Build in progress: Lady Zonneschut's dressing room. The carcass and the windowseat

Hello my friends,

If you think that the diningroom fireplace got me distracted from building the stewards office, than I can sure you it will get much worse! Because I have started building another room entirely! Not that I got bored with the office or that I am stuck. Not at all. 

On Facebook I saw that Thea van Hasselt started a new project for the year 2021. A group of 20 people work together on their respective room with a common theme. The theme this year is a 'Room in a castle.'

Everybody makes his or her own room and throughout the year there are assignments and workshops given by the participants. I liked the idea very much and so I was lucky to be the last one to sign up to comete the group of 20.

But what type of room to choose? We were advised to choose either a bedroom or a sittingroom. I wanted to do one of the bedrooms of Huis ter Swinnendael. But that posed a problem immediately. Both rooms are quite large. And I had to use what little material I have left. Due to the Covid restrictions I can not go out to buy materials. So I had to make do with what I have left. It was just enough to make the dressingroom in the west wing. But for now without the passage that runs along the back and without the cealing. But the covid restrictions will surely be relaxed/over when I get to working on those parts. Another advantage of this dressing room is that I can try out things here before I start work on the panneled and papered upstairs rooms in the east wing. All the mistakes that I may make here, I can avoid there. 

I glued the spacers that I have cut off for this room into place. 

The room is quite small, and is what we usualy call a 'kabinet'. These were small siderooms that could be used for a lot of things but were in essence private rooms where one would not be if not invited to do so by the occupant. often only accessible through other rooms instead of hallways for instance. The door in the back wall will get you to a landing though. Here this kabinet will be the dressingroom for lady Zonneschut. The door in the right wall will connect it to her bedroom via the closet that will house her personal toilet. The door in the left wall will be a fob door. Simply put in for the sake of symmetry. 

 

Now quite a lot will happen in this room, but for now I will concentrate on the windowseat. That is namely the group task for january. Now this windowseat will differ greatly from those in the Stewards office. Those are simple and functional. On this floor they are meant to be eleghant. Windows and dadorails in Dutch houses of this era are unusualy low. so the windowseat is subsequently quite low as well. in fact, just under the window sil. 

Because I have made the walls half as deep as they minimaly should be, (4-to 8 centimeter would be much more realsitic!) want to build the windowseat out a bit. I added two quarter round pieces on the sides and filled the remaining gap with a piece of mdf. From card, I cut out the design to enhance the front. When all was fixed in place with glue or otherwise I covered everything in a layer of gesso. When dry it will await the final colour when I start painting the walls. 

 For the seat I cut out a template and glued that onto a strip of wood and cut it out. I used walnut for this. Although painting it in the same colour as the rest of the woodwork would be the common thing to do in those days I do not want to lose the woos colour here. So I will stain it to give it a rich deep colour. To protect the stain I will not glue the seat in place yet. not after the walls have been finished and painted.

I want to make a long flat cushion for this windowseat out of an old silk vest I no longer wear myself. But that is a future project for another post. 

Huibrecht 

The diningroom (Louis XVI); the fireplace

 Hello My friends,

I have not yet started construction on the diningroom but back in 2019 I already bought a fireplace that I want to use in that room.  It is one of Alison Davies designs. It is not a french design in my view but rather an English Georgian design. I think however that this fireplace wil fit in the Louis XVI diningroom anyway.

As you an see on the picture above of the mock up I made, the room wil be panelled with white panneling with details in gold. The large panels will be filled with a decorative classical landscape designed by Jurriaan Andriessen in the 18th century. But back to the fireplace. 

Originally I opted for a grey and blue colour of stone for the fireplace. But I changed my mind on that. A red  (faux) porphyr and a dark sandstone feels warmer and more apropriate for this room. Unfortunately sandstone was not used in houses like Huis ter Swinnendael for fireplaces in the 18th century because that is a stone effect thar would be much simpler to create than marbles or granites. Oh well, nobody forced me to build the house I am building. :-) So I should not really complain about that. 

I started by giving the fireplace a white basecoat. Once that was dry I painted the parts red that would become porphyre. I was quite happy with colourmix that I had made. But I mixed and use the paint in the evening in arteficial light. And I let that fool me, because the next day, in daylight it rather resembled firetruck red than anything else!

But luckily we can always add an extra layer of paint. So with a purplish brown coat of paint I gave the red a more apropriate hue for the stone. Once satisfied I mixed three paints with some white, some raw umber and quite a lot of medium to make it very liquid. A brownish gray, an orange and a pink. I dipped a brush in the emulsion, brushed of excess paint and tapped the brush with my hand. Little drops of paint splatteted on the fireplace. I did that with all three colours. I had to take care that the drops of paint were not to big.

You can see the effect in the above picture. I could not avoid the white parts of the mantlepiece being splattered too. But that is ok. The brown stone colour will hide those sufficiently. I added a bit more raw umber to the gray paint mix and used that to colour the white parts of the fireplace. Stippling, dabbing and turning the brush as I go to add some effect to the paint. All to avoid getting a single colour. After that I protected the paint and deepened the effect by aplying two coats of matte varnish. 

And here is the end result. A new fireplace. All I have to do now, is build the rest of the room around it. :-)

Huibrecht 

Home is where the heart(h) is; 2. More Firebacks

Hello my friends, 

Back in 2019 on the 30th of july I showed you how I made a miniature cast iron hearth plate or fireback. I made it out of card, a copper stamping, glue and black enamel paint. It was quite an easy miniature to make but the detailed metal stamping makes it a very decorative miniature.

So when I found some more stampings with an apropriate size and decor it was quite obvious what to do with them. Of course you do not need metal stampings for these firebacks. Every little plaquettes or cameo out of resin, card, plastic or even plater can be used.

I cut out a piece of cardboard to glue the stamping on. I added some details in card or stickers to decorate the bottom parts of the firebacks.

And as I said there is not much to it. I painted them black with enamel paint just like the first one, and then we have not just one but four firebacks waiting for a fireplace to decorate. 

When the lockdown due to Covid-19 can be scaled down and shops can reopen, I want to buy black pigment powder to use on these firebacks. This will tone down the sheen of the paint some more. But that will be for another time! 

Huibrecht