Visiting the Gibson House Museum

I was in Boston for the past week, and on Friday I went to the Gibson House Museum.  It's a historical house from the Victorian period that was preserved by its owners as a museum piece.  It's located right in the heart of Boston, and sadly is the only one that is left preserved, as its neighbors have been renovated into apartments or college dorms.

Here it is!

Image from: http://www.thegibsonhouse.org/index.asp

We got a one-hour tour of the house, which consisted of the basement, ground, 2nd, and 3rd floors.  I took a couple of photos of things I found particularly interesting to me, but feel free to visit their website to find out more if you're curious!

We saw the dining room first:

 The tableware was very pretty, and there were several more sets stored in cabinets around the room!

The next picture I have is from the music room.  The piano is a Mason-Hamlin, and it has a butterfly hinge design, meaning that it's symmetrical, and the lid can be opened to either direction.  That's pretty cool!!  If only I could have played it XD

Next, we went up the back staircase to get to the 3rd floor.  There was a really cool-looking telephone on the wall:

And the third floor had... a study room, which I didn't take any pictures in... and a bathroom!  Which incidentally didn't look all that different from bathrooms nowadays.  The toilet is prettier?

And next to that was the bedroom, with beautiful furniture.  I only took a picture of the writing desk, because that was my favorite:

Oh, apparently the Gibson House was particularly awesome for a Victorian house, because it actually had sort of a central heating system.  There was a big circular channel going up through the middle of the house from the 2nd floor up, which apparently would help all the hot air circulate up the middle of the house and into the living areas, and allow the cold air to go down the back/side staircases, creating a nice airflow and distribution of heat.  I tried to take a picture, but the sun made it kind of hard:

Last but not least, we went into the basement to see the laundry room and the kitchen.  There was an awesome call-bell system that was still in place:

Also, I thought the rice jar and its matching littler cousin was pretty:

So there you go!  A brief whirlwind through the Gibson House.  There were lots more things in there that I didn't take pictures of, partly because my camera was giving me the low-battery warning T_T.  For example, there was a cabinet Victrola in the music room that was really cool, and there were sooooo many books all over the house!!  Also, the butler's pantry had awesome teacup sets - including a pastel-colored set, where all the cups were a different pastel color <3<3<3  Such an awesome idea... I totally need one!!

Anyways, a more fashion/outfit-related post pertaining to my trip will be coming soon, but I thought the Gibson House was too awesome to not share (^o^)/