Editor’s note: Every weekday in October, former Mystery House blogger Stephen will post an excerpt from his in-progress guide to the Winchester Mystery House. Previous entries can be found here.

Leaving the ‘Largest and Smallest Cupboards’ room, you’ll follow the guide down a short hallway. About halfway to your next destination, on the right, you can make out the faint outline of an arrow painted on the cement floor.

These painted arrows are visible in a few other places in the mansion, notably on the landing of the ‘7-11′ staircase (located at the center of the house.) I don’t know their origin, but I assume they were used to direct visitors through the mansion in the days before guided tours. At that time, guests roamed the mansion unsupervised, which seems unthinkable today, but for most of its history after Mrs. Winchester, most people considered it little more than a tourist trap.

A little bit of that tourist trap legacy is visible in the ‘Post-1906 Kitchen.’ At one point, the mansion housed a wax museum. In fact, one of the portraits of Mrs. Winchester found on the official Winchester Mystery House website actually shows a wax dummy. Mystery House management removed the wax figures long ago, but the heads are in a storage room adjacent to this kitchen.

Find the window on the left side of the room that looks into a hallway. Look through it and you’ll see another window, and behind it shelves full of wax mannequin heads. While it isn’t part of the tour script, I always pointed it out to kids, who by this point were usually bored, exhausted, or both. It freaked them out, which entertained them and me.

Also, as you enter the Pre-1906 Kitchen, look through the window to your left and you’ll see an old gas stove. The stove is the single item left in the mansion from the time of Mrs. Winchester. The stove is part of the servant’s kitchen, the same kitchen that you can drop into from the door in the Seance Room.

Have a look around, then follow your guide to the Venetian Dining Room, THE LAST ROOM ON THE TOUR!