I’m continuing with the ceiling details and it’s starting to look more impressive. I’m waiting for some more wood carved appliqués to arrive for the section between the picture rail and the cornice; I decided in the end to add more as it looked better. Apart from that I’m nearly at the end of adding the mouldings, next will be completing some paint detail. I’ll update you on whole room pictures when we’re at that stage.
In the meantime another glimpse. The room has gone from plain white like this….
to this…
This last section cost less than £50, and was so simple to complete (just like the frieze detail). If you dis-count drying time it took a maximum of two hours!
Paint the wood carved appliqués
As with the details between the picture rail and the cornice, pre-painting the wood carvings mean that you save yourself a lot of mess when you try and paint them in situ.
Mark where the main mouldings will go
With chalk mark where your central wood appliqués will go with crosses. As you do each one start to draw a straight line between each pair, using the spirit level.
To make the placement of the crosses easier I just took the spirit level length, about a meter long, and placed its end flush with the cornice edging. Making sure it was straight I marked the area with a cross. On the corner sections I marked the intersection of a spirit level length from the two walls.
Glue the first appliqué on
I started with one of the middle appliqués first. Place it so it’s over the centre of the cross, then line the ends of the width so they’re touching the horizontal lines. Hold the appliqué in place for about 30-60 seconds.
Glue the wood carved lengths so they start at the furthest length on the horizontal and run along the same line.
When you glue them try and get glue along the length of the length so it sticks properly, but don’t use too much so it squirts out of the sides.
Add a corner moulding
Add a corner appliqué next, but place it on a horizontal angle. As you can see below the two length appliqués have to come out of these at different angles so that they follow the chalk lines.
These is what it had started to look like.
My original intention was to add in half rounds to link the sections along the chalk line. However I started to think that the details were sufficient on their own, and adding the half rounds may have highlighted any inconsistencies in the connections. So I just continued with the details.
Continue round the room like this. Here is a close up of the title photo…
You can see it’s all starting to come together. I’m so pleased with the effectiveness and price of these wood mouldings. If you add wood appliqués in Amazon or ebay you will come up with a grand selection for any project you wish to try.
Firstly, let me apologise for the quality of the pictures I’ve taken. The dining room is at the front of the house and it’s not a brilliant light source to photograph in.
This armoire cornice is from the one that I tried to put back together in the spare room, but I found it had warped so the doors couldn’t go on. For those who follow the blog (if you don’t please hit the subscribe button) you may remember that I used the ornately carved door panels to add interest to the plain, 1970s style door here.
I’d decided that I’d be using the curved top for this project as soon as I made the decision to use the panels.
One of the reasons I wanted to use the armoire in this way, resulting in just buying another one rather than attempting to fix it, is that it can be far more economical to do this than buy wood carved mouldings for various projects. For example, a large moulding for a door like this one will set you back at least 100€. I can buy an entire armoire for that from a brocante and salvage various pieces to use in numerous projects. So, like I said, hit subscribe because this one armoire will be used in a few more projects coming up.
I know I’m talking armoire here, but the English wardrobe from the spare room could have been used in a similar way.
Just a quick reminder, here is how the doorway in the dining room looked prior to today’s work.
The small moulding just above the door came from another armoire. Our rental property when we moved here was ancient and a wonky floor meant the doors opened in a dangerous way and it collapsed as my husband was putting it together!
The moulding is lovely, but very small and didn’t stand out a lot. So the very first thing was to remove it from the wall as it was still too high to allow the wood moulding to fit above it.
The wood carved moulding is heavy, so I had to be sure that it was firmly secured in place. Here’s how I did it.
Pay attention to your drill choice
I used stone drill bits and two drills. One to drill in the wood of the moulding, and the other for the stone wall. Or what I thought was the stone wall, but more of that in a bit.
Our house is ancient; we know it was built pre 1850, but as the French didn’t keep records until then we can’t be sure exactly when. As a result of its age the majority of the walls are stone and when I first started to try and put up pictures in the house I had to drill into the walls. However it was always hard work as the drill isn’t powerful enough.
The drill I was using for this job actually belongs to my father and had enough power to get the job done. I’m just telling you this as if you’re struggling to drill into walls in a period property it may not be you, but your tool.
Brackets
To ensure this heavy item stayed on the wall and didn’t come away – with the danger of causing someone serious harm – I used these brackets. They acted as a mini shelf for the moulding to rest on. They only cost about 3€ per bracket and I got four.
Raw plugs
I chose these multi use raw plugs that separate as a screw is driven into them, and therefore anchor themselves well into the wall. Make sure the head of the screw is flat, so that the moulding can rest flat against it, and is bigger than the screw hole in the bracket.
