Fox Manor

The Second Floor - The Lady's Sitting Room

Hi Everyone,

Thank you once again for taking the time to read my blog, I appreciate each and every one of your kind comments.  I have been working away on my Lady's Sitting Room just before and over Christmas, it was lovely to do.  I had to step back for a while as hubby was away and I needed the man-saw, so that put a halt on things for a while, as I'm not allowed near it!  I also cannot believe I now have 60 followers!  Thank you.

The Lady's Sitting Room is the last room on this floor to be completed, and is situated over the Gent's Games Room below.  I decided that the Sitting Room was best placed here, as the noise from the gentlemen below would be a distraction to my Lady if the bedroom was placed here and she were trying to sleep!  I think my family reckon I should be locked up at this stage!!

I painted the ceiling in a lovely blue - 'First Dawn' by Dulux to match the blue of the mural wallpaper - it is 'El Dorado' by Les Chinoiseries.  As I'm sure you know by now, I just love Carmen's wallpaper, but I have to say that this is the first time ever with her papers that I found if it got wet at all, the colour came off, so gently, gently does it!  I wanted to give the illusion of the sky of the wallpaper continuing on up and around the ceiling.  I also painted the lovely moulding by Sue Cook in the same blue and highlighted it with my favourite gold paint, just to emphasise that there really is a coving up there!  I was afraid of there being too much blue!  But by painting on the gold, I was afraid I'd detract from the original idea of continuing the blue from walls to ceiling!  Oh, decisions, decisions.......

I actually ended up putting more gold on the coving!

The ceiling rose was placed slightly more to the front of the room as I wanted to place pillars towards the back....leaving everything slightly off centre.  Ah, well.  It's me we're talking about here.  Always making trouble for myself! lol  I have to say, that I have used a lot of Sue Cook items in my house, but a lot of the rest have been made by Replicast Miniatures...they are really lovely also.

The bare state of the room with the door blocked off to the left.

I have already closed off the door to the left of the room, which would have originally been going out into the stairwell - this is now the Lady's en-suite; I have placed double doors at the back of the room instead so you can access the rest of the Manor from there. ;) I bought the doors from the USA off Jim Coates.  His items are just lovely.  The detail is so crisp and clean.  The fireplace here is also made by him.

To the door I added some brass stampings, then I painted the whole lot white.  I highlighted the stampings and other parts of the doors in my gold paint and added the handles.  They were too brash a gold colour so they got the gold paint treatment too....:)


I like to have a little something to a room, so that it does not look just like a 'box'.  But the deep coving (as I know from past experience) is such a pain to cut - for me anyway.  I had to think of a way to make my room interesting, so I finally opted to place a couple of pillars to the back of the area to give the Sitting Room a grander and more opulent entrance for my Lady and her friends!

The floor, as usual, was a challenge for me.  Floor designs, simple or not, usually take up most of my time in thinking what to do!  Mind you, others dedicate such time and patience to their masterpieces, that I am always ashamed to complain about doing mine!


Here I finally chose a cherry floor with some walnut complete with a parquet border.  I kept the 'central' design to the front of my room - so it would be seen, but also to emphasise the sitting area as opposed to the entrance area.


I finished it off with a coating of natural beeswax, but I thought it was a little too 'orange' for my taste; so I went over the whole floor with a dark wax and I'm much happier with the look now.


The pillars from the wonderful Sue Cook, weren't tall enough for the room so I had to make pedestals for them - which came in the form of off-cuts from the curtain rail used in my RL bedroom.... waste not, want not! Ok, Ok, my poor husband had to cut them.... :)  Waiting on these held up the finishing of this room!

The warm cream and gold tones of the curtain pole...sorry, my pedestals :) blended well with the tones of the base of my wallpaper, so I didn't repaint them.

I painted the base and the top parts of the pillars with my favourite gold paint from Craig & Rose; the main pillar was then painted white.

The Jim Coates fireplace was again painted white and I decided not to highlight with gold as there was the gold mirror above, and as it is closer to the ceiling rose, I thought I might have enough balance here and in highlighting the fireplace....well, it may well be just too overpowering when the ornate furniture is in place.

I would have dearly loved to have had a chimney breast, but the plaster coving was bigger than me, so I'm afraid I had to bow defeat and do without :(

Maybe as time goes on and I get more confident I will venture forth and learn how to cut deep coving, plaster or otherwise....but time will tell!  Maybe a new saw is what's needed...I thought Santa might have rustled one up...but it looks like I'll have to sort myself out!

The skirting and dado rail are painted white.  Fresh and clean :)  I had originally painted the dado gold to see what it would be like, but too much of a gold thing just doesn't work :) ....I didn't like it for this room, but I wouldn't rule it out for somewhere else!

I made the hearth for the fireplace in the usual way, with heavy grey card scored to give a hint of slabs being used and I painted it and the fireback to look used.

I used an 18 light chandelier in here and I also have two double candle wall lights at the back of the room.

The rococo mirrors on each side of the doors are by John J Hodgson and are so detailed, I love them, and below them I have tiny little shelves!

Without the lights on...

 

 

 

A few views of my Lady's Floor

I am quite sad in a way that that's another floor finished in my Manor.  Only one more to go.... I just love decorating and I know that the top floor - the attic, is going to be such a challenge for me - height wise LOL.

I hope you have enjoyed the making of my Lady's Sitting Room.  Again, I have soooo many little bits and pieces to get to finish the room off, but, all in good time!

It may be a little while until I start the final floor of my manor....I have a something in the pipeline, so watch this space :)

All the best and take care.

Vivian