Steampunk Dreamin'
There's actually a lot in my house that already works in a steampunk milieu; the chair I linked to in the last post (yes, I'm posting twice today. Consider it an sort of apology for being so lax in the past year), my mercury glass and various antiques, not to mention half the furniture. But it's the little touches that bring out the "punk", and it's not just covering everything with old watch gears.
(Oh, good news on the cool metal bed front - we found another that should fit, and has a nice Victorian - but not overpoweringly so - look to it. Yay!)
One of the things I thought would be cool in my studio would be to store many of my art supplies in old tin canisters, the kind that used to store kitchen goods. Apparently, I'm not alone in this desire - There's a company that sells through Amazon that makes vintage-looking canisters that are pre-aged. And The Country House also has aged grocery tins. My thought was to get new ones, since they wouldn't look aged in the Victorian era, and print interesting labels for entirely ficticious objects on them - "Mr. Filbert's Aether Bubbles", and "Dirigible Brand Safari Pencils - Guaranteed to write in the harshest conditions". With the right font and the right imagery, they'd look great, and keep a lot of my loose things (like pencils) under control. Add some "spookier" objects, and you'd also have some cool Halloween decor.
I love that kind of stuff.
"Things under glass" is another crafty category I love - I'm a big fan of the static display. When I was younger, my father's office was always a fascinating place for me, as it was filled with thousands of curious and delightful things, and I remember many of my relative's houses being the same way. In the case of houses like the one where my great-aunt Peg lived, it was almost like walking into a time-capsule, where nothing had changed for aeons, and hidden treasures lurked, forgotten, on shelves with books that had not been opened for fifty years.
In fact, a number of the finer art pieces in my possession have come from my mother discovering a folio of old prints and watercolours in her house at Hedenham, and she gave to me because she thought I'd like them. This is how I own multiple 18th Century etchings, and some gorgeous watercolours from the first decades of the 19th century (because there is no freaking way I'd afford them on my own). I love to re-create the feeling of discovery and charm in my own house, and it's great fun for me to see people pick something up and marvel over it (This is also why I like doll houses so much). Steampunk actually lends itself very well to that sense of discovery and treasure-hunting, as delightful things lurk on shelves and in half-lit corners; a lacy shawl half-draped over a glass dome reveals a curious mechanical insect perched on exotic flora; an absent perusal of a shelf of bottles brings to one's attention the secret workings of a master of arcane arts.
I love that kind of thing. And turning my one-day-it-will-be-built studio into a Wunderkammer seems to me to be the most delightful project. After all, if one can, why not?
(Oh, good news on the cool metal bed front - we found another that should fit, and has a nice Victorian - but not overpoweringly so - look to it. Yay!)
One of the things I thought would be cool in my studio would be to store many of my art supplies in old tin canisters, the kind that used to store kitchen goods. Apparently, I'm not alone in this desire - There's a company that sells through Amazon that makes vintage-looking canisters that are pre-aged. And The Country House also has aged grocery tins. My thought was to get new ones, since they wouldn't look aged in the Victorian era, and print interesting labels for entirely ficticious objects on them - "Mr. Filbert's Aether Bubbles", and "Dirigible Brand Safari Pencils - Guaranteed to write in the harshest conditions". With the right font and the right imagery, they'd look great, and keep a lot of my loose things (like pencils) under control. Add some "spookier" objects, and you'd also have some cool Halloween decor.
I love that kind of stuff.
"Things under glass" is another crafty category I love - I'm a big fan of the static display. When I was younger, my father's office was always a fascinating place for me, as it was filled with thousands of curious and delightful things, and I remember many of my relative's houses being the same way. In the case of houses like the one where my great-aunt Peg lived, it was almost like walking into a time-capsule, where nothing had changed for aeons, and hidden treasures lurked, forgotten, on shelves with books that had not been opened for fifty years.
In fact, a number of the finer art pieces in my possession have come from my mother discovering a folio of old prints and watercolours in her house at Hedenham, and she gave to me because she thought I'd like them. This is how I own multiple 18th Century etchings, and some gorgeous watercolours from the first decades of the 19th century (because there is no freaking way I'd afford them on my own). I love to re-create the feeling of discovery and charm in my own house, and it's great fun for me to see people pick something up and marvel over it (This is also why I like doll houses so much). Steampunk actually lends itself very well to that sense of discovery and treasure-hunting, as delightful things lurk on shelves and in half-lit corners; a lacy shawl half-draped over a glass dome reveals a curious mechanical insect perched on exotic flora; an absent perusal of a shelf of bottles brings to one's attention the secret workings of a master of arcane arts.
I love that kind of thing. And turning my one-day-it-will-be-built studio into a Wunderkammer seems to me to be the most delightful project. After all, if one can, why not?