Drawing Room ReDux

Hope I'm not mixing too many Orders!

Still working on refining the plans for the Drawing Room.  I found a similar cornice that Thomas Jefferson used in his own house, Monticello, and I think it is appropriate here in Merriman Park.  It features a favorite motif of Jefferson's: the ox skull(!) interchanged with a rosette medallion.  I think the ox skulls are just  too butch for words.

I'm also still stewing on how to fabricate the niches on the back wall.  They are quite a bit larger than what I can find commercially available and I have resolved to attempt to create more of my own components in the other rooms.  I suppose that I could break down and buy the smaller-sized niches.  Problem solved, right?  But I really like the larger scale of the ones in my sketches! 

(I have a fab surround from Sue Cook for the door).

 I figure, if I fail at the niches, I can always just fill the arches with mirrors!  That might be pretty awesome!  I am for sure going to put a mirror over the fireplace mantle.  Oh, I just noticed I forgot to pencil in the sconces on the pilasters.  Ooops!

This room is starting to remind me of one of the 'period rooms' at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.  That room , I recall was a Music Room from a grand house in Paris.  The walls were painted cream and all the moldings were gilded.  And it really has arched mirrors in all the corners, too!  Spooky!

Definitely going to put another corridor beyond the door opening!

 I'm not yet sure what colors I will end up using in this space, but there is plenty of time before I have to worry about that.  What do you think?   I know that a parquet wood floor would look stunning in a room like this, don't you agree? 

Anyway, back to the niches...Mirrors would be lovely, but right now I have my heart set on niches with statuary!  We're talking Roman gods & goddesses!  Thanks to everyone for your great suggestions on how to pull off the curved and rounded tops of the recesses.  Andy mentioned papier-mache and that is something I have worked with in the past.  I've never been very good at getting a smooth finish with papier-mache.  Here's a puppet head I made a few years ago out of the stuff:

Mr. Punch!

See how the surface is rippled from the layers of paper?  I just don't like that!  (Guess that's why I abandoned this project!

I made the head by sculpting it with clay and then papering it over the clay and then slicing the papier-mache, removed the clay and re-joined the halves.

Probably should have made a cast of the clay head and papier-machied the inside of the cast.  Anyway, if I attempt this technique on the niches, that's how I'll do it.

Guess I can always go back to the mirrors if the niches don't turn out!

Funny thing is that Thomas Jefferson has two similar niches in his Drawing Room at Monticello.  But while he was stationed in Paris as the new American Ambassador, he purchased two matching pier mirrors and sent them (along with a whole warehouse full of French furniture) and where do you think he hung his brand-new Paris mirrors?

That's right --he hung them over the niches and covered them up completely!

Isn't that rather ironic?

Addendum:  OK, after I posted this, there was something nagging me and I think it's that the cornice and the pillar capitals don't really go together.  I don't want the neighbors of Merriman Park to titter behind their fans that I mixed Doric and Corinthian Orders in my principal room!  So I am going to use the Thomas Jefferson cornice in the Library and chose a more apropos cornice for the Drawing Room, which, by the way, seems to be morphing into the Music Room.  Opinions?

Confidential to Karin Corbin:  W.W.K.C.D?