Castle Great Hall Revisited....

 

 

Where To Begin......

Believe It or Not, Dear Readers, I had thought I might get to finishing the Painting of the Great Hall Ceiling now that so much of the already completed rooms of the Castle had been "strengthened" and I could finally turn my attention to The Great Hall. The ceiling is still removable so that the access to the Hall is easier while building is happening, and also so that I can paint the ceiling. I have been working on this very sporadically for years! (Those Patient Saints!) I have been planning to add a row of "strengthening stones" to the wall where the ceiling meets it for additional support and for realistic visual effect. The problem is that the ceiling is not uniform in its shape and doesn't meet the wall in a neat line. (More of those gaps and cracks as well as too tight places!) This needs to be fixed one way or another! And once the ceiling was removed and I could begin to plan how it meets the walls, it became clear that how it met the Front wall was not well planned at all. This would be because it really was not planned at all. I have been realizing as I strengthen the other rooms, that the front corners where the opening wall attaches have never had the corner posts that should have been part of the original framework. I hadn't planned how the fronts would attach, and did a poor job of it as I went room by room. The smaller rooms can maybe do without a corner post, structurally, but the Great Hall needs those posts! 

 Here is a view of the Great Hall ceiling removed....

(it is propped on my painting chair...)

The painted sections are just corrugated cardboard

 curved to resemble an arched ceiling

 and glued between "stone" ribs.

You can see that the curved sections do not match at their ends.

I will have to fix this.

But more importantly, the "ribs" are supposed to sit on stone corbels

which should attach firmly to the walls.... 

but on one side the open wall prevents that.

Without this support, the ceiling has warped and sagged a bit.

Add to that the fact that the side walls are too skinny...

 and have no corner support... this is the right wall....

And this is the left wall... 

and the walls are not tied together across the front in any way....

Yikes! What was I thinking?!

Strengthening is needed desperately!

Starting with a "tie" between the two end walls at the top.

This will also provide support to the ends of the ceiling "ribs".

Which you can see here.

I have screwed into the cross tie 

from both ends to give it strength!

 

 

Here is the view from beneath.... 

the added piece will be painted to look like stone.

 

This is the ceiling using the flash on the camera....

way too bright.... but it shows the frame work better.

 

And once I had added the cross tie,

 I needed to strengthen the front wall corners. 

This was going to require some extra carving on the corner pieces

 because I left no room on the wall when I added 

the door surround "stones" all those years ago.

And on the other corner I had to carve away some of the "stone" texture

 that I added to the walls of the Great Hall,

 so the new corner piece could be flush to the wall.

And the corner piece on this side would also need 

to fit around the stone door surround in the Gallery too!

Here you can see the new corner post has been added in the Gallery.

And beneath the Gallery too. 

 

Here is the new corner post on the left side, 

fitted over the door surround stones.

 

 These corner posts will hardly be visible once the front wall is in place,

 but will provide much needed strength to the corner of the room!

And that is as far as I got, Dear Readers,

 on my Castle Great Hall revisit.

The ceiling still awaits the painting... 

the corbels and ceiling supports still need to be added...

But I feel as though I made a good beginning...

And I might even know where I am going!