Silver of the Moon... or Sliver of the Moon....
Some of you Might recall, Dear Readers, the Hallway in Hardwick Hall, that region that is tucked into an impossible to access corner of the House, which required that it be "completed" long before the rest of the structure was even constructed. And you might remember that I painted the Moon Maidens carrying the Moon up the stairs, each maiden carrying a different phase of the moon.... and that I added trees to the murals and stars to the Heavens above.... all of which is barely if at all visible now that the walls are in place! It is such a Dark and Hidden Hallway, and I thought I had "completed" it a long while ago. But in the back of my mind was the idea that I should have added a "Hall table" in the entrance area.... because surely every hallway needs a place to drop ones hat and keys! And recently I had bought a few pieces of unfinished wood furniture, amongst which was an "old fashioned" Queen Anne style side table..... which looked like it might just fit in the corner under the stairs...
Which you can just barely see if you look
from an angle over the kitchen stove....
Imagine my surprise when it fit the spot exactly!
All I would need to do is add a mirror over the table,
a little paint and it would be done!
Here you can see I am testing the small piece
of mirror glass I cut, to see if it looked right.
It required quite some contortions to measure
the height from the table to the underside of the stairs...!
Truly, this is the only view you get of this tiny space!
But it was just begging for a little Hall Table!
But then I decided that the "frame" for the Mirror needed to be
a bit more elaborate than the normal frames.....
I wanted it to be like the one over the Living Room fireplace,
with the branching trees.....
if any of you can remember That frame...
which is also really hard to see in this House
because it is angled away from the open side of the house...!
(Who designed this property anyway...???)
So I got out my wire to make an Armature.....
And added sculpey to the wire armature...
being sure it would lie flat and cover the mirror edges properly.
I baked it with the mirror in place to ensure a good close fit with the glass.
And added paint to the hardened sculpey....
because the dark gray would just disappear in that dark Hallway....
I decided to paint the frame Silver.....
And the table as well....
in case you hadn't noticed Dear Readers,
there is a "silver" theme in this house!
Here the frame has its coat of silver paint....
which made it too shiny!
I decided I would need to "tone it down" a bit....
Here you can see the parts placed next to each other.....
the frame is much shinier than the table itself....
But I needed to test it first in the hallway.....
with the lights on....
to be sure it fit, and to be sure I needed to
adjust the brilliance of the silver paint.....
I added a "marbling" effect...
to resemble the texture of tree bark.....
Here you can see it in the Hallway again....
And I decided it is good enough to attach the frame to the table....
which required building a support framework.....
Which you can see here with the silver paint added ....
to blend in wherever the frame support ends up being visible....
And finally the framework is glued to the table!
Only, now I am deciding I might need
to "marbleize" the table top as well.....!
But first we need to test it in the Hallway again.....
Here, I have even moved the kitchen stove
out of the way so you can see the entire table....!
Perhaps we will put a vase with flowers there....
A tray for keys and letters....
And when the Front Door is open.....
And you look in through the door.....
You can just catch a glimpse of the Moon Maiden
carrying the Sliver of a New Moon.....
Which maybe you can spot here....
in the branches over the roof......
The New Moon.....
I tried to zoom in....
(but it makes it blurry.....)
So the Silver of the Moon...
spills onto the branches below....
Bringing a Glow to the dark corner
that is the Hardwick Hall Hallway!
And if you want to see more of the Moon Maidens,
Dear Readers, you will have to go Here...
Yes, they are invisible....
But I know they are there!
