Măldăreşti, Vâlcea county, sec. the nineteenth
Located in the northeastern corner of Oltenia, in the depression area of Horez, the village of Măldărești is representative of the settlements scattered at the foot of the subcarpathian hills. Among the predominant occupations of the population were cattle breeding, fruit growing, forest exploitation and the practice of handicrafts, among which pottery stands out.
From this area, villager Constantin Covrescu's authentic house dated at the beginning of the 19th century (1812) was transferred to the museum in 1936. For a better illustration of the local peasant architecture, the house was extended by adding a side porch from Ion Triculete's household.
The house is built on a plastered and whitewashed stone base, with walls made of beams carved of fir wood, with straight joints at the corners. It has a hipped roof, with two dormers (“cucumele”) for evacuating the smoke out of the attic and a shingle covering. The main element is represented by the side porch with a lateral stair, asymmetrically placed on the main façade, whose purpose was to enhance the functional space and to protect the basement entry (in the summer, one could place here the loom or arrange a sleeping place).
The interior space is divided into two rooms: the foyer or the kitchen (“at the fire”) and the living room (“at the stove”). In the kitchen, the open hearth is the centre around which the simple furniture items are distributed: the round three-legged table, the small chairs, the bench on which the kitchen tools are placed. Also here, there are a dome-shaped lid for baking bread and pots for boiling, made of red clay and decorated with fine white clay in circles and zigzags, crafted by potters from Slătioara. In order to stop the evil spirits who, in the locals' belief, could enter the house through the chimney, in this area it was usual to place a wooden icon, naively worked, at its base. Although it was smoked to black, the icon kept its magical and religious features.
In the living room, the pleasant ambiance is given by the furniture items worked in the Romanii de Jos centre (a high table, two beds, two dowry chests), by the colourful or sombre textiles (towels, curtains, gathered aprons and straight aprons with metallic thread) and by the glazed and richly colourful pottery, made in the famous Horezu centre.
The ensemble also includes a two-level outbuilding: the pigsty, made of wooden beams, on the ground floor and the corn shed (the "bed"), made of woven reeds, on the first floor.The assembly also includes an annex with two levels: the pigsty, made of wood beams, at the floor level, and the maize storeroom (“pătul”), made from wattles, at the upper level.
