Perhaps it was too painful for Barnabas to see his little sister's room again. Maybe he didn't even want Willie in there. He'd often become angry when Willie or Julia would dare even mention her name in his presence. Maybe he kept it locked up?
If I were writing the story, I wouldn't want Sarah to show up in the room in which she died. That would imply that she was trapped there forever and that's just too sad to contemplate. Better to find her playing with her ball out in the gardens. That scenario implies hope.
And yes, I agree with PennyDreadful. Barnabas would surely have kept that room safely locked. Even more so than Josette's room, Sarah's would have been too sacred a place for mere mortals to disturb.
Yes and that would have been an interesting story idea to have restored the room. Locked and forbid anyone to enter it.
It would have been a great mystery had they thought to do that before Sarah appeared on the show.
I understand what you are saying, but... and there is always a but.
One thing about Dark Shadows is they didn't stick to the rules. So having Sarah's room showed. Didn't necessary mean she would have been trapped there. Because Dan Curtis and the writer's didn't stick to traditional rules of how ghost/spirits behaved in the way we always read about in books and saw them portrayed in movies and other tv shows that dealt with spirits.
[spoiler]Sarah died inside the Old House. So most stories I've seen that involve spirits/ghost had it where they were bound not to go beyond the threshold of the place they died. Sarah should have been confined to the Old House by that rule and not been able to go anywhere beyond the walls of the Old House. But Sarah seemed to go pretty much where she wanted to go outside the Old House. She went outside to play with David. She went to Collinwood. She went to Sam Evans'. She went to Wyndcliffe.[/spoiler]
I just think it would have been interesting to see how it would have played out had Barnabas restored the child's room too.
It would have made an interesting story plot had they thought to do that before we knew who Sarah was.
FireRose