Lars Sjöberg a man of passion

I seem to write a lot about lost heritage but it's because it's something that touches me deeply.

I had the idea for my next build to work on a Swedish manor house and take inspiration from the amazing Lars Sjöberg and his dedication to the saving and restoration of Swedish heritage.

Over the years Lars and his wife have saved and restored many Swedish country houses and in the pure tradition of the build. He has sourced the furniture where possible and learnt to build what he could not find. 

Lars has written and co written several books of which these two are the most well known. I have them both and then some as the Swedish style is one of my favorites.

This style was introduced by King Gustav III who had visited Versailles and decided to emulate it's style in the North of Sweden in the late 1780's. In Sweden the houses and manors were build mostly of wood as it was the resource most available and adapted to the climate. Although much of the furniture was gilded it was mainly a painted version with only some gold detail. Having no exotic woods available the act of painting the finished furniture hid and embellished the pieces giving them a unique stule of their own. 

Following the French Revolution in 1789 the Swedish court purchased many pieces from the sale of the contents of the Palace of Versailles which had been stripped of it's contents.

This is the Chateau REGNAHOLM which was an ongoing restoration of over 40 years by Lars and his wife Ursula and was going to be my inspiration for a future build.

Last night I did some research and realised that back in 2017 this house BURNT DOWN!

I was horrified as I had followed the build over the years, the saving of the structure, the decor and the finding and making of the furniture. For me it epitomised the Gustavien style and the result of a mans dedication to the craft of restoration. The house had survived the horrid bland restorations of the 20th century and had remained much as it had been in it's heyday.

This is the first image I saw last night of the house as it was on the day of the fire.

Below are some of the rooms before the fire. Lars' father actually build the table which was destroyed when a beam fell on it taking most of the chairs with it. This chair became a best seller in it's IKEA version. 

One of the bedrooms.

This is all that is left of these rooms today. You can see poor Lars stunned by the disaster. Insurance money only covered the putting up of scaffolding and covering the roof to prevent further damage. Lars hopes that the country will realise how important it is to save and preserve this manor house and participate in it's reconstrution. A huge undertaking.

Lars Sjöberg 

Lars Erik Johan Sjöberg was born in 1941 and is amongst many other titles a sculptor, author and graphic artist. He had previously held the post of curator at the National Museum in Stockholm. Lars also was Advisor to Ikea in the 1990's where he introduced the Gustavien style to the shop. Lars also is involved in training people in historical building maintenance, historical furniture carpentry and iron forging at the Wooden Academy in Kramfors Sweden.

Lars and his wife purchased the farm with its five main buildings in 1966 and have dedicated most of their lives to it's restoration.

 

Crumbling French beauty.

In a previous post called 'the Destruction of the Country House' I wrote of the disparition of many British country houses in the 20th century. Today I wanted to underline the same problem ongoing in France where thousands of the country's magnificent chateaux are being left to rot and fall down.

Many Chateaux have already either complety fallen down, been burnt or demolished.

Here are some for your 'appreciation'. 

Some links, mainly in French.

https://urbexsession.com/en/samsonova-castle/

https://www.bcd-urbex.com/chateau-des-chasseurs-france/

https://urbexsession.com/en/

Something ELSE !

To end this sad post on a fun but pathetic note here is something to make you smile.

An investor in Turkey decided to build some chateaux in the same way you would build regular housing for the masses. I have no idea what he was thinking that people would want to live in identical chateaux with no land but unfortunately for him he never managed to finish his project when the Turkish economy failled. There are 732 of these mock chateaux with a shopping center in the middle!

So would you choose to live in one of these 'Disney' versions or would you prefer a crumbling old French one? 

Finding my marbles

The next part of the build concerns electrics and until I can get my head around that I looked for something to do quickly. I bought this little console table in eBay for about 25 euros, made by JBM miniatures. It is pretty but I'm afraid that I've seen too many thickly varnished miniatures to love it as it is. I know that I could sand it down but with the detail it would be tricky. I hesitated to dip it in stripper and take it back to wood but in the end I went with paint.

I roughed up the surface with wire wool and gave it two coats of mat white acrylic.

I then decided to paint the top in black marble effect. I just painted some mat black then dabbed a kitchen towel in white paint and transferred the white in blotches here and there but not too regular. I did Something similar with some Emerald green paint then with a fine brush I wiggled some whitish lines over  the surface then picked out parts in brighter white. I then rubbed the surface down with wire wool and took a stiff paintbrush and coated the whole table with dark antique wax rubbing it into the detailing. Next day I brushed it up and with a cloth made the top shine.

It brings out the wood detailing much more this way.

I think it looks more interesting and besides I love painted furniture. 

This style is Chippendale, a sort of Chinoiserie variation.

The top, I admit that the photo is not great.

In place against the wall which is itself not fixed in place yet. The chair is just for scale, I will use others and put one at each side of the table.

With some decor. I would love a silver tray from Mike Sparrow and some decanters and glasses on it here and maybe a vase of flowers too. I might put a basket of books under it or a dog basket.

Below are some tables for inspiration, some for the shape or colour or marble top.

I think that it's good to look at some of the miniatures on sale in a different way and imagine them painted or altered. Idealy we would carve and make all our own furniture but only a few of us has that talent. I do not ! 

The Midas Touch

I know, ANOTHER post in the same day. 

As I decided to try to make a mirror for above the fireplace I looked at my stock of trims and frankly was not over impressed. A year ago I had made molds from some picture frame trim and cast them in resin but again was not impressed. 

