The Mystery Spot

Any idea what this is all about?

As Kathy was stripping all the wallpaper from the downstairs rooms, she came across this one section that appears to have been painted brown. We can't figure out why.

It's an area about four feet high and maybe two feet wide, and it has fairly straight edges, like someone was trying their best to paint a rectangle freehand. As you can see, it's really more like two squares, because there's a break in the paint about halfway down, and the upper square is a bit wider than the lower square. The paint dripped across the white space between the two halves, as if they were painting behind a shelf without removing it.

The paint goes completely behind the chair rail, so it clearly wasn't there (or was temporarily removed) during painting. And the left edge of the paint goes around the corner until it reaches the window sill.

We can't figure it out. Was there a cabinet or shelf here, and they wanted to paint the back of it without removing it from the wall? If so, why is only this part painted, and why doesn't it match the rest of the room/wall? This particular section of wall is exposed to the outside, so does that have something to do with it? There's no evidence of holes or patching here, so it doesn't appear to have been a mailbox or pass-through of some sort.

(There's less brown and more white in the photo at right because it still shows some leftover wallpaper.) On one hand, someone went to the trouble to paint these squarish patterns on the wall, but on the other hand they're not perfectly straight or tidy. The drips and slightly imperfect edges suggest that it wasn't always visible -- or they just didn't care.

Any ideas? We're open to suggestions.