Saturday, September 19, 2020

Chateau Planning

 I'm working on painting the inside of the dormers and adding more tapewire on the second floor and making the connections with eyelets.

The kitchen - probably going to wall up/fill that 2nd doorway in the back so only one remains, going into dining room. This wing was originally designed to be 2 rooms (kitchen and eating area) but both would be too small. This will also give me more wall space in the kitchen for cabinets, since the opposite wall has a french door and window.

I want a grand kitchen with the cathedral ceiling, probably arch trusses if I can figure out how to do it. My inspiration is a Whitledge-Burgess kitchen that has this dramatic effect. I was thinking about doing it for the French Country Manor but I would have had to cut out the floors in the wings. This house has that cathedral effect already.

Here's that kitchen idea...


One of the challenges I have with this house is how the second floor(s) were attached. They were supposed to sit on crown molding from the first floor. I want to choose and finish my crown separately and don't want to depend on it to support the second floor. 

In looking at this tonight, I decided I will nail and glue in the floors. Here's how that will work. For the dining room I will nail from the kitchen side and then from the foyer side.  There is a beam in the kitchen lengthwise along the wall that is next to the dining room, and I will either remove the beam or simply nail right through it. You can see the beam just barely in the photo above. Same on the other wing - nail from the study into the living room ceiling and from the foyer into the living room ceiling. The foyer itself will then be pretty sturdy and tight so simply gluing down that partial floor should work.

I feel much better about the flooring attachment. I have tapewire done, and have a plan to secure the flooring. I'm looking at wallpapers that I have from my stash and starting to get a sense of what this house might look like. In each of my other houses, there was a theme or era that guided me through these choices. This will likely be in recent times, don't want to go back in history. But trying to solidify the feel for the house...thinking about what a chateau might look like. Thinking toile, a bit romantic, country french. 

Here's the foyer. It has an opening for stairs on the left by the door. 



Here's an earlier picture with the floors in:



Below is the center part of the house, (not showing the wings on either end of the house) capturing the placement of tapewire. Lower left is dining room then center is foyer of course, right is living room (and to the far right, beyond the photo is the study.

Second floor, may do a bathroom on left, then hallway/stairway, then on the right is the master bedroom. You will notice in the photo above, in the master bedroom there is a partition, almost splitting the room in half. That is supposed to be a bathroom but I just think its taking up too much space in the master bedroom. I can't imagine how I could place a bed in there with the partition! 


This photo  below shows the tapewire up under the peak This is more for my reference so I recall how I did it and where it is. Its up behind the hinge on the third floor. Kind of an awkward angle but that's what I have!



Wednesday, September 09, 2020

French Country Crown Molding

 Since I have these grand tall rooms in this grand house, I knew I wanted a larger and more ornate type of crown molding, at least on the first floor. 

I had some leftover Falcon resin trim, really frieze, from doing the Whitledge-Burgess Patisserie and loved it. I decided I would use that under regular crown molding. Here's the patisserie. 


I was doing this work in fall of 2017 and had to hunt a bit as Falcon was going out of business and I would need a large quantity. Found some stock and bought it all.  (The Whitledge-Burgess workshop was back in 2009). Others have asked me recently how I did this and that led me to post it now. Its also a good way for me to record what I did for reference later.


Painted it all white and began cutting and installing with crown. I love the look! Decided it was a go and planned to do it in the living room, foyer and dining room. 





I will say it was a bit of a challenge when it came to corners and around the chimney breasts but I got through it. 



Tuesday, September 01, 2020

Chateau Shingling Complete!

 I am so glad this is now complete. I am not fond of shingling, to put it mildly. I hope to never need to do another. 

It came out nicely, though there were some challenges. Not all the shingles took the stain in the same way so I was picking and choosing. I saved the iffy ones for the sides that face the chimneys. I also got done with the back and knew I wouldn't have enough shingles to complete the one wing I had left. 

Here's where I stopped and bought more shingles.


I ran to Lolly's and got another 500 and stained them. I was much smarter about staining them this time, used quart plastic narrow container. I also laid down plastic first, then the butcher paper...and swapped out the butcher paper for a second piece before I started blotting them. Was a nice cool, slightly windy day so I had some weights down on my surface.


I went back to finishing up my shingling job and am very happy with the results!



I plan on wood strips at the peaks and top of the house. I cut basswood to fit and started painting with the grey that is on the house exterior. They will be one of the very last things I attach - the top roof of the house has electrical tapewire on it and I'm going to have to make that one removable, maybe velcro. The wings have one roof piece that is removable - that will help in finishing those rooms. So until I'm done and ready to permanently attach those roof sections, the flat top will just be removable.