SO

I often buy pictures from the local charity shop either for the glass or for the thin wood backing and usually the frames are not very nice industriel gold. I never chuck anything so I dismantle the frames ( throwing them on the floor at an angle usually works ).

Last night late I thought , mmmm maybe I could chop of the pretty bits into fine strips.

My first attempt I took off too little of the base wood and as the 'pretty bits' are molded onto a wood backing they just broke up into small pieces. This does necessitate a table saw as there is no other way. My table saw was about 60 euros to not impossible to buy for us. I then adjusted the guide to take off a mm of the wood along with the decorative molding and it worked. I managed to get two types of trim from one frame piece and a plainer piece from a plainer frame. Please if you do this WEAR A MASK as I am sure that the resin dust is not great for our bodies!

Here is my trove from two pieces of frame. This encourages me to look out for more frames to canibalise for other projects.

A close up of the trims. I think that they look great and will make great frames or even panelling if you have enough of the same type. You could also buy new frames to have enough of the same.

The ruler is in centimètres, the trim is nice and flat and really pretty.

This is the plainer one but again really useful for plainer picture frames. I am thrilled to have found a way to frame some pictures for the house without having to juggle with resin frames.  

I hope that this helped someone.

Huggggssss 

Zero alcohol content

Well as much as I said that I needed some vodka to manage this, it happened without. I was so putting it off and making a big deal of it that I just put my movie on pause, got up and 'did it'. 

I glued the back of the card, as I had said previously, on which I laid the parquet, knowing it would dry but believing that this would give an extra bite to the process. I noticed how MDF has a tendancy to suck up the glue quickly so this acted as a sort of barrier.

I then glued really quickly the floor, laid down the card and placed all the weights I had already calculated to weigh it all down all over.

So here at last and quite painlessly I add is the finished floor! Notice the join between the dining end and the main floor that appears to be a different colour. I will rectify this in daylight as I always seem to work at night in Ramsay House. The dark floor helps the pink walls somewhat.

I had cut the ceiling board, glued in a huge Sue Cook ceiling rose and painted it to match the rest.

It will only go in when the lights are fixed in and the blinds are made up and installed. The back blind has to go in now and the front side one can go on standby for now but I will make it at the same time. I have found a green silk shantung petticoat that I made for my wedding dinner in Mumbai that no longer fits ( it shrunk! A LOT !!  ) that will be the perfect colour.

I realised that instead of hanging the mirror above the fireplace I could put a painting there and the mirror where the painting was going to be. Time will tell. I never know in miniature builds if things have to be glued down and fixed in place or set and hung as in a real house ? What do the rest of you do. I do like the idea of changing the decor from time to time.

Light brigade

When preparing myself psychologically for the glueing down of the floor I realised that there was no light switches in the room! How to put on the lights ( is this going too far ? ) 

I love antique brass light switches but the ones I saw for sale in miniature were really bad resin ones.

So I thought how hard could it be to make some.

I used similar brass studs to the ones used for the wall cornice moldings. For the button I found some ball headed wires. I folded in the spikes, made a pre hole in a piece of mount board, put a dab of glue to the back of the stud, pushed the pin through the stud ( after piercing a hole ) and into the card. I bent the pin behind the card after cutting it short. I then bonked the stud with a Hammer to push the pin-switch into the stud.  I then did this again to make a double switch.

Trimmed down and pre painted.

A coat of pink, I wanted the switch to seem like it had seen many layers of paint over the years as I do with all the house. 

The switch in place, painted and patinated with some umber.

I stained the floor surround in case there were ( and are! ) tiny gaps between the floor and wall when glued down.

As you can see I went for the pink walls. The first reaction was not the best. I found it very baby pink but it turned out to be the lighting which was too brash. I did dirty up the colour with a wash of burnt umber which also helped.

The woodwork dirtied up and varnished and below the pink paint before the patination. It was so much easier to work on this panel than the walls of the main build. There will be window blinds and a few pictures on the walls plus a 'picture light' placed where the hole in the panel is placed.

Now you don't see it, now you do! I suddenly realised that there was a panel missing at the side of the door. Soon remedied but now has to be painted up and patinated to match the rest.

Now another dilema ! I had purchased this frame for this room but suddenly it seemed too dominant for the wall size. I'm not sure that mirrors go up over the ceiling moldings. I didn't want it to rest on the mantle so that would bring it up even more.

I fished out this round one that was going to go into the hall, it still has no glass or gold patina. I could paint it black as this would contrast nicely with the pink. 

I have decided to try to make a mirror specifically for this space and if it turns out not to be good then I will re think the problem. I still have to finish the patination of the pink then glue in the floor and wall lights. The new lights I ordered for each side of the mirror, my third lot, came but were too big for the space and stood out too far. I am going with my second choice for which I made lampshades.

This room will be quite dim despite the lighting so the pink will be a lot softer and should give a nice atmosphere once finished. There will be a large chandelier over the main room, two over mantle lights, a picture light, two table lamps and the dining room LED spot lights in all plus the light from the back window.

I thought that this might help for anyone wishing to make some switches. 

The studs came from the craft section of a sewing shop and the pins from Etsy. 

My next post should be with the floor glued in and the lights fixed in place. I have done a dry run on the weights needed to hold down the floor as it dries. I have cut a piece of heavy mdf to lay on the parquet and heavy weights to press down. I will pre glue the card on which the parquet in made and really glue the floor and hopefully the two surfaces with knit and stay in place. 

Where's the vodka? Oh I forgot I Don't drink ! 

Huge hug to all you lovely followers.