Fox Manor

The Ground Floor - The Dining Room Chandelier

Hello everyone.  I know it's only been a couple of days since my last post, but I want to thank you for your lovely comments on my Dining Room.  I also want to welcome Margaret as my seventh follower.  I really appreciate the time taken to sit down and read my blogs.

Well, I got my Dining Room chandelier finally finished.  Here it is.

I am pleased with it....although I would have loved to have had more swags of swarovskis, I didn't realise that the openings in the little findings didn't match up until the last minute, so my swags were going to be awfully out of line.  Ah well, a lesson learnt.  Still, maybe with practice I will put this somewhere else and make a much larger one for in here....sometime :)  All in all, I think it turned out well for a beginner, and it works! Yeea..

I glued two six armed 'spokes' on top of each other and put my little candle holders in every alternate one.

The bottom of my chandelier with a beautiful Swarovski.

 



This was the top of the chandelier originally, it looked too crowded, so I removed some of the crystals.

 

Wiring in progress!

Piecing it all together...

 



 

I put my little chandelier into this bowl to support it while I worked on it.  Great job..:)

I got rid of the extra crystals at the top and I think it looks much better now.  This is when I tried to put on my swags, but realised it wasn't going to just look right...:(

Another view...

 

Ok, I thought the arms looked too harsh, and as I couldn't have my draping swags going from the top down, I decided to put 'swirls on the arms that didn't have a light.

And then there was light......

 

Some pictures of the chandelier from different angles.  I'm no photographer by any means, but I hope you get a feel for the light in situ.

 

So there we go folks.  My first attempt at making a working light.  I've a feeling it won't be the last.  Have a lovely weekend.

 

 

All the best

 

Vivian



Fox Manor

Ground Floor - The Dining Room

Hello to everyone who takes the time to read my blog.  I would like to welcome The Grandmommy and Simon as my fifth and sixth followers.  Thank you all sincerely, it means a great deal to me to hear your comments and thoughts on my work.

Now, the Dining Room is situated to the left of the Entrance Hall and has double doors.

 

 I had planned to floor this room with this parquet patterned flooring pictured below, I don't know what I was at, but it didn't look right the more of the floor I did.  So I trimmed the floor back to what did look right, stained it, and, as usual, put some beeswax on it - so it is now going to be the floor for the Gent's Study upstairs.  There, problem solved.

Fancy floor for a study, but, waste not, want not!

This is the maple flooring I settled on.  The border configuration was being decided upon here.

This is the pattern I settled on.  Again, it was given a light sanding and a coating of beeswax.



As I want my ceilings to be decorated too, I have to do the three ceilings of each floor all at once before the piece is placed into the house.  This was terrifying.  I longed for a red dining room, but getting the red I liked was very much trial and error.  I didn't want a deep red - burgundy, but I also didn't want it too bright and look like a t**t's boudoir!  That's a roombox for the future :)  I also painted the ceiling rose white and highlighted areas of it (it's huge, more like a medallion) with my favourite old gold paint.  I also centred the hole in the ceiling for the light as well.  It seemed way off.



First fitting of the floor.

 

 



I used Sue Cook cornicing.  I painted it white and highlighted areas in the gold paint.  I did find that size of cornicing very hard to cut and match, so don't look too closely at it in the room :)

Decisions, my choices of paper for the panels.  I think I made the right choice :)

That was down right dangerous!  The skewers would spring out every now and then...

I loved this fireplace, but as everything was either red, white or gold, the cream surround of this fireplace had to go.  So I repainted it white and added more gold highlights.

My little wainscoting, I painted it white and then inserted some gold highlighting.

 



 

I love the red toile paper by Brodnax.  I painted the plaster panels white and edged with gold paint.  I think I need new glasses and a steadier hand for this type of work.  But it looks well.  It took me an age to do these little fellas!

I put double candle lights at the rear of the room.  The mirror was a wooden one, which I painted with my trusty gold paint.  The flooring looks very effective, even if I say so myself.  I tidied up the joint in the wainscot at the back of the room, even though I'll have a big display cabinet there.

In this photo, the wainscoting isn't fixed in, but I had just made the black floral ornaments and couldn't wait to see them in place.  I think there's something elegant about them, yes, I'm very pleased with the way the turned out :)

 

I am loving the red/white jar on the mantle by Stokesay Ware - I bought that at the NEC Miniatura exhibition in Birmingham in March.  This was the first ever miniature show I went to, and I did spoil myself.  I also bought their dining set in Jubilee as well.  After all, my birthday was coming up in April, and a girl deserves to be treated, even if she has to do it herself! :)

I am going to try to make a central chandelier for in here.  I want crystals and gold fittings.... I have spent a long time figuring out what I would like, but this could take some time...
If I'm really snookered, I have a magnificent plain chandelier that I might be able to bling up (and another smaller crystal Heidi Ott chandelier on standby!) but I really want to try one myself first.


 

 

I made the bell pull from a chain, a porcelain bead and jewellery findings.  I like it, although I don't know if they would have ever been made like this, but there you go! I also made the two crystal candlesticks on the fireplace.  I'm telling you, I'm on a roll :)  I probably won't keep them here; my bits and pieces will move around the house for a while I'd say, until I'm happy with their placements.

 

 My little black floral ornaments have found a new home...for the time being!  I also made the crystal candelabra on the table too.  The sterling silver candlesticks were a present to me from me from the Birmingham NEC.  Boy, did I do damage that weekend.....:)

 

 So there we have the Dining Room as it stands at the moment.  I do have china for it, but haven't put it out yet, and I have the cabinet to fill as well; and I still have the main chandelier to make....
I wasn't sure if I like the chest of drawers in here, but they're growing on me, what do you think?
I have a picture of daughter number two on the chest, I must enlarge it and put it on my next blog.

