Anatomy of a room. (Design Notes).

The methods used to uncover physical evidence of what might have been used to embellish rooms in earlier times now include scientific analyses by a number of specialists who do much to eliminate or substantially reduce the role of guesswork An example of this cooperation is the refurbishing of what is now known as George Washington's bedchamber and study in the Morris-Jumel Mansion, which was his headquarters for about five weeks during the autumn of 1776. The architecturally distinguished mansion was built in northern Manhattan as a country retreat in 1765 by Colonel Roger Morris and his wife Mary Philipse. In the 1990s the board of trustees of the mansion allocated funds for research to more accurately interpret this second-floor room. William Henry Shelton, the first curator of the mansion, from 1908 to 1925, had come to the conclusion that it was Washington's bedchamber rather than his office, and more recently Elizabeth Bidwell Bates, a consultant, found documentation to buttress this assertion. Washingt on's enslaved manservant William Lee shared the room with him.

The first step in the long process of reinterpretation was to engage the well-known paint detective Frank S. Welsh of Welsh Color and Conservation in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania (telephone: 610-525-3564; www.welshcolor.com). Through scientific analysis he was able to determine a great deal, including that the room was originally wallpapered and the woodwork was painted a warm gray.

For the wallpaper, the staff contacted Joanne Kosuda-Wamer then the curator of wallcoverings at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City She contacted Treve Rosoman, curator of Eltham Palace in Greenwich, England, which is owned by English Heritage. He found a sample of mid-eighteenth-century wallpaper that had come from a town house in London. This paper was re-created by hand-joining rag paper that was subsequently painted Greek, or verdigris green, by WRN Associates of Lee, Massachusetts (telephone: 413-243-3489; www.paper-hangings.com) under the supervision of Robert M. Kelly The sheets were then trimmed by band, and during the installation the edges of each sheet were made to overlap as they would have in the eighteenth century The borders were painted by Audrey Zeidman.

Research into the type of bed that would have been in the room was conducted at the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and at the Colonial Williamsburg ...