The Brideshead Suite...

I have spoken a lot about the Brideshead Suite (our bridal suite with a terrace balcony overlooking the park on the northern side of the house) but I have never written a post about it....

It is the largest of the suites, and was designed somewhat from this photo we found of a long room with several well demarcated areas:

Above: The photo which inspired our design.

Below: A plan of the suite.

The decor that will typify this suite: light and classical...

There is a canopied bed against the wall to the left as you walk in, with a sitting area to the right, similar to these suites...

Below: The initial progress photo showing the wall against which the bed sits, with the north balcony on the right.

Below: That same view as the walls and doors went in...

Below: Recent views of that same wall now, showing the crown cornicing with canopy cornicing...

This will allow us to create this effect above the bed...

We shall also have wainscoting panels around the room, especially noticeable on the wall against which the bedhead sits, as we have sconce lighting in the middle of the side panels, and the bed in the centre panel...

Below: My roughly sketched plan of the wainscoting for our builders...

Views of the seating area through to the balcony...

Above: View from the suite door.

Below: View from end of bed towards sitting area and through wall into ensuite.

Below: The same view now the walls have been plastered.

They had to specially laminate the skirting to get it to wrap around the curved wall...

They took lengths of the skirting and split them into five layers, wet them, bent them, then glued them back together in order to create the curve...

Below: The end effect...

They had an even more difficult time wrapping the cornicing around the top of the curve, which was simply not possible. As it is triangular in cross section, it means that the larger top edge would have to expand whilst the smaller bottom edge would have to compress. Something which can not be done with a hard brittle medium.

The solution: Konstantinos to the rescue. He hand carved a curved section to match our cornicing especially for this wall...

Painted you would never know...

The door you can see on the left of the photo is the closet, the door of which will be a framed full length mirror, so that the bride can check she is looking just perfect!

I look forward to sharing more photos once the interior has been furnished, which should be in June/July.