The Deverry clan was tasked with the decoration of the guilds new T1 hall in South Freeport. It took Danda a few months, but she finally got it done, mostly within the parameters given: No water falls, no "pretty or qeynosian" flower gardens, no pillows, don't use the entire item count. As you'll see, she managed to sneak in a few tasteful examples of each, but in the end delivered a unified, elegant, simple whole, suitable for the guilds meetings and entertainments, such as they are [not].
I threw out any idea of personal spaces and focused on public spaces. We wanted a tradeskill room and a library for sure, and a meeting room would be a nice touch, with a nod to medieval england. One large room put aside or converstation, reading, socializing, the other for food and drink. The entrance area would be dedicated to transportation, with our own druid ring in the center.
Using repeating design elements throughout (fireplaces, chandilers, rugs), and then duplicating chairs, tables, lamps within each space, it all came together. The story can be read in the Norrathian Homeshow (http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=442274) and all the pictures are on Photobucket (http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm18/mhuygen/EverquestII/Infinite%20Luck%20GuildHall/EQ2_000172.jpg) including a slideshow (http://s292.photobucket.com/albums/mm18/mhuygen/EverquestII/Infinite%20Luck%20GuildHall/?albumview=slideshow)
But here I thought I'd show something from each room, maybe why I did what, etc.
I'll start with the food and drink half of the hall. It was importatnt to me to have things match, both from a decorating perspective and to keep the lag down, since repeating elements need less rendering. I also wanted to make sure all the different races in the guild would fit. That meant tables and chairs in different scales, suitable for trolls and fae. One of my favorite elements was the sideboard I came up with to separate the formal dining room from the bar and snack area. It's just some ash bookcases with ornate shelves on top, wedged between two columns, but I really like how it came out. It took a bit of tweaking to make it so the bracers on the shelves didn't show, and I had to put some mirrors on the back to hide stuff as well. But it meant I didn't have to use place settings on the tables, what an item saver that is.
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Next is the bar "zone" which is actually the last thing I finished. I wanted the redwood furniture and I had to wait for Danda to skill up enough to make it. Lucky thing too since I really like how the redwood end tables looked used as tables. the green detail matches the chairs and bar perfectly. Again, everything is sized differently. The fireplace has some traditional devans and a bench in front of the fire and on the walls I have some stand up, high stool drinking bars.
The bar itself owes a lot to the one in Deliawyn's house. It's tucked in the corner, under the loft for the kitchen. Could never figure out what to do with the doorknocker but I like it in the middle of the mirror.
You can't really see them (they are hiding in the back of the bar picture) but a simple set of vale bench stairs goes up to the kitchen loft. Chests under rosewood tables make it look like drawers ( I think) and the freeport bedside tables make a great center island. I used the vampiric mirror and glacial bookcase to make an icebox, not an original idea but one worth appropriating.
The other large room is the living room. Back to back fireplaces are used to divide the space. On one side a cozy chat area with two chairs, bear skin rug and the fountain. On the other side an almost duplicate of that seating area but more formal. I struggled with how to scatter the chairs and table and I think I settled on something that works. A combination of intimate tables, formal seating by the fire, grouped conversation areas, all with different scaled chairs, and low tables to make display spots that can also provide some separation. Into the nook I put the requisite fish tank. It's just too much fun to make and where else can you put a swimming fish after all. Here I got help from Janecan, who had the faction to make the stone blocks and wispy bushes. There's no real floor, just a dragon nest and a straw floor mat floated off the floor so I could have things poke thru to get the affect I wanted. And to hide the snowbank used to looks like bubbles. Xepnar made me a streaming tapestry that I hung sideways in the back to look like shimmering water. Combined with the "glass" of the vampiric mirror, it looks like a real water filled space.
Above the tank is the muscians loft with a nice set of curving stairs leading up. But there isn't anything up there really, jsut some pillows for a romantic tryst or something.
Downstairs is where we put the business amenties; the mender, bank, and broker, and the tradeskill stations with writ giver and fuel merchant. Since everyone whould be coming down here often, I wanted to make sure everyone could run quickly up to the loft. So I used a ramp instead of stairs, and it works great. Now this took a lot of doing. Not the ramp itself so much. Just four ornate shelves, hung on bookcases to match in the middle. The work was getting the linen scenary paintings in place. Because of the ramp, the LOS had to be just so, and I couldn't both the top and bottom edge. They had to be slid into the small space between the bookcases they are hung on, and the ramp already in place. I gave up any idea of getting the paintings back to back. I could probably dismantle the whole thing, make the walls first and then place the shelves, but these particular paintings are solid so there's no gaurentee it would work. Besides, it looks good and most of visitors seem to be impressed by it, so why mess.
The other small room is the library and office. Again, a loft. Yep I like lofts. And although you can't see it, there's another ramp leading up to it. This one tucked behind the library shelves that look like they are at the end of the room. Maybe we'll get the shelves filled in eventually and curios placed in the niches. Again, the desks are all different sizes, and have scrolls, books, ink quills and reading lamps.
Up the ramp are the offices of the guild leaders. We had a trifecta and out GL is a gnome, hence the small size, and separation of the one desk.
But my favorite room has to be the meeting room. I used the upstairs room with the window and patterned the whole thing after a knights hall I saw in England. With no small tribute to the Knights of the Round Table. The glacial walls filled in the wall shelving nicely making a good space to hang whatever trophies we manage to acquire. In front of the window we have stadium seating made from sandlewood platforms, ,nimbus rugs and just a few single pillows. The main body of the guild sits there or on stone benches on the sides. All the members with the rank of Knight sit at the tables. And the leaders get the ice chairs on the platform on the other end. Everyone has a wine glass. But my favorite element are the banners. I wanted a way to make it look like every knight/clan/family and their own colors displayed, so each strut on the walls has a banner sticking out from it. Eventually I hope the game will have enough different ones so they aren't repeated. A bookcase, a shelf and a lot of mouse scrolling got them in place and I think the whole hall looks truely like a medieval mead hall, to steal from Beowulf.
Anyway, that's it. Fell free to stop by and visit on Antonia Bayle, in South Freeport, Infinite Luck.
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