Going for gold....

                         .....and crowned by a laurel wreath.

This past week I have been making a fireplace for the front reception room (or salon) of my Canal House.  I wanted it to look similar to the one in the Yellow Salon, but not quite the same.

Below are some (well, a lot actually) work in progress photos, but first one of the finished fireplace. 

I start with a general idea of what I want it to look like and then just search for the right materials. The square ornaments on the corners are by Sue Cook, which I have had in my stash for many years and finally got to use.   

 

As I wanted this fireplace to be a little bit different from the one in the other room, I decided to marble it in grey tones.   I cut acrylic mirror sheet to size and aged it using the same technique I used last time. 

I thought the grey colour was 'cool' enough to act as a balance for some gilding.  I used 23 carat gold leaf on the mirror frame moulding.

Some more marbling...the tablet on the chimneypiece needed a stronger colour than white.

My first Canal House's distorted reflection in the mirror. 

 

 ...And more gilding.  I added a large gilded laurel wreath to the marble tablet on the chimneypiece.

 

And then I also gilded the sconces.  The style of the sconces is not quite right,  they are a bit too Rococo.  But they'll have to do for now (and they are very pretty), so I changed them a little bit, cutting of some of the scrolls, adding some bows and gilding it all.  

 Working on the room.  I finally finished the two windows for this room.  They are a lot of work and I must admit I find it a bit boring.  John of Merriman Park suggested making some sort of jig to make the windows as there will be something like 40 windows in total for this house.   Unfortunately the windows change in size on all floors, so I'd have to make several jigs as well.  Does anyone have a good idea on how to do this?

The marbling on the fire surround took me a whole day to get it right!  Too light, too dark, too blue, too beige, too grey, too blotchy,  too plain...etc.  The photo below was taken with flash, so it isn't quite the same colour as in reality but it is close.  I like it.