1
Independent Study Project:
Sherlock Holmes Sitting Room
This independent study project was undertaken as a period study exercise focusing on the
Victorian era with a practical portion relevant to theatre production. Thus the contents of this
essay will be separated into two main sections, a research portion dedicated to Victorian décor
and its social context and second section consisting of a personal account of the process by
which the Sherlockian sitting room was designed and created in a 10' x 16' living room.
The Victorian era emerged on the heels of the social upheavals of the French Revolution,
the Napoleonic wars and the romanticism of the Regency period. Due to the revolution there was
a blurring of the visible markers that distinguished the social classes, including but not limited to
a rather drastic change in clothing styles. During the Regency period, this was exemplified by
simpler fashions, a more natural silhouette and an increased awareness of the value of personal
cleanliness and comfort1. It was also in the Regency period that comfort (or at least convenience)
began to take precedence over formality in home décor. “Sofas, formerly placed against the walls,
were now arranged at right angles to or facing the fireplace. The chairs, which formerly were
replaced against the walls after use, now remained firmly in position” explains Alan and Ann
Gore in their book, English Interiors.2 Different social considerations were now being taken into
account.
In the Victorian era, the parlour was essential to the home. Most Victorian parlours had a
central table at which the family could gather, with seats for the man of the house, his wife, and
1
2
C. Willet and Phillis Cunnington, The History of Underclothes (Dover Publications: New York, 1992), 97
Alan and Ann Gore, English Interiors (Thames and Hudson: New York, 1991), 105.
2
their guests or children. 3 The idea of comfort coincided with the belief that the home was a
man’s refuge from the toils of work and civic duty4. As such, as far as men were concerned,
comfort came before elegance. Padded lounge chairs or easy chairs became the norm and men
were often depicted lounging in them (see Figure 1 below).
Figure 1. Comfort Before Elegance, From: John Gloag. Victorian Comfort. Redwood Press:
Trowbridge, 1973.
However John Gloag also notes in his book Victorian Comfort that “comfort was inseparable
from tidiness. […] Indeed, the interior of the Victorian home would have been hopelessly
chaotic without a known and settled place for the innumerable objects that occupied every
available space. Only men were expected to have untidy habits.”5 This fact will be relevant to the
design portion of this essay because Sherlock Holmes was known to be messy in his household
3
Cheri Y. Gay , Victorian Style: Classic Homes of North America (Courage Books: Philadelphia, 2002), 29.
John Gloag, Victorian Comfort (Redwood Press: Trowbridge, 1973), 40.
5
Ibid.
4
3
habits despite his keen intelligence. A bachelor’s untidy home would have been considered
excusable, if not necessarily condoned.
Unlike men, women were conditioned to value elegance, and thus tidiness, before
comfort. They were, after all, in charge of domestic affairs. The ladies’ version of the easy chair
had low armrests, a circular seat and a shell padded back rest. 6 They were rarely depicted
lounging, but usually reading or sewing in their chairs. Realistically, the restrictiveness of the
women’s stiff boned corsets and large hoop skirts would have prevented them from lounging
elegantly in any case, unlike their earlier Regency counterparts whose loose, high-waisted
chemise dress allowed women the relative freedom of draping themselves over fainting couches.
The designers of furniture would have had to consider how the furniture would be used and
balance functionality with comfort and aesthetic appeal, depending on what market they were
catering to.
Industrialization and technology were also major influences on Victorian life. Advances
in transportation, the steam-powered train especially, allowed people to travel farther and faster.
Those wealthy enough to afford a country house acquired one and of course the house had to be
artistically decorated to reflect their wealth and status. An increased demand for furniture had
manufacturers turning to machine assisted production, following the trend of industrialization.
By the late 1700s on, steady advancements were made in developing machines for cutting,
shaping and decorating wood 7 . There are records of circular saws in use as early as 1781. 8
Furthermore, advancements in printing and dyeing changed the availability of the colour and
patterns in wallpaper. The early 1820s favored realistic floral wallpaper in vivid and unnatural
6
Ibid., 60.
Clive D. Edwards, Victorian Furniture: Technology and Design (Redwood Books: Trowbridge, 1993), 25.
8
Ibid.
7
4
colours, but from 1830 the colours became more naturalistic. 9 In the 1840s, floral sprigs and
trellis patterns were popular10. In the 1850s, wallpaper was roller printed instead or block printed
and thus wallpaper became even more affordable to the public11. Consumerism was growing and
Victorians were buying.
