Great Hall Chandelier

I wanted a large, central chandelier for the Great Hall, one based on a wheel shape.  There are folks out there making and selling working versions of this kind of period light fixture, but I wanted to try my hand at it myself.

Here's what I came up with.

Black polymer clay is brilliant at imitatating wrought iron, so I based my chandelier on that.  I cut a long strip of rolled clay and wrapped it around a metal lid for a circular tin -- it's about 3.5 inches in diameter, I think.  I baked the clay on the tin.

Wait for it to cool totally before you take it off! It's still quite flexible when warm.

Then I made cross bracing from clay rolls and added twists of thin wire to act as eyes for the chain -- one eye at each end of a cross brace.  Then I made little curved "cups" of black clay to hold the white polymer candles.  I used two lengths of black jewellery chain and hung the chandelier from the ceiling using a couple of lengths of wire, each bent into an s curve.

It's not perfect, but it's surprisingly satisfying and was very inexpensive to build!  Next time I'll figure out how to electrify it ...

Great Hall Lights

David gave me a Dremel-type rotary tool with a range of attachments, so I installed some lights in the Great Hall this morning.
I put a double sconce on the right wall by the door (it's a brass sconce I painted black), the flickering unit in the fireplace and a small pewter finish hanging lantern up in the minstrel's gallery.  I also want to build and install torches in this room, but this is a good start.

Here's what it looked like this evening:

Tudor Bed

I've been housebound for a few days, recovering from a back injury, and inaction combined with a tempting heap of balsa wood proved too much for me :)  I made a Tudorish bed.

I should have taken photos of the process, but it was very much improvisational (to say the least!)  I started with some basic dimensions:  6.5 long by 6.5 tall by 4" wide.  I built the head panel first (without doing all the decorative panelling -- I wanted to wait to see how high the frame would be first), then the decorative posts at the foot of the bed and attached them to a foot board.

I was pleased with the turned posts.  They're just ordinary 3" craft turnings bunged into square balsa wood top and bottom.  I made a real hash of this, so had to cover up my ghastly workmanship with some trim, which, while ghastly in itself, is better than my first attempt!

Most of the trim I cut with scissors -- gotta love balsa wood when you're feeling impatient, eh?

After these parts glued up, I joined headboard and footboard with the side rails.  I used little bits of toothpick as dowels, here, to give more strength to the joints (and to keep the darned thing together while the glue dried.

The canopy went on next, with side pieces, which further strengthened the piece, then, finally, craft sticks (popsicle or ice lolly sticks) were the perfect size for the base slats.  I painted it with burnt umber for a dark Tudor finish.

I'd like to make a fine bed out of basswood or hardwood, with everything just so, and a rope support for the mattress, but for two afternoons' work, I'm perfectly happy with this one!

Great Hall Fireplace, day 3

Yesterday I assembled the fireplace, and painted it.  I used a base coat of natural titanium (a buff colour) then added layers of greys, finally stippling the surface with umber and black to resemble stone.  I applied scrapbook stickers to resemble the tiles of my inspiration photo and installed both fireplace and chimney breast.  This morning, this is how it looks:

 

I am really pleased with the way my miniature medieval fireplace turned out!  It looks like stone and has exactly the feel I was hoping for.  I love this photo, taken from the left hand door -- it looks perfect to me, and I have a wonderful sense of accomplishment :)

Great Hall Fireplace, day 2

Having designed the fireplace, it's time to build it.  Here are all the components, cut out -- two uprights made of laminated plywood, a lintel made of balsa wood (6' wide by 1.5 inches deep), two pine corbels cut on our electric fretsaw, and two purchased pressed wood appliques, bought at Lee Valley Tools.

I glued them all together with white carpenter's glue like so:

Now I just wait for them to glue up ...

Painting bricks on the castle walls

Today the girls painted the exterior of the castle.  The girls who did the painting are 12 and 9 years old, respectively.  To simplify things, I had them paint the entire exterior pale grey (I used latex primer with a bit of artist's acrylic black added).  Then they "stamped" blocks on the outside using small pieces of cellulose sponge -- we had four colours:  dark grey, light grey, medium brown, light brown and they just alternated colour randomly.  It worked much better than I thought it would!

