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