At the House of the White Boot

I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but there was a time when houses didn't have numbers, but had a different form of identification: a name. For example, a house might have a sculpture of 3 blackbirds on it so it was given the address 'At the House of the 3 Blackbirds'. If you look back to the door post of 8 April, that door was in the house 'At the Stone Ram'. It used to be that people would know a house by it's descriptive name and would look for such identifying factors when in search of it. Today's door is in the house 'At the White Boot'. Yep, that is just what it says over the door and it even has a relief sculpture of a white boot! That is all good and fine and even can be romantic, but what on earth did they do if they were in a hurry? I guess back in those days people had a lot of time to go looking around for the right house...I'm just grateful that today we have street names and house numbers!!

As regards the door itself and especially it's accessories, I like the little brass plate that shows a design of a letter then has an arrow to show the postperson where the letter needs to go. Too bad if the letter is fatter than that slit in the door...only thin post will be accepted in 'The House of the White Boot'!! (I have a question: Must the people that live in or that visit this house wear only white boots? Naw, I don't think so!)

Two for One Tuesday

Sometimes there are couples that just shouldn't be separated...today's doors are just such a couple. When I came across this pair, I was first attracted to the smaller, typical-looking door, but then I backed up, gave the two a good look together and realised that these two were made for each other and that I have no right to split them up!

In our couple, on the left is Big Door who is (or was) probably some sort of an entry to an atelier or work area or even a small store judging from the threshold and the wear to it. Big Door's three sets of reinforced hinges and external lock (which seems to have replaced numerous hidden locks) tell us that Big Door has and will continue to do its best to hold strong and to keep the world at bay as best it can.

Little Door, on the other hand, was designed as the gregarious one in the couple. Little Door invites you to a cup of coffee in the kitchen that is somewhere behind it, or it waits while the children are at school, or it protects a family from a cold winter's night. Little Door's handle and door pull is nice and decorative, but neither exotic nor extravagant. I am guessing that the upper keyhole decoration was made and added later when the kind of keys used in the lower keyhole became more or less obsolete. What I like the most about Little Door is the is the incognito mail slot...you almost don't see it, but there it is!