Pride andPrejudice room box, Part 2

Read the first part of this story.

Once upon a time, Facebook allowed you to choose which picture to show when you shared your blog post. Not any more. So I put the final picture first, to be shown with the link. Close your eyes if you prefer to be surprised.

It took  some time to get there.

First, I tried various wallpaper. Jennifer's printables is a superb site where you can find period wallpaper to suit any taste. I printed a sheet of several patterns and put them in, one at a time and together. I wanted something distinct, and also something I haven't already used in Womble Hall. I have used a Regency paper on the inside fronts of Womble Hall, and I almost decided to used it again when I saw another one, similar, but not quite. I think it is delicate and just right.

For the first time, I used real wallpaper paste, just because I happened to have some. Let me tell you: it made a huge difference. I wish I had done all wallpapering in Womble Hall with paste. Too late now. I didn't bother matching sheets exactly for the pattern (as I did with some wallpaper in Womble Hall) because I don't think it matters with this design.

With the wallpaper, the room looked much more natural. (Compare with the picture in the previous post). But I also wanted panels and rails, so I used more embossed 1:1 wallpaper, for the lower and upper panels and my favourite stripy one for dado rail, picture rail and coving. There were some tricky parts in the corners, but after trial and error, it looked passable. I was glad I had decided against real wooden coving - I would have never managed the mitring. Mitring is not my strong side.

I will add skirting when I have made the floor. I have just ordered a new pack of coffee stirrers, and I will need to find some interesting and period-correct floor pattern that I haven't done before.

More than this, I haven't moved yet, but as always, I put back all the objects, including the fabulous Chippendale mirror that I had made specifically for this room.

  

From the picture - and only from the picture - I see that I need to glue the coving better, to avoid gaps between the walls and the ceiling: it doesn't look neat. 

So the floor next. I most likely won't be able to finish it before I go away on holiday mid-July, but I may add some details, such as a fireguard and perhaps some more pictures and decorations. All the objects are borrowed from Womble Hall so I will have to make new eventually. 

Come back soon.

PS I have re-read Pride and Prejudice looking for descriptions of interiors. There aren't any! Mr Bennet's library is mentioned on many occasions, but it is never described. When Elizabeth visits Pemberley, there are descriptions of views from windows, but not of rooms. Mr Collins' furniture is referred to, but what kind of furniture? So my guesses are as good as anyone else's.

Pride and Prejudice room box

It has been ages since I blogged. Almost half a year. I still have two rooms and the whole basement to show in my tour of Womble Hall, I haven't finished The Borrowers, and I haven't shared the many small things I have been making every now and then. I will do it all in due time.

But right now I have just started on a new project, and as it always happens to me, I become obsessed. I am not even sure where exactly it came from, but I am doing a strictly academic event on Pride and Prejudice in September, and I am doing it together with a friend with whom I also did the Alice in Wonderland event, so as we were planning our workshop, she suddenly asked whether I would be making a room box. I hadn't considered it at all, but the event is for teachers, focused on what they can do with Pride and Prejudice, and of course you can encourage the students to draw, or write a diary, or trace the characters' travels on a map. But why not a room box?

Womble Hall is the right period, but I cannot take Womble Hall to work, and, to be fair, it took me two years to make (and there is still a lot to do), while a schoolteacher may need inspiration for something more manageable. Anyway, here I am, making a Pride and Prejudice room box.

I found a wine box slightly larger than the standard ones. It is not deep enough in relation to breadth and height, but there is not much I can do about it. I have considered and dismissed cardboard boxes. The height is more important because I want it to be a grand-ish room, with a high mantelpiece and a chandelier.

As anyone who has made a room box knows, it needs much more planning than one would imagine. It's not just about putting objects in a box. Environment is crucial. For instance, I need to decide what ceilings and floors I want, how I will decorate walls and so on. And before I can even start, I need to make a chimney breast. I have made several for Womble Hall, but this time I didn't use foam but cardboard. This picture is tremendously boring, but if this is a story of how I made the scene, you need to see it.

 

What you also see is grooves, and they would prove a nuisance.

Here is the next step:

 

I used white lining paper, just pasting it all the way left to right, folding over the cardboard chimney breast. The grooves resulted in creases, and there isn't much I can do about them now except hide them behind rails or wall hangings. I used 1:1 scale embossed wallpaper for ceiling. I also used stripy embossed wallpaper - that I have used for a variety of purposes - to make front mouldings that very neatly hid the uneven edges. I am very happy with this solution.

I made the period fireplace the day before yesterday. It is a House of Miniatures kit, but it so happened that I had a firebox that came with some ebay lot a long time ago and didn't fit any fireplaces. I am glad I remembered it because it is just right here, isn't it?

I guess I could leave the floor as it is, but it doesn't look quite natural, and I want to try yet another floor pattern. (If you haven't seen my magnificent floors, use the tag "floor" on the right). I have a remnant of an old parquet floor that I could recycle, or maybe I will make something entirely new. It isn't a very large area, like in a house, so it can be something really challenging.

I am considering all kinds of panelling, railing and moulding, and I have already spent some time on the web searching for ideas. Meanwhile, I have made a "sketch", borrowing objects from Womble Hall, just to see what it might look like.

Come back soon.