I have been working away on my chandelier, since I started to put this blog together, so I will put a picture up of it when I get it in place, and hopefully I will actually like it.....yes, I have said it before, I am a fussy and fickle woman :)

All the best for now and take care.

 

Vivian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Fox Manor

Ground Floor - The Entrance Hall

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well and thank you for the lovely, and very encouraging, comments on my work.  It's truly appreciated.  I also want to welcome Tatiana as my third follower, and to Ray as my fourth, I am truly honoured. :) Thank you to all for taking the time to follow my blog.

Now that I have completed the basement, I am ready to start the main house.

I would, ideally, love to have a house that 'worked', as in the stairs connected to floors and rooms.  But as it is, I have decided that I am greedier for rooms to decorate!

I wanted to have a small set of stairs in the Entrance Hall going to a landing and giving the illusion that there are more rooms and other stairs to the back of my manor.  So, the stairs/hallways that would have gone up through the house, will now be rooms, and the 'working stairs' will be way at the back of the building.....in my mind anyway:)

When my daughter first saw the hall, I saw her looking around the little wall I erected, and said it makes you curious to know what else was beyond....yes...mission accomplished (with her anyway :))

 

 

My Entrance Hall.  It's very hard to take a picture because of the placement of the mirror.  Face on, all you can see is me, and we don't want that! 

 

 

 If you remember back to the first little hall in the basement, I covered it with marble tiles stuck onto card.  Well, I liked it so much that I did it again here.  I just had enough black tiles for this, not one left over!  It was meant to be :)  I wallpapered the ceiling in a white embossed paper because I had to fill in and cover up the hole that was for the stairwell.  I also had to fill in the holes in the sides of the walls where the landing for the stairs would have slotted into.  The wallpaper on the wall here was a soft rose/beige colour, English Rose by Mini Graphics, and is different to the main part of the hall; again, hoping to give the illusion that there is more beyond!

A close-up of part of the ceiling paper.

 

 

The ceiling of the ground floor/floor of the first floor getting the stairwell filled in with a sandwich of foamboard and cardboard, all well glued together and then glued in place.  I have so say, at this point I realised that if I wanted to do a good job on the ceilings, I was going to have to do them now, before the piece went into the house!  I can only imagine the difficulty in painting them in situ!

 

I chopped up the stairs that came with the house and attached one of the landings to the remaining three steps after I tiled them with the same marble as the hall.

 

My splats for the hall were painted an old gold.

I had a lovely paper punch I used.  I took the discarded shapes, and for each of the three steps, I glued three pieces on top of each other for a bit of thickness and painted them the same old gold as the splats and then glued them to the side of my stairs. 

 

Quite pretty...

 

Things look a bit wonky...but I got that sorted out!

I inserted the stairs, supported the landing around the back and put up the false wall.  I have the little doorway in the back with the key in the door and a triple candle light on the back wall.  I used my dremel for the first time here, and didn't have it going fast enough because the wallpaper started to smoke and I thought the whole place would go up in flames!  My hubby laughed in his manly, knowing way and said I was going too slow to drill the hole right through, but fast enough to light a fire.  I'd be handy on a desert island eh? :)  Luckily, the small smoke stain was covered by the light fitting, phew!

 

 

Awkward.  I used a different paper for the front part of the hall, it is Villa Fleta from Les Chinoiseries.  I think the two wallpapers and flooring work well together, but doesn't look too overpowering or confusing.  I hope....

I bought a plaster door surround from Sue Cook but used it instead at the top of my stairs, and I think it looks well.

 

I really didn't want to use the stairs that come with the kit, but had no other choice, so I decided to bling up the newel post a little with a filigree.

 

I tried making a handrail by painting a skewer gold and topping it off with a piece of marquetry, but it just didn't look right.  I'm sure I'll find a use for it somewhere! So, I just cut a handrail down to size that came with my house.

I cut off the bottom prongs of my splats and then attached them to a piece of wood for stability.

There's that old gold paint again!

The view of the stairs from what will be the Sitting Room.

 

Not looking too bad at all...wait a minute, where's the skirting board :)

 

 A view from what will be the Dining Room ....with double doors!  I have this room started, so I can finish the Hall, if that makes sense :)
 I may put in a larger chandelier, I don't know yet, I'll live with this one for a while, then we'll see.... 
 

Not a great picture, but I wanted to show the key in the door.

Absolutely nothing to do with my hall, but let me introduce you to my best friend, the long nose grip pliers, and my newest bestest friend, the wire stripper for teeny tiny fine lighting wires.  Just brilliant.

Little gloves, just lovely.
 

A picture I reduced of my daughter number one, Siobhán.

A statue from Sue Cook, looks well here, I think.

 

So there we have the Entrace Hall.  I am delighted with it, I hope you can imagine that up those few steps and through the door lies the rest of Fox Manor.

 

This is just an idea of the floorplan of Fox Manor.  As you can see the rooms above the entrance hall are now going to be a small gent's study and the lady's dressing room - and not the stairway as it is supposed to be. The attic floor, I am not completely settled on yet, the bathroom and nanny's room may get swapped around - it depends on how my furniture fits in...yes everything's been bought long ago :)

Even though I am losing the stairway, I will still try to give the impression of hallways and doors leading somewhere else to the back of the Manor.

Thank you all once again for looking and I hope you enjoyed the making of my Entrance Hall.

All the best,

Vivian