In 1851, when the Great Exhibition took place in the Crystal Palace at Hyde Park, it
seemed to the Victorian contemporaries that their society had reached the pinnacle of
metaphorical and physical illumination12. Gloom was considered romantic (or perhaps Romantic)
while light was seen as a symbol of progress, order and safety, due in part to gas lighting in the
streets. Curtains and drapes, as always, were needed to control the light and make a room
comfortable. Victorian lambrequins, a French word for decorative drapery, were usually made of
chintz, fringed damask or embroidered fabric. It was no longer fashionable for valances to be
swaged as in the Regency period because it was believed that dust collected in the folds of fabric
and it was unhealthy to have a dusty room13. Instead, valances would fall flat, vertically, with
some pattern or shape cut along the bottom edge. Lace curtains would also be used to soften the
light and add contrast to the heavier fabrics of the lambrequin. Drapery that covered doorways –
called portières – was used to keep out drafts.14 Not only were drapes used to cover windows and
doors, but a Victorian love of patterned fabrics also had drapes over mantles, tables and chairs.
In line with concepts of cleanliness, small pieces of lace used on the top of backrests to protect
furniture hair oils were known as Tidies. The interplay between light and dark, the visible and
the hidden, was running theme.
9
Alan and Anne Gore, English Interiors (Thames and Hudson: New York, 1991), 138.
Ibid., 139.
11
Cheri Y. Gay , Victorian Style: Classic Homes of North America (Courage Books: Philadelphia, 2002), 34.
12
Martin Hewitt, The Victorian World (Routledge: New York, 2012), 16.
13
Alan and Anne Gore, English interiors (Thames and Hudson: New York, 1991), 134.
14
Cheri Y. Gay, Victorian Style (Courage Books: Philadelphia, 2002), 33.
10
5
Overall, the Victorian era is rife with complexities including revivals of past periods,
international influences and a variety of aesthetic tastes. The décor of a house – from its furniture
to the photographs lining the walls – was an intensely personalized endeavour. As Clive D.
Edwards writes, “furniture and furnishings are a classic case of unspoken communication. They
reflect the times and conditions that made them, but at the same time express the aspirations and
values of the owner”.15 Creating a set in the Victorian style, therefore, allows for an intensely
character driven design, with interesting opportunities for theatre production artisans.
Design and Process
For my independent study project, I wanted to do a practical period study. Our props
teacher had once asked the class to consider our favorite time period. Conceptually, the Victorian
era has always had a certain allure for me because of its mysterious rooms decorated with heavy
drapery, deep colours and multitude of eclectic artefacts. My interest in the Victorian era was
also part of a general desire to be able to match furniture to time period and vice versa for the
purposes of set dressing and furniture construction. Focusing on the Victorian era would be the
beginning of my research and provide a reference point for comparison in future period studies.
A practical component also appealed to me. The most interesting element of my program
was the required production calls and the hands-on experience it provided. I wished to
incorporate what I had learned in carpentry, props, scenic painting, design and time management.
Recreating a Victorian room would bring together many elements of theatre production.
With the project concept decided and the proposal submitted and approved by both my
mentor and course supervisor, it was then a matter of selecting the room and the script that would
15
Clive D. Edwards, Victorian Furniture: Technology and Design (Redwood Books: Trowbridge, 1993), 4.
6
inform the project. I debated between Gone with the Wind and Sherlock Holmes and eventually
Sherlock Holmes was selected because it was more compatible with the spaces I had in my home.
The next consideration was whether to recreate Sherlock’s private chamber or the sitting room.
The sitting room option was eventually chosen because my living room had a higher ceiling than
my bedroom and it also had a fireplace that would suit the design (see Figure 2 below). With this
in mind, the actual design process followed.
Figure 2. Unmodified Living Room with Fireplace. February 16, 2016.
By mid-February, I had been researching the Victorian era by going through library
books, special collections and online museum archives. Despite all the information available, the
specifics of the set design remained elusive until I recalled a design assignment given in my first
year. We were asked to select chairs for the major characters of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, based on
their status and personality. I realized that I had been trying to design for the Sherlock mythos as
7
a whole and had found the task overwhelming and unproductive. Focusing on the two chairs
narrowed the search. I was no longer designing for Sherlock Holmes but for Sherlock and
Watson, the individuals. With that in mind, I went through the stories again, this time for a better
understanding of the characters they portrayed.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries were largely narrated by John Watson,
a military doctor recently returned from Afghanistan after receiving a grievous shoulder injury.
Watson had been enjoying the comforts of London until a lack of funds prompted him to search
for more economical lodgings. Because of his injury and because he was tired of the austerity of
military life, Watson’s chair would need to be comfortable. I initially selected a cushioned
Morris armchair for him because it was softer and more relaxing to sit in but not overly plush.
