The Box: An Unknown Project

Last night at 9 p.m., after 5 months in our new house, my curiosity got the best of me and I had to find out what was behind this strange wooden box over one of the doorways in our living room (ignore the terrible pictures taken after dark in our no-overhead-light room):

We knew there must be something wrong behind this box. Why else would it be there? But what?! The uncovered spot revealed a small piece of missing plaster, along with years of different wall coverings:

This finding leaves me asking several questions:

1. Why didn't someone just fix the whole in the plaster?

2. Since you can see the original grass cloth (tan/brown area) surrounded by a larger area of sea foam green paint, that must mean that, at one time, there was a smaller box covering the hole that someone painted green around, preserving the original wall covering. Then, someone else must have adhered a larger box to the wall and painted around it with the current cream. Why?! How did more than one person think it was an acceptable fix to attach a wooden box to the wall?

Although it would be easier to simply put the box back up, we will be patching the hole and painting over the whole area (yes, the rest of the room is painted over grass cloth!). Thankfully, the previous owners left the matching cream paint. While it might be a pain to uncover yet another DIY project in a house with so many projects on the list already, I still wouldn't trade our 92-year-old home for something brand new. These discoveries tell the story of our home, and I love its rich history.