| By Paul On Bewitched, Tabitha Stephens had two different rooms. The first was the nursery, the second was "her" room after Adam was born. Tabitha's nursery is shown, in the camera angle most often used, to have a window on the left, the entrance to the room in the far wall, and a closet in the right-hand wall. A second camera angle that is sometimes used is looking toward the closet wall. On the wall with the entrance door, there is a hallway shown running across the room. This hallway is decorated the same as the upstairs hall as seen from the stairway, and would seem to be a part of that hall. Characters entering and leaving the nursery always come from and go to the right.
Tabitha's
Room As Shown In
The pink nursery's set also doubled as Darrin's den. When the downstairs den was needed, the pink walls were covered with brown paneling. When they needed the pink bedroom, they took away the removable panels, revealing the pink walls and window recess except for the den fireplace, which they covered with a piece of pink wallboard. Then, they put a false section of "upstairs hall" wall outside the door, so that you don't see the downstairs green hall, the hall closet door, or entrance to the kitchen. So, the studio set without any of the temporary walls was basically the downstairs hall and kitchen, but with Tabitha's room where the den is, except left of Tabitha's window seat was the den fireplace.
For Tabitha's second room, it is plainly a blocked off portion of the master bedroom set, with the hallway leading away properly. But since the master bedroom is still in use, the room must be located elsewhere.
Where was the nursery supposed to be located in the house? By standing on the staircase looking up, there is an "L" shaped hallway at the top of the stairs running crossways to the stairs leading off both to the left, toward the front of the house and around the stair railing to the right, where the hallway has two doors. The first door (door A) is almost straight ahead after the turn to the right is made at the top of the stairs. Completing the turn to the right facing the way the stairs run, another door (door B) is straight ahead. Door B leads to the room usually used for the master bedroom. (Note: In the seventh and eighth seasons, there is another door (door C) immediately at the top of the stairs which was not there the first six years). In one episode, # 78, the master bedroom set is used as Tabitha's room. Not only is it obvious that the redecorated master bedroom set is used, but the characters make exits and entrances from the hallway through the proper door (door B). Other than that, Samantha, Darrin, and other characters are shown entering and leaving through door A when going to or coming from Tabitha's room, or, for an equal number of times, they are shown coming from the front of the house.
Now the problems! In scenes filmed inside the nursery, characters leaving the nursery always turn to the right. If Tabitha's nursery is through either door A or B, then when leaving, the characters are turning right into a wall. In fact, at door B, there is not enough room to turn. If the nursery is behind door A, then the hall should be shown going away from the room, not crossing in front of it. Omitting doors A or B as locations for the nursery puts the nursery at the front of the house. This satisfies the times when characters are seen coming from the front of the house, and also the entering or leaving the room from the right. The problem of putting the nursery at the front of the house is the lack of space there. The hallway has to run about the center of the downstairs den, and since the entry goes to the roof, Tabitha's nursery cannot extend past the den/entry wall. Not only does this make the nursery less than eight feet deep, the window alignment is not right. If the nursery is moved even further forward to the front of the den, there is even less depth for the room. For Tabitha's second room, the room cannot be behind door C, because not only do the hall and window arrangements not match, but there is not enough space under the roof on the other side of the hall. The only location with even close hall and window arrangement (and that is not exact) is over the front part of the den. Here again, there is not enough room over the den to put a room. In the facade itself, the den measures less than 20 feet across with a 10/12 pitch roof, which totally eliminates the possibility of more than closet space above the den. So, where were Tabitha's rooms? As with many of the inconsistencies in Bewitched, the rooms were just studio sets that really didn't fit into the house plan at all.
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Tabitha's
Nursery As Shown In In the most common view shown of this room, the window is on the left, closet on the right, and the door in the far wall. Notice the hallway running across the door.
Tabitha's
New Room As Shown In Tabitha's new room is the hallway end of the master bedroom. Note the dormer window and the door on the left. In other views of the room the hallway shows, and it is plainly the hallway leading away from the master bedroom set. |
