Construction Progress...

Here are a few pictures of the progress as of last week. The cornicing should arrive next week and then they can crack on completing the walls and move on to the flooring.

Below: a view of the foyer from the front door.

Below: A view of the staircase from the ballroom hallway.

Below: The jungle of flues and various fireplaces. This was one disappointing aspect of the build, that the fireplaces had to protrude into the rooms so much. They are 600mm deep, before the 300mm deep mantlepieces are fitted, meaning they will protrude into the rooms by 3 feet. At least the rooms are large enough to cope with this. 

It was also a pain that under law each fireplace must have its own flu (so back to back fireplaces on the lower floor with back to back fires above require 4 flues coursing up through the walls, and chimney pieces wide enough to hide the flues at 400mm wide each (1.6m plus 1.8m fireplaces = 3.4m blade walls!).

Below: The staircase from the top.

Below: The lift shaft from the top.

Below: The dentils waiting to be fixed to the eaves around the outside of the manor.

Below: Detail of the frieze band onto the top of which the dentils are fixed.

Frieze Frame...

While I was back home I checked on the progress of the exterior details - the columns, capitals and frieze bands. Konstantinos, our master carver, had finished carving the prototype for the two large columns on either side of the central portion of the manor.

Above: pictures/details of the upside down capital for the main columns. He has carved a quarter of it, as the other three quarters will be direct replications.

Below: The boxing for the frieze band. 

I designed the frieze band detail myself.

Above: The profile for the frieze band

The boxing is a positive detail for the plaster work, which will be painted in fibreglass and then cast in latex to make a negative mold. The negative mold will then be used to create the 100m of frieze band required to encircle the house at the midfloor level (seen sitting on the columns below):

Usually a frieze band goes at the top of a building forming the middle part of the entablature...

We have two frieze bands, one at the top below the modillions/dentils which will render the entablature to look something like this:

But we also have a mid-floor frieze band such as seen in these buildings below:

Above: The Royal Albert Hall has several frieze bands at various levels.

Some of the inspiration for our frieze band design: