Library panels and bookcases, new renovation and vacation.

Hello my friends,

I hope you are all well and getting ready for the holidays. Thank you for your lovely comments about the ballroom in my last post. I was ready to start work on the ballroom floor, but 2 things happened: First, I made copies of the medallions I had designed and put them into place for a test run...

 

 

What was I thinking!!!

...I hated it! I felt it was completely wrong for the room so decided to go back to the drawing board. At this point I decided to keep the floor project for cold winter days and to work on the second floor of the wing because it will all be faux walnut finish. The finish is made with oil paints and I'd rather paint now so I can leave it outside a few hours to dry... the smell is really strong. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you part 1 of the second floor.

Library panels

The panelled walls for the library will all be cut out of illustration board and backed with leftover MDF strips to give it the depth I want. The first step was to draw elevation plans for each wall.

My inspiration was a French Library from the Thorne Rooms

 

 

The library is inspired by 2 Thorne Rooms and libraries made by friend Ray Whitledge. When I had an idea of the direction I wanted, I cut out double thick illustration board templates for each wall.

 

All will be walnut with an off-white plaster ceiling

The mantels are from Sue Cook

 

When planning the panels I took into account the thicknesses of every molding piece, down to the last doorframe, to make sure everything lined up properly. When I was satisfied with my plans, I spend a weekend cutting out all the panels.

 

Since I was cutting illustration board, I also planned the earls office which will be to the left of the library



The furniture was in the gallery, but will be moved to the office to make more room for sculptures

The panel over the door might become a transom glass to let the light through

The painting on the left wall is from a book of one of my favorite painters, Nicolas Poussin. I will use more of his paintings for the panels each side of the fireplace, which will be marble with a niche incorporated into the over mantel.

Bookcases

With the panels done, it was time to work on the bookcases which are all made to look like built-ins. In the past, I simply glued shelves into place. however, each time I have to clean I am afraid they might come undone under the pressure of my fingers. This time I decided to cut grooved into the side panels for each shelf. this is really easy to do with a craft table saw...but I don't have a craft table saw. So, I did it the good old fashioned way!

I used my metal square to draw lines for each shelf, then scored half way down the thickness of the wood with my utility knife. When that was done, I used a jewelers screw driver to chisel out the groove

I had to do this for 30 shelves, which means 60 grooves. It took half a day, but was well worth it. In the next picture you can see the bookcases and compare with my original drawing.

The sides are 1/8 bassewood, the shelves are 1/16 bassewood, and the backs of the bookcases are double thick illustration board. They were assembled with The Utlimate Glue and dots of gel Super glue

The bookcases will be quite sturdy. Also, I plan on making glass doors for the top of the bookcases (you can see this in my drawing above) so the shelves should be safe. Before I glued the sides, top and bottom of the bookcases, I had a test run to make sure the shelves looked straight and that I liked the spacing of the shelves.

It looked good, so I decided to put the furniture I am thinking of using in place to see if the room worked.

I love a successful dry run. I then glued the bookcases except for the shelves. It will be easier to faux paint the back of the bookcase before the shelves are glued in place. The last pictures were taken on Sunday. This evening, Monday, I cut and glued down the bottom panels of each bookcase. Now you get a real feel for the finished library:

The under the bookcases is to accommodate the flooring. Any remaining gap will be covered with baseboards

Jo really loves window seats, so these are for him.

And that my friends is all I have in terms of progress. And now...

New plans (another room to be gutted)

Jo and I had a wonderful trip. we were with my in-laws and we had a great time and saw incredible places. My favorite stop was the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. I could have stayed there all day. It is one of the top 3 buildings  I have visited (sorry, we could not take pictures. Naturally, this gave me many ideas and I did a lot of drawing on the cruise ship.

The first renovation plan has resulted in dirty looks from most of my family...I am redoing the kitchen.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong. I love my kitchen and thought it was great for a smaller house, but since the Manor will now have a banquet hall for 14 people, I can't see the chefs cooking an elaborate meal on that small Bodo Henning stove. So, the new kitchen will look like this...

It will be 7 inches deeper. The left wall will have, from back to front, 4 baking ovens, room for a hutch, a centre range 8 inches long, room for a second hutch, and finally at the front of the room will be a 4 1/2 meat roasting range. The opposite wall will have a wider scullery and maybe a mezzanine style store room. The door on the back wall, which was a fake in the current kitchen, will become a working door to the Tudor hall

The other room I worked on is the banquet hall. After the Royal Pavilion, I have had a million ideas. I have not finalized my plans, no where near actually, but here are my first sketches of the direction I am going in:

 

Trip to Europe

Before I show you pictures of places we visited, here is a picture of items I purchased for Dewell Manor:

The tall statue at the back and the pewter pieces at the front were purchased at the British Museum and will go in the art gallery. The two thuribles are key chains from Santiago de Compostela which will hang from the arches of the prayer room. The rest of the miniatures as well as the red wallpaper for the new banquet hall came from Ananda in Barcelona.

I visited 2 miniature shops in Barcelona. First we went to Evolve. I was there for 45 minutes. the entire time I was there the lady at the cash said 2 things to me. She barely answered me when I came in and said ''hola''. I did not find much but then on the second step of a staircase which clearly led to a private loft above I saw molding strips individually packaged and priced which was exactly what I needed...yay! I went up the 2 steps and the lady yelled ''Hey...No''. I guess she thought I was going upstairs but when she saw me looking at the molding she didn't say anything. When I went down the 2 steps, Jo told me the woman had been glaring at me for the 15 minutes I was looking at the moldings. I put them back and walked out of the store. I cannot remember the last time anyone was so rude to me in a shop. I will never set foot in Evolve again.

Luckily, When I went to the second shop, Ananda, I was greeted by Felicidad who was kind, welcoming, and very helpful. They have beautiful pieces, many of which they made themselves, and she took my to the back room and let me go through all the wallpapers and building material they had. They can count on my going back the next time I visit Barcelona!

And now, since some of you asked, here are just a few pictures of the places we visited:

Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela

I was enchanted by this side of the building

Queluz Palace in Lisbon

A reception room in the palace. It felt like a cozy Versailles.

Cathedral of Murcia in Cartagena

A beautiful building in Cartagena

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

A view of Barcelona from the museum

We saw some incredible places, the sea was calm, the weather was good, The Royal Pavilion blew me away, but this trip just confirmed that our favorite city in the world is Barcelona.

And that is all I have for the moment my friends. My house is decorated and my Christmas shopping is done, but I think miniature time will be limited till the holidays.

I hope you all have a lovely month of December. I have a week off for the holidays and I hope to spend a good portion of it on the manor.

Until next time, thank you all for your great kindness and support. It means a lot to me and I hope I give it back,

Giac