Day Two Guernsey - VH's House Tour Continued

I left you hanging yesterday as we were headed up to Victor Hugo's official bedroom.

 He never slept here other than a few nights when he was very sick.  Otherwise he slept in the attic where he worked.  But he always planned to die in this bed so when he got very sick he took to this bed to prepare

 I'm not sure I could sleep with this face above me.    Also in the picture above you can see a white (ivory?) head - one half is a skull, the other is a man's face.  There are all sorts of inscriptions in the wood around this room about life and death and light after death etc.

 A view down the stairwell - - Bill and I both loved the carpeting but that isn't original to the house.

Outside Hugo's bedroom was the Landing Library.  He wanted to make the books available to everyone - guests, servants etc. so they could pick up a book as they walked through.

Strangely enough, he had a book on Massachusetts Agriculture (Lauren claims these really are his books).

You enter the attic through a dark room filled with more books.  The atrium at the end is where Hugo worked.

 Each corner has a table that folds up so that Hugo could stand at it and write.  Then he would lay the wet pages out on the tiered sofa.

 You can see the other channel islands from up here - and on a clear day, even the coast of France.

 Hugo painted these two panels to depict himself slaying a dragon for his mistress.  Even though his wife and children and grandchildren lived with him, his mistress also moved here for his exile and lived a few doors away.  It was all very amiable from the sound of it. 

 Behind a panel was a washbasin.  Almost every wall panel in the room opened to create a cupboard space.  Again, this is all Hugo's design.  A million little details are everywhere - - you can see that the walls are covered in fabric and there are those little studded shelves off to the side...

This is all in the room where he slept.  That day bed would have a mattress that would fold down when he wanted to sleep.  Can you see all the little hinges on the wall?

I wish we could incorporate some of these details at home. Bill says he thinks he could be more creative and handy if he had a mistress living down the street.  Be my guest if it means fabric walls, a nice tiled fireplace, and china dishes on my ceiling, honey.