Oh, look! This house comes with a.. a… a thing? In the basement? Or some other room? What on earth could it be? Hmmm. I’ll just open the lid and…
*SPROINGGGGGG*
AAAAHHHHH! IT’S A GIANT SNAKE NUT CAN! PERHAPS CONNECTED TO GIANT SNAKE NUT PIPES RUNNING UNDER THE STREETS OF WHATEVER NORWEGIAN TOWN THIS IS!
Please note: any confusion about what this is a photo of is not the fault of my Photoshop skills, which are excellent. This is just what snake nut cans look like.
Loveliest comment, by Goldilocks: I keep clicking the upper left corner for Porrige, but it always comes out too hot or too cold!
Found by: me
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Copy & paste this:
![\"Quantcast\"/](\"http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-94wNw88f65Rhk.gif?labels=MTVN%20Digital%20Tribes\")
How does that door on the right even open? The hinges are on this side, so … but then, I’m not sure how the door on the left opens.
Huh. Good point. Maybe the snake nut can isn’t as heavy — or as attached — as it looks, and can be shoved aside?
There’s a handle, it’s disguised between the two colors of paint. I’m more worried about the ominous looking skeleton key in the door on the left… it gives this photo an eerie “I’m going to lock you in the torture chamber now” feel to it…
I believe the picture is taken with a wide-angle lens, which flattens the room a bit. It would open just like the other door. The snake pot also seems to have flattened edges.
I thought it might be a boiler, but then again it could just be a bathroom seat or maybe it’s a garbage chute. The only way to find out would be to throw something or somebody in and see what happens.
“snake pot” is a lovely term and I want to install one in my basement right away
I keep clicking the upper left corner for Porrige, but it always comes out too hot or too cold!
A basilisk! You’ve obviously found the entrance the the chamber of secrets… watch out for soggy diaries.
The way to get to the second floor appears to be a ladder. I guess if you live there you have to keep your dresser on the first floor, because there’s no way you’d get a basket of clean laundry upstairs.
I also love the 4′ X 4′ balcony overlooking…the bush. And the pavement. I’d put a chair out there, and sit there in the evenings, and when my friends came over they could come out on the balcony with me:
Me: (sitting placidly on my balcony observing the scenic bush) Hi you guys! Come on up!
Them: Okay! Be right there!
*sounds of them climbing ladder*
*door opens*
*CLUNK*
Me: (falling into bush after chair is knocked off balcony by door) AAAAAAAAH!
*CRASHEL*
I think the ladder goes to the attic and that the picture on the 2nd floor. The stairs down to the first floor (on the left) looks pretty steep though.
BTW, I went outdoors and fell into a bush, just to get the sound effect right. Quality first! You’re welcome.
However, I did not notice the stairs. Oops. (Wusliyy gitdy!)
*blush*
okey-doke, I’ve got two guess about the snake-nut-can in the basement:
some sort of coal-burning? stove to heat common areas, like the hallways; or
a well, so you’ll have a constant supply of water and won’t have to go outside during the zombi apocalypse.
actually it’s used to heat water… just open the lid, pour in water and burn wood in the pit, behind the hatch in front… those we’re common in rural areas decades ago
that’s a small one really…
That was going to be my guess too. I’ve usually seen them attached to wood-burning sauna stoves in Finland. The fire from the sauna stove heats the water tank so you can have hot water to wash with.
Sara, after 15 minutes of non-stop laughter, I think it’s the right time to say you’ve got one of the most disturbed minds I’ve ever seen, and that’s why I love you.
Thank you?
Despite having been to quite a few homes here in Norway I had no idea what that was. I have never seen anyone with similar contraptions in their homes.
But Wikipedia helped me! I had to check where this place (Svelgen) was since I have never heard about it before. It is a small town/village in Nordfjord, Western Norway and their largest (only?) industry is a silicon smeltery which supposedly produces 1/3 of the worlds production of silicon. Silicon (not to be confused with silicone) is, uh, something useful that you use for, eh, some important things.
Anyway, this thing is obviously made for a smelter who works from home.
That’s it, I’m never going to Norway.
Oh, except for those awesome Crayola showers. I’d totally brave the threat of giant nut can snakes for those showers.
oh yes, I’ve really been hankering for a crayola space pod shower since I saw them here
yes! the blue one!
I’ll put this in my basement if I can have the blue shower.
It’s a heater for the second floor, probably burns coal or wood. Notice the heater on the first floor. Primitive but effective. We didn’t always have gas or electricity, folks.
Uh, we did actually have electricity in Norway in 1950. Especially the place where this house is situated. In fact the only reason anyone lives there at all is electricity. They built a hydroelectric power plant there in 1918, and since they had way too much electricity they built a smeltery.
I think it’s an old style boiler– a cylindrical shell firebox with a cauldron suspended in it, lidded (dark), with an added partial shell of masonry (light). A door can just be perceived on the dark vertical face, with a knob at left, hinges at right, and a row of air inlets across the bottom.
The exterior views show the stacks emerging from the center of the house, which puts the curved pipe in the right spot to empty into a flue. The description says there are two floors of living space, an unheated attic, and a cellar. The cellar has two pantries, a bathroom, a firewood storage room, and a laundry. I would guess this is the laundry, with provision for wood fired hot water for laundry operations. The surprise is that it is in a house built in 1950.
The shelf/ladder setup would be going up to the attic; the stairs proper _are_ steep, but not _that_ steep.
Silicon, incidentally, is used for oddments like computer chips and solar cells. Nobody processes it on the home scale.
I’m impressed.
I’m not terribly surprised that it’s built in 1950. When I went to view the noose house, there was no electric stove in the kitchen, only a wood-burning one. That house was built around 1950 as well.
I showed the picture to a co-worker today, she is 60+. She said it was used for laundry. You heat the oven (with wood) and put a big pot of water on top that you use for boiling laundry. She was a bit surprised to see it in a house from as late as 1950 though.
inquisitor, when I talked about smelting silicon at home I was joking.
I prefer to think it might be a second toilet
Or perhaps a heated bidet?
are you familiar with the comic paul f. tompkins? he does a hilarious bit about the snakes in a brittle can:
http://www.rhapsody.com/paul/impersonal/peanut-brittle
Obviously, its a portal to the Hellmouth!
Why is there an optical illusion brick in the shower?
*ring ring ring*
“SEVEN DAYS!”
There’s a little demon-kid under that snake-nut-can lid.
Oh, and another thing: if they have snake-nut-can pipes under the streets to provide snakes for nut-cans to all the citizens, I must at least visit there. Wonder how much the monthly snake-nut-can bill is? Does it depend on how many times you open your can? Can the pipes be hooked to your–ahem–facilities? I would want one bathroom rigged with these, to provide free cardiac “events” to annoying door-to-door salespeople.
I wish our town had snake-nut-can service. I can think of a few people’s houses I’d like to hook up. Would even pay bill in advance.
Another interesting fact is that the pictures on the ad tells you that the house comes without a stove… Paradise for someone who only use Microwave owen?
It puts the lotion on its skin….It does this whenever it’s told…