MovieChat Forums > I Love Lucy (1951) Discussion > Apartment layout

Apartment layout

posted 6 years ago by [email protected] (1732)
12 replies | jump to latest

Ever since I was a kid, I have tried to figure out layout of that brownstone apartment. It's
kind of hard, for instance, to figure out how the Mertz front door is all the way down the
hall, when the kitchens are supposed to be back to back. Really doesn't make much
sense. Also, in the first apartment, the Mertz apartment is supposed to be directly underneath,
yet the floor plans are totally different. I mean, the Ricardo apartment (4B) has its front
door in the MIDDLE (bedroom far left; kitchen to the right). In the Mertz apartment (4A)
the front door only has a few feet to the left, then there's the living room window! How
could they match up??

I also think it's interesting how Ethel and Fred often turned LEFT into their hallway to get
to the bedroom, but also turned RIGHT. And the kitchen was sometimes reversed also.

And how many units were there supposed to be? After all, Fred got PANICKY when there
was a vacancy, so there couldn't have been many. But there were FIVE stories! Also,
none of the apartments looked like they came from the same building! Grace Foster's,
for instance, looks like the hotel room when they were in Paris! And we NEVER see
Mrs. Trumbull's apartment, although we know she was on the fifth floor!

[–] [email protected] (5497) 6 years ago

I could never figure out the floor plans either! Every apartment seemed to have a different floor plan, the Ricardos, the Mertzes, Grace Foster, the Obrien's, "Oil Wells", the empty apartment in the Superman episode.

I could never understand why the Mertzes didn't have biggest and nicest apartment. If I owned the building, I would have the nicest apartment. Of course Fred probably wanted to rent out the bigger ones for more money.

The biggest inconsistency was the door in the Mertzes living room which opened to the audience's left. It was only in the episode when Lucy hid her new furniture in the kitchen. A few episodes later in "Never do Business with Friends", the Ricardo and Mertz kitchens are adjacent. Lucy should have been running to the audience's right to go through the Mertz kitchen. Where the heck was she running to in the previous episode when there was always a window there? LOL

Also the Ricardo apartment was to the left of the Mertz apartment. In "Ricky Minds the baby", Ethel is clearly looking down the hall to her left when she says, "Lucy your apartment door is open!"
But in other episodes, Lucy goes to her right to get to her apartment. Just chalk it up to bad stage directions I guess!

I wondered about the number of apartments too. In "The Business Manager", Lucy takes a stack of notepads out of the drawer with everyone's grocery list. It looks like she has about ten of them. I'll have to watch the episode and look closely.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 6 years ago

At the risk of repeating myself, the biggest inconsistency is the sudden new bedroom for Little Ricky in season six.
First, there was never another door in the hallway; just a flat wall. And to have it make sense, the window in
the master bedroom is suddenly a solid wall (they at least knew that a window couldn't look out into Little Ricky's
bedroom!). Clearly, they "added" a new bedroom (unlikely Fred would pay for that!).

I think the reason they did this was obvious. At five years of age, Little Ricky was way too old for a "nursery." Plus,
by that age, how could Lucy and Ricky have any sex privacy with a five year-old that's in that tiny adjacent room?

[–] [email protected] (5497) 6 years ago

I don't remember you "repeating myself", but it does make a person wonder. Where did the new bedroom come from?

That also makes me think back to the apartment switching episode. The Bensons had a grown daughter. So...she was sleeping in a little "nursery" sized room just off her parents' bedroom? No wonder Mr. Benson was so happy to "unload her". LOL

[–] Gubbio (3893) 6 years ago

Here is a model of the "I Love Lucy" sets:

http://tinyurl.com/ybamko4s

Rather interesting.....

[–] [email protected] (1732) 6 years ago

Yes, this is the apartment set that always seems to "represent" the series, even though they lived in the first apartment, Hollywood and European hotels, and that big house in the country.

Many years ago, when I toured Universal Studios, they had a Lucille Ball exhibit, and an almost life-size replica of the first apartment was part of it, although it was only left front corner. Still fascinating though.

The model you posted shows how the walls were always slanted, as it made for tighter camera angles.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 6 years ago

One of the details I often wonder about is the kitchen in the second apartment. In some scenes there is a kitchen table and chairs. In other episodes there is no table and chairs. Who removes their kitchen table?

Where did that table disappear to? LOL

[–] [email protected] (1732) 6 years ago

Yes, it's notably absent in "The Business Manager" and "Mr. and Mrs. TV Show." But Bill Asher obviously wanted us to see all of Lucy's "grocery loot" in the oven. In "Mr. and Mrs." he clearly wanted us to see Lucy dance after Ricky
comes home and tells it's HIS idea for the show and that she can sing!

To me, I always assumed Lucy just pushed the table and chairs up against the "fourth wall" when in the middle of
housework. People do this in real life.

[–] Gubbio (3893) 6 years ago

I've always been interested in architecture and movie sets.

I've read that Lucy's bedroom (I don't know which apartment) doubled (and was redressed for) the Mertz's living room.

They must have done a major redressing, because with the window and door placements, I just can't see it. 😕

Maybe PJ knows from one of her books.....

[–] [email protected] (1732) 6 years ago

I believe that's an error, especially as there are episodes where both Lucy's bedroom and the Mertezes
apartment appear in the same episode. They wouldn't have time to do THAT kind of redressing while
shooting in front of a studio audience.

The main living room/bedroom were "existing sets." (always up). The Mertzes apartment was
constructed when needed. ALTHOUGH, they did occasionally redress Lucy's bedroom for other
sets. For instance, in "Sale's Resistance", it's pretty obvious that crusty old Verna Felton's apartment
is the Ricardo bedroom. A wall and a door have replaced the dressing window, and the bedroom
furniture has been replaced by a couch and end tables, but it's pretty obvious.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 6 years ago

I also think the Ricardo bedroom doubled for Eddie Grant's hotel room. It is almost identical.

I've seen a few clips on youtube where they show how the sets were redressed to become different rooms such as the Ricardo bedroom standing in as the Mertz living room.

No doubt there wouldn't be enough time to redress a set in one episode. But if the Mertz living room was used in an episode and Lucy's bedroom was not, there would have been time.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 6 years ago

I still don't get that because "redressing" is just that - REDRESSING, not restructuring the set.

In both apartments, the Ricardo bedroom is a totally different SET. So if space was needed, maybe they built
the Mertz set in FRONT of the bedroom. But the Ricardo bedroom was always CONNECTED to the living
room set.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 6 years ago

I don't know how they did all that "redressing" either. But I watched a youtube video where they showed how they redressed the Ricardo bedroom to create the Mertz living room. They put those large panels over what were the two doors in the bedroom.

That was in the first season.

I suppose a lot of redressing was going on to save time and money.