A Little House Secret

In my studio room there is a large closet.
And when you open the door, you see another door! That leads to the space behind the fireplace at the end of the hall.
The funny thing is that it is completely finished inside. The floor, the trim, everything. This is under the stairs that go to the second floor.
This is the far corner at the other end of the fireplace/chimney. A little shelf. You could stash all your brooms in there. Not much room for anything else. It would be great for playing hide and seek, if you were a little child.

Eventually we will be removing the chimney and fireplace and Marty is looking forward to fashioning a proper formal stairway to the upper floor, from the main hall. Right now you have to go to the kitchen and "pick a door" to head upstairs. The other door heads to the basement. A little awkward.
Every window and doorway is topped with this lovely detail. As you can see in the above shots, the trim is the same as the flooring. Marty is thinking he wants to strip all the trim to bring it back to its original natural state. Sounds like an overwhelming task to me....however the boys will be around to help with this, so maybe it can be done. We'll see.