There's a folk belief (or maybe a legend of such belief) that when moving into a new house, one should let in the cat first, observe where they choose the resting place, and promptly install the bed there.

I guess those people restricted the cat to the bedroom in the experiment, because the instruction mentioned the ‘corner’ where the cat rests, not just any place. Conveniently in this context, though, olden rural houses here mostly just had one big room, due to heating considerations in the northern winters—so no plopping down in the middle of the bathroom like with some cats I know. While in the OP, the practice was compromised by grossly differing dimensions of the cat and the woman.

P.S.: Gotta say, the photos look like from the good old days of planking and such: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kCJp1auybWg/Tmk0MBZaRtI/AAAAAAAABo...