When we left the master bedroom it was looking like this
Not really the gothic boudoir Gomez and Morticia deserve, is it?
I spent a lot of time looking for stills from the 1991 Addams Family movie, and rewatched it a couple of times (it's so damn hard to look at the backgrounds when you're being entertained so thoroughly). The best shot of the master bedroom I could find was this one, which really doesn't show a whole lot, but I can see a lot of dark warm-ish wood panelling. Side note: When you really look at the sets in the Addams' house, it's surprisingly warm and bright in there, the film is just graded so that everything looks grey and black. That insight really changed the colour story I had planned for the dollhouse. Side side note: Ugh, Angelica Huston though, what an icon.
Anyway, I knew I wanted to steer away from your typical black and red/purple high-contrast gothic bedroom, and do something a bit more desaturated and aged looking.
I started with the ceiling. Minimumworld does this amazing textured paper so I cut that to size and started working on it with my Tim Holtz distress ink pads (my favourite thing in the world)
I used a mix of antique linen, walnut stain, vintage photo, and soot to get this look. The ceiling rose is also from minimum world and will be aged separately, but I used it to mark out where soot and other grime would have built up around the edges. The huge splotch on the right is meant to be right above the future fireplace and show smoke damage over the years. My mother had a poorly installed wood burning stove in her living room which, if you ignore the whole "it could have killed her" issue, was very helpful in letting me see what smoke damage looks like. More on that later though - the fireplace and smoke damage, not my mother almost asphyxiating (it's fine, she removed it and we painted her living room)
I used some very pale blue linen effect paper as the base for the walls. I measured these out and cut out openings for the doors and windows, and then marked lines every 2 inches. I really wanted to give the effect of old wallpaper which has started to fail and come apart at the seams, but really didn't want to glue individual strips of paper down to achieve this.
When I do this again, I'm going to cut the paper a little differently. I cut my pieces to the exact depth of the room, but in hindsight I should have left a little overlap to fold onto the adjoining walls and cover any gaps. As it stands, there are some slight gaps between the back and side walls - nothing too noticeable but it could have been much more seamless if I'd thought ahead.
I lightly scored each line with my scalpel, and then used the edge of the blade to gently separate the layers of the paper.
This takes some finessing, and I think general inconsistencies in the paper make it more successful in some places than others, but you can get a really good effect.
I don't know if this would work on every embossed paper, but it's worth experimenting and seeing what happens.
I aged the paper with the same ink pads as the ceiling, focusing on the tears and around anywhere I thought the grime would build up. This is the piece which will go around the windows. I've figured out a variety of techniques for applying the ink - lighting wiping the pad across the paper will apply a lot of product but it's very stark, a small eyeshadow brush is great for applying it softly. I also found putting a heavy layer of the antique linen down first is very effective at helping all the colours blend into one another. I don't really feel like you can go wrong with this step, just keep working at it until you like the results. I made sure to use my darkest colour inside the tears - the rough paper under there really soaks it up and help it look like old, stained plaster.
I glued the paper to the walls using Aleene's tacky glue, continuing the smoke damage down on the wall. You can see the paper doesn't go all the way to the floor, the bottom half of the wall will be panelled, so it seemed pointless taking it all the way down, plus the paper comes in A4 sheets, and this is the most efficient way of orientating the paper with the least amount of waste.
That water stain in the corner is one of my favourite details (even though I hate the placement and wish I'd done it in the other corner). I can't remember where I saw this trick, but I have a little perfume atomiser bottle - from a Christmas cracker - that I fill with a heavily diluted mix of black and brown acrylic paint. I simply spray this wherever I want some extra ageing, blotting any excess off with a paper towel. It's super simple and super effective. This is the same kind of thing I use.
I unfortunately didn't take any progress photos of the panelling, but it's pretty straightforward. I cut 3 inch wide strips of card stock to the lengths of the walls, and used them as the base to construct the panelling. This meant I could work on them flat and just fit them in place as and when they were done.
I used card strips, foamcore, some bamboo skewers and some zip ties to add detail to the panelling, and glued the trim around the windows. You can see I've also started to age the glass in the french doors.
This was just an experiment that I fully expected to fail, but I love the result. I smeared watered down acrylic paint on the "glass" and then globbed some PVA glue over each one. It all mixes together to form this muddy looking nightmare, but once it dried I really think it gives the effect of dirty leaded glass. My only reluctance about it is the longevity, I don't know if it might peel off, but it was super easy to do and used products I was using anyway, so if it does fail down the line I'm not going to be upset. So far it's holding up great.
I gave the panelling a basecoat of black, and then went over everything with several washes of burnt umber and a dark brown acrylic.
I then switched gears and made a fireplace for this room (read my last post here about how I did that)
Can you see where I messed up? I had a complete moment of not thinking and centred the fireplace on that strip of panelling, then I built all the panelling up, glued it in place... And then I realised the fireplace doesn't line up with the smoke damage.
I kicked myself for a bit, and then tried to fix it, which made a huge mess on the wall and now means it'll be a complete pain in the neck to fix.
I hastily made a mirror to try and cover my mistakes, but I don't like how that looks either.
I refused to take a photo of the mess I made, but trust me when I say it looks terrible. For now I'm leaving it, and I've bought a bunch of pieces to make photo frames from so I think I can hide it with those. If not I guess I'll have to rip it all out and re do it. Ugh.
On the plus side, I am very happy with the room overall
There are some finishing touches to add like crown moulding, and I'm not entirely happy with the paint job on the panelling. It still feels a bit flat so I'm going back and drybrushing on more layers when I get bored of other things. Also need to tackle the chandelier but that really scares me so I'm ignoring it until it makes itself.
Also, should I attempt stained glass on the windows? I've been experimenting with a few ideas and I think I could pull it off.
These are the windows in my real life house, and I'm thinking something similar. What do you think?