The basement section
The house proper
The plans for the interior are, if anything, even more ambitious. And apart from wallcoverings, flooring, electric wiring and fixtures, they involve fabric! Most of the furnishings are going to be built by me using old "House of Miniatures" kits found for a steal on eBay. Their stock fabric choice, though, for anything upholstered, is a boring blue cotton.
That won't do for my Duke and Duchess. So I'll offer you a preview of the fabrics I have lined up to furnish this beauty! Many of them come from the annual sewing show held in downtown Victoria - where I went a little bonkers at the booth of a glorious vendor, Mostly Silk. Others I've picked up in grab bags of silk scraps from Gala Fabrics at the Victoria Quilters' Guild show, or at SAS Fabrics by the Pound in Tucson. (Kimberlee, you'll also recognize some of the fat quarters you sent me from the Mark Twain House!)
I picked up this huge lace panel at SAS for, I think, about $1.25. There's enough here for all my windows. I'll use the striped section for the formal ground-floor rooms and the rest for everything else.
These will be the draperies for the formal rooms - the pleated gold for the drapes themselves and the textured for valances and possibly tiebacks.
Drawing room fabrics for sofas and chairs. This will also double as the music room, complete with grand piano and harp.
The library/dining room will be a little more sedate. I also have some pieces of leather which I'll be using on one of the wing chair kits, for the Duke's desk.
The color palette of the Duke's bedroom is in burgundy and gold, highlighted by a splendid carved wooden bed.
The Duchess' bedroom is much more feminine, in a palette of pale pinks.
Guest quarters are not quite as opulent, but still with a certain elegance.
Servants' quarters and the kitchen area downstairs will be simpler, but still cheerful and in period colors.
Watch this space - and my ongoing photo album for this project on Facebook - to see how it all comes together over these coming months!
That's AMAZING! It perversely reminds me of something I read earlier, if you ever get bored with decorating a sumptuous beautiful house:
ReplyDeletehttp://brucegoldfarb.com/the-nutshell-studies-of-unexplained-death
Ha - crime scene recreations! Classic. Once in Portland at a miniature show, I remember seeing a scale model of the whole of Disneyland as-was - this was in the mid- to late-80s, so no Toontown and things like the submarine ride and the alpine cable cars were still around - in some kind of crazy scale like 1/8-inch to the foot. Despite the scale, it still covered the whole surface of one of those *big* banquet tables.
ReplyDelete"Guest quarters are not quite as opulent, but still with a certain elegance," but I'd be thrilled to stay there. Everything is beautiful and I can hardly wait to see it all done. What a talented woman you are!
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