Beren's Gondorian Bedroom!

[GrueSam]

Hey Elendil- Good to see you over here, too!

 

[Elendil]

Thanks, good to be here!

 

[galactiboy]

Amazing work so far! Can't wait to see how this all turns out

 

[Darth Cruel]

I am jealous. I wanted desparately to do a Gondor-themed hall for my dining room.

But that idea got shot down.

This looks awesome!

 

[sabiansix]

I like the dining room idea!

 

[Darth Cruel]

I like the dining room idea!

I have always wanted a medievil "banquet hall" for a dining room complete with a fireplace and a rough-cut oak table big enough for like ten people. Since LOTR came out, I really liked the way Gondor was portrayed and since then my desire for the room has been ammended to be more specifically Gondor-esque.

 

[Fritz]

Very nice. I'm looking forward to watching your progress.

 

[Beren]

UPDATE!!​

Okaaay, it's been a while. My first post was in mid-January 2010, 16 months later it's time for an update. I estimate 2-3 more updates in the future but in MUCH quicker succession... It just seems very time-consuming to select pics, upload and resize them on imageshack, copy and paste (edit?!) the links etc... Sigh.

My original plan was to finish the project before moving in end of Feb 2010. Wow, was I off. 2 weeks before I moved in, I had realized that it was way too exhausting moving stuff and working on the bedroom a few hours here and there when time and work permitted.

So I moved in completely Feb 28 2010, down to the wire.

After the move I continued to work on the walls. There was a lot of trial and error here and I wasted hours and days, having to reapply "foundation", wait for it to dry and start over, I think twice.

I would shift to the trim when I got too frustrated with the walls. It was also really tiring, "pushing" and rubbing the color layers into the walls. It wasn't a "walls, then trim" process.

The goal was to make the trim look like stone. Four-step process.

1) Stipple on gray Venetian plaster.
2) Then sand it down (actually looked pretty good at that point).
3) Then apply two different paints (light brown and blue-grey), let it dry till it's sticky and then
4) wipe down.

Step 3 took some time because I'd experiment with different ratios of colors to see how they would interact with the plaster, on a testing board. I think I created 8 different tests, to decide which tone of color I liked best...

Also added an effect where the plaster would appear to crack in certain spots, due to age.

 

[Beren]

Wall and trim done and doors inserted back. The doors took an additional 7 hours, for another layer of light brown paint to reduce the red and then varnished them. 37 hours total for the doors, yikes!

Bed temporarily placed. No curtains yet at that point, it got bright early! Very different after living in a basement apartment for 9 years!

My bed frame! At first (Dec '08) I had a design that I presented to a commercial artist who works with wrought iron for a living. I wanted a four-poster bed with the posts replicating the top of Saruman's staff and on the headboard the Tree of Minas Tirith. My design would have cost $6000! (I was hoping up to $3K)

After coming out of a 2-day depression, I started looking at used bed frames on eBay and Craigslist. On and off. Nothing fit the "vision". Even took a woodworking course because I thought I may try to make my own bed frame, wood instead of iron! And I also noticed the beds depicted in the movies were in fact wooden frames! On a late night in April last year, I looked again online and found an iron-wrought bed frame. $4000 retail, for $1000 off Craigslist!

It was fine for an Elven bed room but not so much for a Gondorian one... But hey, maybe it was gifted to a Gondorian from the Elves! At first I was debating if I should try to get the pewter finish off, so the original iron (black) would come through. Then I realized that this bedframe is an hommage to Telperion, the Silver Tree of Valinor!

I'll repeat my request from my last post: if anyone has hi-rez images of Middle-Earth environments, please let me know! (see post #8 on why)

Future updates will be much sooner!!

 

[FlyAndFight]

Amazing job on the walls. They look fantastic.

That bed really works well for a LOTR theme.

Looking forward to seeing more progress pics.

 

[Maglor]

Just seeing this thread for the first time. Very cool stuff, can't wait to see it finished.

