The Journal · The building · 5 min

Inside the House

Eleven coats of brown, one difficult stair, and what we found under the paint.

NOIR House is imaginary, but we built it carefully. Here is the house as we would have found it: a cloth merchant's premises on the quay, begun in 1740, with some questionable decisions from every century since.

The stair

It winds up the middle of the house in oak, around an opening about the size of a door. It is too steep and every tread is a different height, and the building inspector had some thoughts. We kept it, added a discreet lift behind it, and spent a month rubbing wax into the handrail.

Looking down the well of a timber stair in brown shadow — Looking down from the attic. Please do hold on.

The brown

We tested forty-one browns before we got to the one in the Noir Suite. Most of them looked like a mistake. The one we kept has a little oxblood in it and needs eleven coats before it stops looking like paint and begins to look like a very dark room.

A deep-buttoned amber headboard lit by a black wall lamp, white pillows against it — Tobacco leather, and the old door to the counting room.

Tall walnut double doors with brass plates at the end of a dark hall — Tobacco leather, and the old door to the counting room.

What we left alone

The numbers on the roof trusses. The worn dip in the kitchen threshold. A brass bell that still works and rings a little flat. And all of the floors, which slope gently toward the canal, so that if you drop a marble in the Corner Room it will end up in the lane.

We tested forty-one browns. Most of them looked like a mistake.

An old brass service bell on a wooden desk — It rings a little flat. We are not fixing it.

NOIR House and the people writing here are fictional. Bruges is not, and it really is worth the train.