Cut off the sides of the armoire top
Obviously the armoire top couldn’t go up as it is, so the top needed to be removed and the sides sawn off. I started it off with a screw driver and hammer to prise as much as I could away, then I used a mini saw that’s used to cut off tree branches to do this rest.
Measuring
I did this using the measure app on my Apple phone. If you haven’t seen them they are amazing and, as I always have it with me, it means that I’m ready to measure any piece of furniture for possible fits when I see something in the brocante.
Here’s a photo I took of the measurements.As you can see I took them of the arch and the two sides that would touch the brackets.
Then I marked out where the arch and side lengths where on the wall to ensure a central position, and where the holes for the brackets would need to be.
Drill into the wall
When drilling into the wall start by selecting a drill bit which approximately fits the size of the raw plug. If you’re unsure always use the smaller drill bit first; it’s kind of like cooking. You can always add more, but you can never take it away.
Insert the raw plugs and tap them in with a hammer if necessary. Screw the brackets into the wall.
Add the screw holes to the moulding itself
I rested the wood carved moulding in the brackets and was relieved when they bore the weight. Then I marked where the screw holes needed to go, removed the wood and drilled into the markings.
Prior to placing the moulding on the wall I covered it in no more nails type super glue. Many of you will have noticed the little holes in the wood, it’s obviously had termites. Elsewhere in the armoire it was evident these had been dealt with with a dark, wax substance which was plugging the holes. However the back of the wood obviously wasn’t dealt with.
When I rubbed the wood with my finger there was no residue. I’ve found that active holes will have this. Even so I used so much glue not just to ensure the wood stuck well to the wall, but to plug those holes and stop any termite spread. That’s why there’s so much glue.
Place the moulding in the brackets and screw in place
With the moulding in position, glued and screwed. In place it was onto making it look more polished.
Applying additional wood mouldings
The next thing I did was put the previous, ornate wood moulding back on the door. I just used no more nails type glue to do this, in the exact same method as the wood mouldings on the coving.
Then I glued and added these quarter rounds to the top of the door frame and bottom of the main moulding to cover the brackets and finish the job nicely.
Using filler in stages
Add wood filler or acrylic filler to fill any gaps. Do this in stages as if you keep smoothing over the same area it may result in the filler just being pushed back into any gaps, rather then creating a filled surface. You can see two stages of filler below, note the difference between the first two images and the last one.
Each time you apply filler smooth it out as much as possible with your finger. It’s very hard to go back and correct acrylic filler in particular as it has a plasticky texture that can’t be sanded easily.
Here it was before….
Here It is the mouldings fixed to the wall. Obviously I’ve just painted it white so far, it’s just an undercoat. I need to decide whether I paint the whole door and maybe even panelling teal.
You’ll notice the little square gaps in the detail are; the struts went there. I’ve ordered some additional square, carved appliqués and will add them prior to painting properly. At present though this little job coast around 20€? Not bad.
My pops, a plasterer by trade, was repelled when I said I was going to do this. Ok, maybe repelled is too strong of a word, but he was not happy. How did I, his beloved daughter, risk the alienation of my papa? I put up a polysterene coving.
We need to go back to when we first moved into the house. Despite our French home being ancient, built in the pre 1850s, there are no real period features. But I wanted our village house to have something of a classic, Edwardian look about it. That meant mouldings. In the centre of the room was a medallion and I’d decided I wanted to highlight this by having a coloured ceiling. A closer inspection of the ceiling when I started work showed that it wasn’t an original feature, but a modern, polystyrene addition.
In addition to the medallion I wanted coving, and when I was searching on line I found that what was readily available was the polystyrene kind. A further search revealed that even the more expensive resin type coving was prohibitive, let alone plaster.
Added to that I was in the house on my own and would need to put it up myself. So I ran the risk of buying some.
It’s light weight and you can therefore put it up singlehandedly as a woman. However I did run into some difficulties.
Firstly it said how it would be easy to cut an angle. Well I completely mucked that up and it was a bit of a bodge job looking like this…
Unfortunately I seemed to have lost the original photos, but on some of the corners there where huge gaps between the two side. I managed to salvage them by getting some extra pieces of coving and pushing them into gaps and gluing them in place prior to caulking, caulking, caulking. Caulk was my friend, but I was unhappy with the results for quite some time. Even where there where two straight sides in a run, they looked amateurish. Not happy. More on that in a bit.
Just to note at this moment though – I’ve since bought one of these to cut angles. They’re definitely worth it.
The next difficulty I ran into was that I didn’t make sure I smoothed out the glue as I applied it. I don’t know why I didn’t do something so basic. I could literally kick myself now. However I just stuck it up there and thought I’d smooth it out later with sandpaper – that doesn’t work. Whether it’s caulk or glue smooth it out as much as possible with your finger for a professional finish.
