When all of the non-Madison plaster was removed from the masonry walls of the Large Bedroom, a large patch of whitewashed brick was found surrounding the existing ca. 1812 chimneypiece.  Because finding whitewashed brick is very often a sign that the bricks were left exposed after a room had been furnished, the Restoration Team believed that at some point the room did not have a chimneypiece.  To partially disguise the space left by the absent chimneypiece, the bricks had been whitewashed in an attempt to hide the fact that the room’s major decorative element was missing.