On the other hand, Holmes is known to be a calculating machine. He valued logic and
observation and used them to deduce the motives and actions of others. Though he had few
friends and little affection for others, he was courteous to women and had a strong sense of
justice. When engaged with a case he would be persistently energetic. Without a mystery to
stimulate his mind, however, he would grow lethargic and occasionally turn to drug use to
relieve the monotony of life. In terms of physical traits, Sherlock was a tall man and I wanted the
backrest of his chair to be high as well. My only other concern was that Sherlock played the
violin and he would therefore need a chair that he could move his arms relatively freely in. I
looked for something with low armrests and a high back and eventually settled on a William and
Mary style armchair despite the fact that it was a pre-Victorian chair.
After searching for these chairs in rental shops, antique stores and inquiring at local
theatre companies, the best compromise between cost and design was a pair of chairs from a
8
local church (see Figure 3 below), which I was able to borrow free of charge in exchange for
their safe return and photos of the finished room.
Figure 3. Sherlock (left) and Watson’s (right) Chairs, April 16, 2016.
I decided that Holmes would be represented by rectangular shapes while Watson would
lean towards the circular. In conjunction, Watson’s sentimentality would soften Holmes’ logical
sharpness and the both of them would be represented by the hexagon. The hexagon also worked
particularly well because it was a shape found in beehives and Holmes was said to take up bee
keeping in his retirement years. Everything included in the set should have some value or use to
either Watson or Holmes or represent them in some way.
With the chairs in place, the rest of the room developed to suit Holmes and Watson’s
daily lives. Other elements were included to help solve architectural issues (see Figure 4). A
bookcase would be built to cover entrance #1 and store all of Holmes’ books.
9
Figure 4. Early Floor Plan Design. February 22, 2016.
Likewise a cabinet would be built to block off the half-wall to the kitchen and serve as Watson’s
medicine cabinet. The remaining entrance #2 would then be covered by drapes to conceal the
lack of a proper door. The living room has two tall windows and a fireplace, which fortunately
matched the description of the Baker Street apartment. However, the existing fireplace needed to
be covered because it was a modern self-contained gas fireplace as opposed to the Victoran coalburning fireplace. The windows would be covered with lace curtains and heavy drapes with a
valance, as was suitable for the time period. A chemistry set and a table would be needed for
Holmes’ frequent experiments. Watson, as the chronicler of Holmes’ adventures, would need a
writing desk. Canon also called for a hearth rug and made frequent references to Watson and
10
Holmes having tea, late breakfasts, and smoking pipes and cigarettes. Thus there would need to
be time factored in for finding props and set dressing as well.
Later in the process, it was decided that the room would be set in 1890 when Watson had
moved out. Watson’s writing desk became Holmes’ writing desk. The dining table was cut and
turned into Holmes’ experimentation table and the ideal large settee was replaced by a smaller
loveseat. These decisions were made for scheduling, budgetary and availability reasons.
The lighting design was limited, as the space was not a theatrical stage. Given the
importance of light and sight in Victorian times, I wish I could have been able to have more
control over the lighting. A chandelier had come with the house but it had never been used and it
was too contemporary. I had planned to modify it as soon as I realized there was a chandelier
available for use. Other lighting elements needed were wall sconces and oil lamps. I purchased
the cheaper candle sconces partly due to the fact that there was no pre-existing wiring in the
walls to make the sconces functional. My plan was to use dollar store battery powered candles,
since the sconces still needed to be modified to hold artificial candles. Similarly, I was not able
to find suitably decorative oil lamps. Given more time to take longer road trips, I probably would
have found something suitable eventually.
The paints process started with some research into wallpaper designs. Victorians were
fond of floral designs and I deliberately chose a pattern with leaf and floral elements, being
careful not to choose anything that might be considered overly feminine. The fact that the overall
shape of the motif produced a hexagon was a stroke of good fortune. After a trip to the hardware
store to solidify the colour scheme, I started on the stencils and sample boards (see Figure 5).
11
Figure 5. Stencil sample board. February 19, 2016.
What the sample board failed to adequately prepare me for was the difference between
painting on a small surface on a table and painting on a large vertical wall with corners and floor
moulding. Cleaning the stencil was a longer process than expected, since the stencil was so
intricate. The thinner areas clogged up easily with dry paint. After some trial and error, I found
that the most efficient method was to focus on speed by using a large sea sponge so that the paint
would not have a chance to truly dry on the stencil before moving on to paint the next patch of
the wall. Cleaning the stencil after painting eight to ten motifs meant that the paint was still wet
enough to wipe off easily with water from a spray bottle. After an hour or so of stenciling,
however, a thorough cleaning of the stencil was needed to prevent the smaller details from
disappearing and after two hours the stencil would be wet and easily torn. At that point it would
12
be best to rotate with another stencil. Stencils made with either cardstock or thick watercolour
paper, sealed on both sides with packing tape or properly laminated would best for stenciling flat
areas of the wall. Stencils made from regular printing paper and then double taped on both sides
are better used in corners or curved areas because it bends easier. It is also important to be aware
of the consistency of the paint because over time the paint in the tray will start to get sticky as it
dries and the stencil will start to lightly adhere to the sponge, causing botches in the motif.
