Château des Vigiers

Last week I was at Château des Vigiers, in the hotel area, painting 2 doors both sides plus their surrounds. They were fire doors which replaced beautiful old carved wooden doors, which, incidentally, I painted 25 years ago.  This probably sounds rather boring to read about, and you can be forgiven for giving up on me right now, but I had to make them look acceptably old, in order to match the existing decor of the hotel. That is to say, they had to look comfortably homelike, not new, not shabby, but as if time has aged them in the way an elegant duchess would retain her beauty in her waning years…think Audrey Hepburn aged 80 , then maybe you know what I mean. ( except that she didn’t reach 80, unfortunately, but that’s by the by).  Anyway, I patined them subtly, by mixing up a ‘dirty’ wash and spreading and wiping carefully into the cracks, then I gilded them,  shadowed and high-lit them, until I decided they finally looked authentic. I then slapped a coat of varnish on for easy maintenance, ( they have to stand up to regular cleaning,—fly-dirt, fingermarks and a lot of wear and tear, etc.) As you can tell, I can always manage to turn the simplest job into a complicated work of art; well.. it makes life more interesting.

Here is the château deep amongst the vines

 

Here is the view from my place of work this time, I never complain about where I work ! (Except for the irritating sounds of golf balls clonking in the distance)

One of the doors in question, before their makeup is applied.

 

Once again, I forgot to take a photo of the finished doors, because I had to leave in a hurry, I will post it later on, although the subtlety is usually lost in a photograph.  Meanwhile here are some pics from the château.

The upper hall where I was working, you can just about see one of the 2 afore-mentioned doors in the corner there, before their makeup is applied.

I painted the theatrically painted window and lift surrounds 25 years ago at 3 in the morning I remember! They are intentionally carnival like. The lift doors themselves were horrid metal ones , so I had to disguise them somehow, they have stood up well to the passing of time.

Salon de thé, which we re-decorated last year.

Another sitting room.

A beautiful creature arrived at the window.

A bedroom, I painted the headboard, a few years ago and up under the canopy, which you cannot see. It was cherubs and things.

Meanwhile, Graham still has his head stuck under the bonnet of our 2 cv, in fact she looks as though she is about to gobble him up!

 

 

 

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