Books in a bottle

This week I found some time to work on that bedroom fireplace.  Looks a bit dusty and mauled with sticky fingers but might well do the job.

Morris tiles around a small plaster fireplace, painted up

You can just about see how narrow that mantel shelf is and I fancied some books to go on it.  Being too lazy to try to make any that small as I wouldn’t have got them neat enough, I searched and I found some 1:24 with beautifully detailed covers …

 

in a bottle; from here

And they were just right!

The maker advises that they can be removed with tweezers so no books were harmed in the removing process, and they are now back in their bottle for safe keeping until the room gets dressed.

The whole idea of ‘Books in a bottle’ set me off down the rabbit hole of information.  I knew about a bottle of hay, for which there are many references.  For example Pepys and Shakespeare, to name a couple.  And, apparently, there’s a current book too entitled “The Book in the Bottle“.

But I kept sliding down and down the hole as I tried to find a single image of what I thought the original bottle of hay might look like — a small to moderate amount of hay in a net or bundle that might be hung up for an animal to browse.    I tried to search without using the word ‘net’ or ‘bundle’ in the wording, just using the original phrase only, and failed miserably.  Have I totally got it wrong?

Books and bed

I’ve cheated with the books.  I’ve bought in a few sets and have made false spine views of some of the books on our shelves.

From photo of an old Enc Britannia set

A mix and almost match going on over the bed

Gave coffer to an old furniture look, replaced wardrobe with drawers etc

Closer view. Chest of drawers instead of wardrobe and painted over blanket chest to look like old polished wood

As bedroom is now a basic Victorian style I pondered a little on it and made more rugs

Bedding and carpet chosen

Don’t ask. One minute it was a bed and the next he was there

Some bedside necessities – an Arts and Crafts look with jug perhaps

View along bed from bathroom

Some homemade faux book spines were made on the corrugated card and some have slivers of wood in.  One set has a wood support behind it and the others are a more or less self-supporting false wall of spines as they’re wedged and glued in place.  As long as nobody sneezes, they should stay glued.

I’ve promised myself that next up is the fireplace and hopefully things should flow on from there.

Had some bright sunny days, but they all had appointements booked in and now we’re back to cold, windy and wet.  So still not much gardening done …  On the upside, I’ve quite a few tomato plants on the go – spindly but still growing.

Messing around on a windy day

Vamping till ready, or rather keep on playing until I can fix on a full colour scheme in the bedroom box so that I can move on with it.

First – the outer edge of that bookcase done

Still pushing that chest – may redress it to look more carved than painted

Messed with tapestry upholstery fabric – all far too big

Deer eating top of chest?

More usefully, made mock quilted spread

Too big but quite like it

All the tapestry has been put away as all too invasive.  I turned instead to making iron-on transfers from photos taken, working on a new carpet, the bedspread and some fabric I might use for upholstery.

The mock quilt is based on Wm Morris’s Daisy wallpaper.  I took a section of three sets of plants in three rows, trimming off the bits I didn’t want, made the middle row smaller so it wouldn’t overlap the others, and then moved it to be more central again.  In my old photo editing prog I coloured up an A4 page to match the background of the Morris motif and the added a quilt patterned photo I found, fading it out over the top.  After a whole load of adjustments to colour and percentage of image layers I tried it out on one of the few remaining iron transfer pages I’ve got and pressed it on to a piece of old cotton pillow case.  Downside is that because it’s a transfer it is shiny, but, oversized as it is, I’ll still keep working on it to see if it can be made to look acceptable.

So much gardening to do.  When will the wind drop just a little bit?

Compromise or visual clash

Themes for the bedroom

This room is used by the inhabitant as an extension to his study with which is shares a doorway, so it’s going to need some of floor space to in which to throw in a comfy chair or two and some sort of table surface, while leaving space to trot through to the bathroom amenities sited at the other end of the room.

Layout at this end of the bungalow

Box and its contents

Need to decide which way to lean between the Neo-Gothic and Art and Crafts Movement in this bedroom box. Or do I?  Mix and not quite match may be the way.

Of the various items to hand, there’s the bed which could have been guided to one style or the other and I have chosen to lean more to the A&C styling, and then there’s a sort-of-wardrobe that I’ve thrown together, giving it a little of the Gothic with heavy black hinges but with some A&C adornment too.  The wallpaper choice can vaguely fill either.

What I don’t have at this end of the box is a bedside surface that will fit in between the bed and doorway.  Yes, I’ve tried the bed elsewhere but, because of it’s size and general block-iness, the space looks unbalanced when it’s placed elsewhere.

I’ve a plastic Victorian-looking bath and high-level toilet, but no wash-hand basin that I much care for, and in store there’s a number of different washstands, one of which could fit in a space that is long and very narrow, which makes it look extra high.  It’s visible at the same time as the bedroom so some harmony between the two spaces would be good if possible.  Do I want a Gothic bathroom with all mod cons but with church like windows over the lavatory?  Probably not.  I’ve tried a round window, a homemade window and now I’ve turned to a Georgian paned item set sideways on.

Although a washstand can be fitted in I’ve decided to use some shelves which I bought last autumn.  They have a Gothic look to them and, to the larger one, I’ve added a deeper surface to the top shelf on which to put the bowl, ewer and shaving gear, while above should be a mirror and a smaller set of the same shelves for other bathroom bits.

Not the window to use

Washstand area open to the bedroom space will have a screen around it

The jug and bowl bought for other jobs some time ago

To cut down with the faffing around, I chose five photos which I felt would be suitable bedrooms and set about picking bits out from each of them, aiming for a ‘meld’ between the choices somewhere along the way.

1) I rather like the sleeping amongst the books look of the Wm Morris Kelmscott House, London bedroom – though I do think the chained books on the table are pushing the image a bit far, even for a publisher running Kelmscott Press.

2) The Lakeland Arts website have a bedroom where the bed has a sort of modern canopy look, though the style of the room is not entirely my cuppa.  I think it’s the colour scheme that makes me uneasy,

and

3) a Pinterest posting of a Wm Morris style one where the fireplace and over mantle will be useful.

4) The whole page but more particularly a bedroom at Kelmscott Manor shows a Tudor theme where the hangings and coverlet caught my eye.

and

5) is a bedroom at Wightwick Manor where there’s a mix of the religious – bedstead applied painting at foot seem to be Adam and Eve – where the original Morris wallpaper and the coving over the bed and tapestry on the far wall caught my interest.

What has that got me

At the moment am working on a wrap-around book shelf assembly a little like that seen in pic #1.  The way the shelves sit also gives a taste of the non-canopy canopy look in pic #2 and may give me a bedside surface for a glass and clock when in place.

I will be trying out some of the tapestry elements of both #4 and 5, I think, both as a counterpane and a hanging, and am planning a fireplace set-up probably a little similar to pic #3.

Wrap around shelving in progress, still quite a bit to do

Two walls papered and fireplace basic shaping needs the overmantel and hearth