Likewise, after washing the sponge, excess water needs to be wringed out of the sponge after one
or two motifs because the paint and water will mix within the sponge, making the paint watery
and prone to causing smudges and bleeds. Overall, the paints process was tedious but not overly
arduous if done for a few hours every day.
Carpentry for the project required a variety to elements from cutting, routering,
assembling, and constantly adjusting for bent or warped wood. The two furniture items that had
to be built from scratch were the bookcase (see Figure 5) and the medicine cabinet (see Figure 6)
because they were inset into pre-existing architectural spaces and had to be built exactly to size.
Figure 5. Entrance #1 first without and then with the inset bookcase. March 4 and April 1, 2016.
13
Figure 6. Half-wall and Entrance #2. March 4 and June 2, 2016.
Measurements should also be as precise as possible to avoid wood waste and errors. There were
times when parts of the cabinet would not fit properly and pieces had to be persuaded with some
creative sanding. The bookcase was challenging because of the fluting around the edges. The
cabinet was challenging because of the fitting of the drawers, which would get caught on the
cabinet doors above them, hence the creative sanding. Both furniture pieces were painted with a
wash of walnut paint and would have been varnished with a flat gloss if time had permitted it.
As part of the install and the eventual set dressing, transportation of furniture and props
had to be considered. The hardest to transport was a 4' x 4' mirror purchased through online
classifieds. The mirror was large, fragile and heavy. It was a challenge to transport the mirror by
myself in a sedan. The bookcase was the next biggest challenge, due to size, and needed at least
two people and a borrowed van to move. After being caught unprepared, I found it was helpful to
have ropes and boxes and some form of cushioning in my car. Transportation was my
responsibility and not the responsibility of the company that was lending or giving me items.
14
The crown moulding was challenging because of the math required and the absence of
power tools at home. I had to take measurements at home and cut the moulding at school. This
required a few trips and extended the install by several days. One of the most useful discoveries
was the miter saw instruction manual, which had a chart of the exact angles needed to cut
moulding according to the angle of the corners of the walls. The moulding was installed with
nails and required at least one other person assisting. Glue would have also helped the process,
but at the time I was unsure whether the moulding would or would not need to be removed. It
was a slow process.
The sitting room was completed on April 17th and struck the following week (See Figures
7 and 8).
Figure 7. View of the Entrance. April 17, 2016.
15
Figure 8. View of the Fireplace. April 17, 2016.
When taking photos, I did find that I liked the effect of the lighting in the evening with
the chandelier and actual candles as the light sources. Early morning light has a higher colour
temperature and created a less mysterious atmosphere. Sherlock Holmes, naturally, calls for
mystery.
For this design process, I personally found it helpful to focus on furniture as
representations of character. It would be interesting to explore other ways to find inspiration and
conceptualize a design. The production process also generally went well, but a lot of the smaller
details and set dressing was omitted due to time constrains. For future projects, it would be
helpful to have a database of stores and sources, the types of items they carry and a rough
approximation of the price range. The inclusion of small details and set dressing would have
contributed a lot of making the space truly Sherlockian instead of merely Victorian.
16
Bibliography
Blakemore, Robbie G. Interior Design Furniture from Ancient Egypt to Nineteenth-Century
Europe. New York: International Thoson Publishing Company, 1997.
Buchanan, George. The Living Room: Timeless and Traditional Woodworking Projects. London:
Cassell, 1996.
Cooper, Jeremy. Victorian and Edwardian Décor. New York: Abbeville Press, 1987.
Gay, Cheri Y. Victorian Style: Classic Homes of North America. Philadelphia: Courage Books,
2002.
Edwards, Clive D. Victorian Furniture: Technology and Design. Trowbridge: Redwood Books,
1993.
Gloag, John. Victorian Comfort. Trowbridge: Redwood Press, 1973.
Gore, Alan and Anne Gore, English Interiors. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991.
Hewitt, Martin. The Victorian World. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Lasdun, Susan. Victorians at Home. London: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Limited, 1985.
Leopold, Anne Kyle. Victorian Splendor: Re-creating America’s 19th Century Interiors. New
York: Stewart, 1986.
Otter, Chris. The Victorian Eye: A Political History of Light and Vision in Britain 1800-1910.
Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008.
Plucknett, Jenny. Step by Step Window Treatments. Iowa: Meredith Books, 1998.
Rae, Andy. Furniture & Cabinet Construction. Newton: The Taunton Press, 2001.
Thomson Peter and Son. Mid-Victorian Furniture and Designs. Sufflok: Antique Collectors Club,
2011.
Willet, Cecil and Phillis Cunnington. The History of Underclothes. New York: Dover
Publications, 1992.