Goodbye gallery, hello parlor!

Hello my dearest friends,

I hope you are all doing well. How I have missed your blogs and commenting on your work, but fatherhood is most wonderfully time consuming. I get about 30 minutes of miniature time a week which is why I have not posted for a while, but I did manage to finish a remodel of the gallery.

 Originally this was an art gallery at the top of the stairs:

Since I am planning a sculpture gallery next to the banquet hall and the décor of the room was exactly the same as the Tudor hall and the entrance, I figured I could use the space in a more interesting way. I am happy to present the parlor:

I started by ripping up the old décor and built a dividing wall to separate the staircase landing from the front of the room. I then worked on the ceiling:

 It is made up of 2 pieces of single ply illustration board. The bottom layer is to cover up imperfections from the wallpaper I pulled off, and the top one (first picture) has a cutout to accommodate the plaster details from Sue Cook.

In the second picture you see all the plaster details and some basewood moldings before it was painted. When it was installed and the wallpaper on the walls was up, I finished it with a leaf pattern cornice, also from Sue.

 The chandelier is from the Getzans. Next I got to work on the floor.

The old floor was not to my liking. the larger squares had a thicker glue underneath so after they were ironed into place they stood out from the border strips. also, you can see at the bottom of the picture that one square was put in with the grain in the wrong directiona nd it stood out like a sore thumb. I was afraid to tackle a new floor because I would have taken months with Vigo to take care of, but just as I was about to leave the old one in I remembered I kept the old floor I had made for the winter parlor whish was demolished to make room for the banquet hall. It was big enough so I cut it to size and glued it down.

I never had time to take pictures, so here is a mock-up of the walls renovation.

1- I covered the walls in single ply illustration board
2- I painted that green
3- I applied the wallpaper from Alison Davies with regular wallpaper paste
4- I added a single ply illustration board paneling strip, pre-painted
5- I added chair rail, baseboards and squares in the panels, all pre painted.

Here is what the finished walls looked like.

 I was able to save the Jim Coates fireplace and painted a new marble slab to use as a hearth.

I am glad I saved the fireplace because it is one of Jo's favorite pieces.

And this is what the finished room looks like, as well as an empty room shot.

 I really love the way Sue's Doric columns frame the staircase behind the room.

Vigo news

Vigo is doing fantastic. He is in terrific health and aside from teething does not have a care in the world.

He was baptised in August and was a perfect gentleman...

 ...he started eating solid food at 6 months which was hilarious. when we put him in his high chair he giggles and gets really excited. He loves to eat...

..and the force was with him for Halloween:

 And that is all for now my friends. I miss your blogs terribly and look forward to having more time to get back to blog world...eventually. Right now Vigo is my world and I am loving every exhausting moment.

I wish you all the best and since my decorations and Christmas trees are up, I wish you all a very happy holiday season.

Big hugs,
Giac

P.S. please ignore any spelling mistakes. My mom is leaving so my leisure time is over, no time for proof reading.