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