Can I just add that with the ceiling medallion in the hallway I painted that prior to putting it up and I had a much better finish. The one in the dining room was difficult to paint in situ. Obvious I know, but worth mentioning. If I was ever wanting to highlight a relief in different colours I’d definitely paint first and then touch up in situ.
Having grown so fed up of looking at shabby joins I finally ordered these wood decals from here. Those of you who have followed my mouldings series from the hallway will no I’m a appliqué queen – admittedly a small kingdom – and so I simply glued these to the coving to cover any unsightly gaps. They don’t touch all the way, but they still work.
I used clear no more nails type glue on the back of the wood decal and pushed it against the coving where I wanted it to go, holding it there for two or three minutes. This isn’t a complicated fix, you just have to be a little bit patient.
Stay in the room afterwards. If they fall off add more glue, then put them back. This happened to me a couple of times, but eventually I won the battle.
Afterwards I painted with white chalk paint to give it a plaster like texture. This had the additional benefit of securing the appliqué further.
Here’s the room before….
Here’s the after we painted….
And this is it with those little details added…
I’m going to be adding more details to this room so subscribe to see how it goes.
I’ve spoken about our difficulties getting a real fire in the living room. As a result, depending on whether it’s possible to open the fireplace, we may turn the adjacent room into a music room with more formal sitting that we’ll use on high days and holidays.
If we do so I plan to keep the paint scheme as it is, meaning only a change of furniture will be needed.
Here it is currently as the dining room.
So with the blush in mind here are 15 images that are inspiring me.
My main goal next year is to finish our new kitchen at long last. I’ve written about it many times, but we still haven’t finished. Nevertheless when it is finished our plan is to move the dining room to the room that’s beside the kitchen, connected via the small entrance area that I spoke about in yesterday’s post.
I love chinoiserie and thought about how I could get the look in the hallway, bedrooms and now I’m thinking of the dining room.
Chinoiserie is expensive, so the only way we can realistically afford this look is if I hand painted it with the help of stencils. I’ll, of course, share here when I do it. However in the meantime you can click on this link to see my last attempt at painting birds with a stencil like tool.
Now to the chinoiserie.
Blue
Neutral
Taupe
Green
Panels
Grisaille
Which is a way of painting in shades of grey, as the name suggests. I love it, but I don’t think I’d ever be able to manage it myself. Here are some of the images that make me want to blow the budget though.
When we rented an old farmhouse in France we found that many of the lights just had wires and a bulb attached. The house owner wasn’t a cheapskate – it’s normal here. Sometimes the bulbs go too! Whenever I remember this I’m struck by the generosity of the people who we bought from as they left not just light shades, but curtains and others things too.
As a result, and because we had planned to stay there a long time originally, I bought many light fixings. One of them was an empire chandelier. It looked a little bedraggled in the shop, but having taken it a part and cleaned it up I think it looks fine now.
You may notice too the ceiling rose which I’ve painted along with the ceiling. It was quite tricky being that it was in situ, and as a result I didn’t take any photos to show you how I got the slight, white edging on the leaves. I’m going to do another soon for the hallway and as it’s in a box at the moment I’ll do a step by step then.
This is a look before…
and after the ceiling rose has been painted….
You can see the cornice and dado rail that I’ve been putting up too, but I’ll tell you about that soon. Sorry about the quality of the photos, the room is a little dark as it’s north facing and a grey day here. If I can I’ll upload better photos later.
I have some really pretty tea sets that I’ve bought over the years and since we’ve moved to France I’ve managed to buy some soupières for a couple of euros each. I wanted to display them, yet even though there are some glass display cases in the salon I wanted the soupière at least to go in the dining room. When we arrived there was this cupboard here….
I hated it as it looked so functional and odd just there on the wall (I kept expecting to find an electric circuit behind it it as so utilitarian to my eyes). As I wondered what to do – change the handles? Add some decorative mouldings on the doors? Or some above the casing? – I came across a bargain in my local Centrakor. There on the shelves was some paint for walls and wood that cost just 1,99€ in the perfect shade of blush pink. I knew immediately that it would reflect the colours in my Nativity medallion and, as paint is extremely expensive in France, I couldn’t resist.
That’s when I started to think that perhaps I didn’t need the doors at all. I tested the paint on the inside door and, convinced as to how fantastic it would look, the doors were off and painting seriously begun.
I made sure that I left four hours in between coats and the recommended 24 hours before I placed anything on the shelves – there have been so many times I’ve not let paint cure properly and when I’ve put something on them they’ve proved tacky. It’s a worry when you’re trying to pull China away from a shelf, believe me.
In the dining room you when I did an introduction to our home you can see a brown, hardwearing carpet. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t resist one evening having a little sneak peak underneath and this is what I found……
It looks like a marble material, there are glistening flecks in it. I’ve shown it to my dad and he thinks that someone has laid some of these stones and then glazed it over the top. It looks like the white marks are just fixing adhesive and I’ve rubbed it with my fingers to see if it can be moved and it comes away. I’m excited to find out if it’s just in one corner, or if it goes all the way underneath the floor and if it’s the latter is it all in one piece.