We set the block colours out on paper plates:  each colour had its own plate and sponge:

 

 

Furniture from balsa wood

Here are my first table and chair, made of balsa wood.  They're extremely rough, and I shall make better versions soon now that I know what to expect, but they'll do for now.

The table is 10" long and 3" wide. Both pieces are balsa wood, put together with wood glue and, in the case of the table, pegs made from toothpicks.  I scored the top of the table with a blunt pencil before construction, to make it look like boards.  I painted them with my "Tudor wood" blend paint:  one part raw sienna, two parts burnt umber and some water.  Then I varnished them.

Great Hall Fireplace

It's fireplace day!

First of all, this is my "inspiration" photo.  It's a medieval fireplace in the Tower of London:

Our backstory for this castle is that it was built in the 12th century, and has been remodelled by the early Tudor family who is now living in it.  Some rooms will be more Tudor in mood (wood panelling, etc.) but we imagined the Great Hall as having a more medieval feel.  The open fireplace is an important part of that feel.

Here are some of the elements of the fireplace stuck together with Museum Putty (it's like Blu Tac, but stickier) in situ, so I can get an idea of how to compose the piece.

The mantel will be supported by large corbels, and the chimney breast will be angled as in the inspiration photo.  I'll paint blocks on the back wall, making them nice and sooty, and I'll put in very sooty Poly Filla "stones" at the base.  The whole piece will be painted to look like stone, and I'll use some tiny stick on tiles to embellish the mantel.

Here it is, in the same shot with the Minstrel's Gallery, to show scale.  It could be bigger (it's 6" x 6") but I'm practising selective scale here, and don't want it too big.

I got a flickering unit for this fireplace during my shopping spree in Toronto last week, and we'll make a nice fire for it to warm up the room.

Here's the  mocked up fireplace, with the back wall painted, a few sticks from my driveway, and the flickering unit.

Minstrels' Gallery Part One

We've planned a Minstrels' Gallery on the left side of the Great Hall, and I'm starting on it today, using a small piece of 1/4 inch plywood measuring 4" by 12", and the two pieces of ready-assembled railing I bought from the Little Dollhouse Company in Toronto last week.

I cut the railing to length using a fret saw and glued it up. A newel post of some kind at the corner would have been lovely, but I didn't plan for it :)

I have to put the supports in the Great Hall -- side beams and a support beam -- and then I think I'll let the kids paint and install the Gallery on Thursday.

Here's the Gallery in place -- I've glued the side supports on, but it's just balancing up there on the support column :)  It looks like part of an opera set, doesn't it?  "Deh vieni alla finestra ..."

Photos of the castle so far

I meant to  take photos of each step of the castle's construction.  Well, I've missed a few, but we need to start somewhere, don't we?

This is how the first part, the Great Hall, looks now, stripped of the temporary furnishings the children and I were playing with.  To recap, this room, as pictured above, is about 30" wide, 12" deep and 18" tall.  Here's what we've done so far:

1.  We painted the beams dark brown -- a mixture of two parts burnt umber with one part raw sienna, mixed up well with a fair bit of water to make a stain (I use artist's acrylic paints).

2.  We added texture to the walls with Polyfilla scraped on and, partly, off, in an uneven way.   The walls and ceiling were painted white.

3.  We made the stone floor with a thicker layer of polyfilla.  While still pliable, I made the grout lines with a blunt pencil.  Note to self for future:  don't try to do this after dark, your lines won't be quite perpendicular :)  After it had dried I sanded some places to even things out a bit.

4. We painted floor and walls.  The key to realistic faux finishing is to do everything in layers and to use both warm and cool versions of your colours.  I started with a base wash of natural titanium (this is a very warm off white).  Then I built up the colour of individual stones using a variety of washes:  yellow ochre, a neutral grey (white and black), raw sienna, burnt umber, and white.  Finally, I put on two washes of raw umber over the whole floor to tone the entire thing down and get a darker colour in the grout lines.  Then I varnished it with a matte varnish.

The walls just got a loose wash of grey then a wash of burnt umber, I think.  Very watery and relaxed -- not trying to cover everything.  Just enough to make the place look used.

I did the first coats on the floor, and then let the children loose on both floor and walls.  They did a fabulous job and enjoyed watching the room come to life!