Greetings to my dear blog site and friends whom I follow and those who follow me! I’ve been on hiatus for much too long and my fingers cannot keep up with thoughts as I dust the cobwebs from my site. All is well here in E’ville-I’ve been travelling, enjoying friends and family, building a new house, working…all the things you do, too, but probably have managed to squeeze in a bit of writing time, unlike me.

Summer is well under way here in the foothills of Virginia, the heat unbearable moreso than usual this season, but I still can see all the beauty nature unfolds for us each day. Sadly, it ain’t happening in my gardens this year and I wonder if the copious rainfalls in the early spring had anything to do with this? Butterfly bushes are puny, my rose bush is sad, and in general none of my typical annuals are showing themselves in their usual flowery glory. But no matter as I have been gone so much I’ve not been able to tend to or enjoy them. But I digress…

Now time for doors. And I have seen SO MANY FABULOUS ones since spring I cannot count them all, describe their every significance, or even recall exactly where each stood.  As I sift back through my photos I hope I did myself service by landmarking my pictures as well as I think I did. Otherwise I have to dig into the phone for photo locations. I think that is a thing, right? I am so happy to jump back into Norm’s dreamy world of Thursday Doors. I’ve missed you all!!!♥

I’ve told y’all before about my annual trip with my college roomies over the Memorial Day weekend. For years we plopped on the beaches at Nags Head, North Carolina but lately have been picking other destinations to explore together. This year we chose Old Town Alexandria, where I have visited before, my two roomies had not. We stayed in a terrific airbnb directly on King Street making our whims convenient! One excursion we decided upon prior to our arrival was touring The Mansion on O Street in downtown Washington, D.C. I must tell you what drew me to buying us tickets to this ‘museum’ was the promised fun of discovering hidden doors within this landmark. It’s obvious where I was going with this excursion…

Well, the Hidden Doors tour at the O Mansion was beyond anything I could have imagined, and I will go into further detail in a future post. Here I will share with you a few of the doors (and I mean only A FEW) we found that day.

 

These two photos show a very tall wall mirror that opened up to reveal a stairway leading into a narrow passageway taking us further into the Mansion.

I do not know if this was considered a hidden door but the two corner panels opened up revealing a storage area.

 

These two images show the intact book shelf along the wall, however upon closer inspection we found that it slid to the left and divided in half. Behind this very tall door were stairs leading up and into a guest bedroom unoccupied at the moment. The O Mansion, also a hotel, was hosting a wedding party that had reserved the entire hotel for the weekend when we visited so there were very few visitors!

A second wall mirror functioning as a door.

This is simply a set of wardrobe doors that caught my eye.

A skinny, five panelled door that of course is not a hidden door. I found it interesting because I wondered if the plug on the door was originally a lock from when the house was divided into several apartments?

Another sneaky door hidden amongst the trim, no handle or hooks to give it away.

Bookshelf or hidden door?

And this final find was our crowning glory as it is the most searched for door because of what lies beyond. I will not tell you where this door resides in the mansion or what it hides but it truly is a great discovery once revealed.

Out of the 70+ hidden doors the O Mansion boasts, I think we found only four. Ted, President of The Mansion and husband of H. H. Leonards, founder of The Mansion on O Street, told us we were above average to find that many! That was reassuring because as directed, we pushed, pulled, and slid anything we thought might be a door for almost two hours and felt defeated with our meager discoveries.  Nonetheless, I recommend this interesting door tour should you find yourself in the vicinity of O Street in Washington D.C. And by the way, my two roomies also enjoyed this doorscursion so my pick for the day’s outing was not so selfish after all.

If you’d like to walk through some more amazing doors from around the globe, visit Norm and his loyal followers who share their finds on Thursday Doors. Until next time!