Christmas 2011, I love Getzan Chandeliers

Hello everyone!
I hope you all had a wonderfull Christmas. As always I received both side on the 24th. I cooked/ ate all day and we had a wonderful time. This year was even better because we finally had a baby in the house. My sister Marilena had Alina in April. She's the most vivacious medium girl you've ever seen...I say medium because I refuse to refer to a 23 pound 8 month old as little!

 Once again, I was spoiled rotten this year. As always Jo and both sides of our family got together to get my presents. I am so happy to say, I have the first chandeliers for Dewell Manor!

The 3 chandeliers are called "Charleston" from http://www.jgetzan.com/, as well as the pans. The 2 antique Bronze finish fixtures and sconces are for the Great Room, and the gold one with the extra long chain will hang over the staircase. All the chandeliers I have chosen for Dewell Manor are from the Getzans. What I love about their chandeliers is the detail and workmanship. The fixtures have a beautiful architectural quality to them that is exactly what I envisionned for an english Manor house. I love cascades of crystals as much, if not more, then anyone out there, but they would of looked out of place in many of the rooms of my project.

To the left of the pans is a Ballerina figure from Randall Zadar. The detail in his pieces is amazing! 

And Jo remembered these pieces I wanted and found them online. The cabinet is for the Gallery, and the chairs will go in the Dressing Room. He got BIG husband point this year...BIG!!!

Now that it's over I've been working on the Music Room, I hope to have it finished before I go back to work on Tuesday and will post the minute it's done.

Happy new year to everyone!

Giac!

Merry Christmas

Merry christmas and happy holidays to all!

Thank you for your wonderful support and very great kindness. Creating this blog was a way to keep me focused and going forward. I never expected to meet such great people or make so many friends.

To all of you, whether you're celebrating Christmas or not, I wish you only the best and all your hearts desires.

I wish you happiness and peace in the home

I wish you prosperity and a dinner table surrounded by loved ones

And in the spirit of Garfiled's Christmas Special, I wish you lots and lots of presents

When I came down and saw an object in the house I paniced and thought "what broke", Then I saw it was santa...Jo just scored lots of husband points!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, and now I look forward to a week off catching up on all your blogs.

I always say it, but it is sincere,

All the best my friends,

Great big Hugs

Giac



Girl's Bedroom and central attic partitions

Hello all,
I hope you are all doing well and not going too crazy in preperation for the holidays!
I finished the Girl's Bedroom today.

The biggest challenge was the door. It took me a while to commit to a design. I decided on a classic pannel on the bottom half and linen fold detail for the top. The field aroung the linen fold looked a bit empty, so I took a basewood corbel, sliced it, and glued it into the inner corners of the frame. All the other bedroom doors will be the same, only finished in faux-walnut.

  Instead of hanging picture frames in this room, I'm thinking of making a half round canopy with curtains to go over the headboard. Most likely it will be blue and white silk with gold trim.

 I also put up some partitions in the central part of the attic for the Nursery and Bathroom.

The Nursery will be 21" x 15"

To the left of the fireplace there will be a built in bench with curtains. Over the fireplace I cut out an opening that is over an inch deep for a 1:144 roombox. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking of a scene from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. On the back wall, where the crib is, I'm going to make a puppet theater, and I want to make a child height table with dolls, puppets and several different teapots...yes, Alice's Adventures in wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are amongst my favorite stories.

The bathroom will measure 13 x 13. I have white and pale green victorian tile sheets for the walls, and Mahogany bathroom furniture (sink, Toilet, bathtub and cabinet) from bespaq. I'm not sure what will go where just yet.

Finally, I've mentionned before that I am not a fan of spray adhesive. and here is why:

The parquet section of the Great Room floor came right up. It was an easy fix, I just re-glued everything with The ultimate Glue and stacked books on top overnight, but I can officially say I've gone from not liking spray adhesive to hating, loathing, and abominating the stuff.

And now I'm off to make supper. I hope everyone has a wonderful week and good luck with last minute shopping and holiday preperation.

All the best,
Giac

Library

Hello all!
I hope everyone is having a great weekend. After a long, hard week at work, I finally was able to finish the library.

Last post I had just finished the bookcases. When they were dry, I realized right away that the color would not work. I think I used too much liquin in my oil paint top coat. The finish was mat and boring and way too light. I mixed up new batches of black and Burnt Umber paint and re-did them. The flash on the camera makes the color look more brown then it is. The second time around I was happy!


Sorry, again I can't get it right side up.
I also painted the baseboards, doorframe and mantel pieces.

The next step was making the windows. I already posted about window making, so I won't go into the details again. Basically they are all made from basewood to look like double hung windows and faux painted.

The Mahogany faux paint technique I use is to apply a coat of delta ceramcoat Red Oxide paint. When dry, I go over with Black and Burnt Umber oil paints thinned with Medium. When dry, I added window handles and locks on the bottom sash.

 Next, I had to glue down the carpet. I had glued my piece of red velvet onto an illustration board subfloor with spray adhesive. When I took it out to attach it to the structure, the velvet came loose. Why I used spray adhesive I just don't know. I HATE the stuff because it never works for me the way it should. After 5 minutes of swearing, cursing and pacing the room. I calmed down and tried to attach the velvet back with double sided carpet tape...I ran out just before I was finished. I took out my glue stick because it is not liquid and would not go through the velvet...Folks, it went through the velvet! In the end, it looked like a well worn carpet and the area the glue came through was going to be hidden by a Turkish Rug, so I glued it down to the structure.
About 25 minutes later, I was pouring myself a cup of coffee when I froze solid...I haden't put the electrical wires in the channels under the carpet before I glued it down.
I ran down and ripped the carpet out. ..half of the cardboard stayed stuck to the floor. Thankfully the glue hadn't set so I was able to rub it off.
I put the wires in, bought more illustration board and double sided tape...thank God I had another piece of velvet just big enough for the floor...steamed the wrinkles out, and started all over. The double sided tape worked well to attach the velvet to the subfloor. I then glued it to the structure with the Ultimate Glue. This experience is why there will be no more wall to wall carpet in Dewell Manor.

I had painted the fireplace, overmantel and columns for the nook months ago. The color was great, but the details didn't stick out. I found some gold colored oil based paint with a bit of a metallic sheen and just went over some of the details so they would stand out. The painting over the fireplace is a postcard I got in Europe 

Finally, everything got done. In a past post I had mentionned I wasent sure about the red carpet. Some friends pointed out it might be too bright. However, I changed my mind when I put the painted bookcases in the room. I think the room needed an intense, bright floor color because the walls, ceiling and woodwork and furniture were so dark.
I will now work on the 3 ladders for the bookcases.

That's my update for this week. Welcome to all my new followers and once again, thank you all for your interest and for taking time to comment. I appreciate it very much.
I hope everyone has a wonderful week,
All the best,
Giac