Sewing Room Restoration

Sewing Room (formerly the sunroom) Explanation

During the time when the Roedde family was living in the home, this space was Matilda’s sewing room. Located on the second level of the turret and wedged in between the girl’s and boy’s bedrooms, this room would be one of the brightest in the house on sunny days. Not only that, but the family used to be able to see Stanley Park from the bay windows. The functionality of the space, however, was different during the boarding and rooming house era of Roedde House. Indeed, Matilda’s room was turned into a general sunroom. This is not to be mistaken with the other sunroom in the house—that is, the one situated in the northwest lean-to section downstairs.  Today, Matilda’s sewing room is often deemed by visitors to be their favourite spot in the museum.

When workers delved into the restoration project in the 1980’s, they made a number of observations about the upper sunroom. Firstly, they noticed that there was water damage up on the wall facing east. Despite this inconvenience, however, the workers had also made useful discoveries. These pertained most notably to the sunroom’s wallpaper. Among other findings, they noticed that one of the layers of wallpaper in the room was identical to the one in the upper back room. In terms of design, such a layer was green with yellow blotches. More importantly, the restorers discovered original wallpaper a few layers underneath this design. With light brown as a dominant hue, this original wallpaper bore an intricate, floral pattern. At the bottom of this web page, the notes Upper Sunroom XIX contain a diagram detailing all of the observations aforementioned.

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