As my Pops says; there’s only one way to find out…..
GI know up until now I’ve written of my Catholic life, but I have an absolute passion for creating a warm, cosy, welcoming home by doing up old furniture and making soft furnishings and I really wanted to share this with you too. so I thought I’d start by sharing a walkthrough of our new home.
The house itself is in a little French village and used to belong to the doctor. Everywhere I go in the village when I give my address if they seem confused I say this and straight away they know; telling me about my own home’s features!
The house is on a hill and is in the place where a chateau used to be, in fact the stone from the house comes from the old chateau. I thought I’d take you on a tour of just a few of the rooms downstairs as they are now – the good, the bad, and the ugly – I won’t do them all as I wouldn’t want to bore you!
House Front
The back of the house is lovely and was used to advertise the property…..
However the front is not so appealing and looks like this….
I’d always dreamed of having a traditional French front door so I’m not going to lie to you, the front was a disappointment. However I think it would be impractical in cold, rainy Northern France (that description may not appeal to some people, but my Irish roots means my skin and I love it) and also possibly expensive. So I’m going to focus on giving the front door some wow factor in the coming months.
I’d also dreamed of a house with shutters and this can be far more easily replicated.
Hallway
Going into the hallway I love the dado rail, although there isn’t a ceiling medallion to go with it. These glass doors are wonderful as they keep the light and the heat in. I really wish they had bevelled glass, but I can live with it. The colour is a little strong for me too, but easily changed. I love that the doors have panelling and brass door handles. I wouldn’t have chosen this stone floor, but actually the more I see it the more I like it.
As you go in through the glass doors its a little more…..bleugh. Carpeted walls (?), plain doors into the kitchen and laundry room and a polystyrene ceiling. However the wonderful wooden stairs with its brass features makes up for all of that. Over Christmas my family watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” and my husband made a comment about how our finial lifts out of the socket like there one does. I kind of think that he was watching the film and happily imagining a replication of the on and off screen scenarios; with the main character coming home and finding his wife busily doing up their old house and children happily playing.
As you walk up to the upstairs landing you find this wonderful, large window that actually goes up to the top, attic floor which give a beautiful view that meets you whenever you start to go downstairs. The landing has this beautiful stripped, wood floor which I love.
Even further up the turning staircase there are some original dolly light switches, a glass tulip light fitting and some paisley, victorian style wallpaper. The attic is big and spacious and a wonderful armoire was left behind – apparently it was here when the previous owners moved in 35 years ago.
Dining Room
On your left as you go in is the, for now, dining room. The wood panelling is gorgeous and is probably original from the chateau as I know lots of the original features are used in the houses around here. I also love these radiators and double windows. the big box shapes above the windows are part of electronic shutters and I plan covering them.
Living room
The living room has this amazing extension and is the most modern part of the house as a result. These black light fittings where here when we moved (in fact most of the light fittings remained, which is very unusual in France). I found them to be a little too stark for my taste and as I already had the purple lamp shades this seems like a good way to bring them in line with how the rest of the room is coming together.
When I was planning the decor of the house before we bought (you can follow me on Pinterest through the icons) I’d wanted something more French Country, but actually the very light grey shade on the paper in the summer room and slight shimmer in the main room seems to reflect pieces of furniture and decor I already had, so I’m changing my mind.
One thing I won’t be dissuaded from is making the fireplace more traditional as I hate the corner one (It’s not pictured here, I obviously hate it so much I forgot to photograph it). Although I love that the cupboards have internal lights, and they reflect the fabric artwork I have, I don’t like their plain structure, although other people love them. I think a little additional moulding might be in order!
Again, very unusually, many of the curtains have been left in the house and this set were one of such. I think the material is great but as I wanted curtains to go all the way round the bay and these don’t I won’t be keeping them. However they’re going to a good home so I don’t feel guilty – my mum loves them!
The room is slowly coming together. I’d done most of the re-upholstery on the lilac couch prior to moving and I’ve got material for the Queen Anne chair and the other large sofa to cover them too (They’ll be in gold and a striped lavender shade) – I’m so pleased as these go with the grey and off-white really well don’t they?
I’d actually gone of the paintings that have already gone up, but they’ve found a new lease of life here!
I’m hoping to have the higgledy piggledy nature of it sorted by the end of the year. Can’t wait to start some projects!
and is probably original from the chateau as I know lots of the original features are used in the houses around here. I also love these radiators and double windows. the big box shapes above the windows are part of electronic shutters and I plan covering them.
line with how the rest of the room is coming together.
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