the heretofor.
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.
It's either the gateway to heaven, or to hell. How much of a gambler are you?
Could it have been a previous access door to the attic?
Folks are probably wondering about a kitchen in the farm woods that I used to play in - rejects from the house that were given to kids to play with. If there is no indication this was once an opening, my next guess is that a junior carpenter lived there and played in the attic.
I used to tell my kids that archeologists would come along some day and believe we worshipped flies because they used to smash them on the ceiling :o)
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