It was fine for an Elven bed room but not so much for a Gondorian one... But hey, maybe it was gifted to a Gondorian from the Elves! At first I was debating if I should try to get the pewter finish off, so the original iron (black) would come through. Then I realized that this bedframe is an hommage to Telperion, the Silver Tree of Valinor!

Good call!

 

[carbo-fation]

Great work so far, Beren. The walls look really nice.

 

[Beren]

UPDATE!!​

Man, time sure flies by! Can't believe it's been so long since my second installment! Another 17 months! Yikes!

So part of the design was beams supporting the ceiling...

That process was quite arduous. At first I contacted a company that would have supplied me with real wood beams, from reclaimed wood. I estimated I could get away with 5X6, because I was concerned about the weight of wooden beams attached to the ceiling. If one of those fell off, that'd be pretty dangerous.

So I emailed this company in Kitchener-Waterloo, Timeless Material Company, gave them the dimensions, length, my location (pretty far from them), and the curvature of my ceiling, it's not completely flat.

They came back with a price for 3 beams, which I found reasonable. So I drove out there, not fully understanding how far they were (about 90 minute drive, 70 of it on the highway). Get there, they show me around, I ask about weight, they say no problem. I'm a bit concerned that they are willing to go ahead with the order based on a customer's measurements. What happens if they get to the site and it doesn't work?! They suggest I pay $100 for one of their guys to come out, have a look themselves, if we go ahead, the $100 are deducted, so no cost if I follow through. In fact, I was so concerned that I was suggesting they send someone to confirm it was all OK.

I say yes because I am serious in making this happen. I thought it weird they would go ahead without this extra step.

Their guy comes out, checks the attic to see which way the joists are running and they are running the right way (across from where the 'fake beams' would be installed). He even suggests that we could use 5X8 instead of 5X5. Works for me, I was just concerned about safety and the weight on the ceiling.

A few days later I get a quote that is practically double. I got real annoyed. Of course it's one thing to go from 5X6 to 5X8 at 13 feet of length but suddenly amongst the charges were adjustments because my ceiling was not flat and a nice delivery charge. They knew where I lived when I first contacted them, they knew my ceiling was not flat and their guy got the exact same measurements as I had. These costs should have been mentioned in the original quote before I spent half a day driving out there and back.

I emailed them about my concerns and laid out the facts and got a fairly snarky reply back. I probably have it still somewhere. (Actually I do, just reread them.) I told the manager I got the impression of dishonest sales tactics, he made veiled threats of suing for slander if I go ahead and post my opinions openly. I have facts on my side, emails to prove it, so make my day.

Did some research and came across a company in the US that sells faux beams. So I ended up ordering these babies. Better choice: extremely low weight, no risk of injury, they were relatively easy to install (compared to real beams anyway), I was able to create the impression of 4 beams out of the three I ordered because it was easy to cut one of the beams in half length-wise. And at a third of the cost to have had 3 real beams installed.

 

[Beren]

Bedroom light! Was looking for something that would hide the light bulb. And sell the illusion that it could be a candle or oil lamp in there. And got it (for once) for a steal! On Sale! LOL

The curtains were custom-made. Shout-out to Claire Horsnell, who can do amazing things but her real talent lies in something completely different, editing in publishing.

https://clairehorsnell.com/index.html

The empty boxes of my collection on display have to go somewhere...

 

[Beren]

The nightstands are solid wood and simple in design. No electric nightlights! Candles (tea lights) only!

On the left we have Gandalf's staff Votive Holder.

On the right nightstand we have Saruman's Votive Holder.

This is the view from lying in bed.

I inlaid black satin in the Sting Museum Collection display case.

The original background was this:

The shield will go up on the as yet unfinished 4th wall. Or at the head of the bed. Or the sliding door wall. Not sure yet. Will ask for opinions later...

I'll repeat my request from my last post: if anyone has hi-rez images of Middle-Earth environments, please let me know! (see post #8 on why)

 

[creature4000]

Fantastic!!! Good Job!