The basement and kitchen rooms ....

The past few months have been really busy but I've managed to get some time to work on the basement.

 In Georgian homes the kitchen rooms which usually included the main kitchen the pantry and servants hall, the butlers room and the house keepers room and possibly a wine cellar too were all in the basement.  This house has 3 rooms in the basement but I have room to make it 4 if I decide later on. The pics below show how I made the flag stone floors and the kitchen range which usually takes up a full wall.

Firstly the flag stone floors.

I used 220grm weight textured card and scored it to resemble flagstones then I coloured it with oil pastels using 3 different colours to get the gradient of colour that I needed.

The floor resembles the stone floors of the era.

Next I started work on the kitchen range which in those days was always black and had a central fire heating the top and ovens on either side. I used Bass wood for this as it's strong enough but also light and takes a stain or paint really well.

 I built a false wall around the range 

 and made stone walls from painted egg cartons, then I tiled the wall above the range with blue and white tiles printed on to gloss card, these tiles were very popular in the 18th century.

Next I put a top across made from mount board and painted it to look like copper with a rail to hang the pots and pans on. Kitchens then were full of copper pots and pans and copper jelly moulds.

I needed to make large hinges for the oven doors and decided that this cutting die I have for a butterfly body was the right size and shape. 

So I bent the ends and put them round cocktail sticks to make the heavy hinges for the oven doors, I was really pleased with the finished look.

I dry brushed some copper paint to give it an aged look.

The handles were made from jewellery findings and I added some logs too.

The fire will be added later as I haven't found one that will fit yet but it will have a realistic flickering glow. 

To the left I made a small cupboard which will have a handle in due course.

This pic shows the finished kitchen wall and the kitchen table. Loads more to do to the kitchen but so far it's looking quite good. Thanks for visiting see you next time.