When VintLabs first got the shop in the Bloedkapel at Bruges, Belgium, we were thrilled to have to honour to run our business from a building with such a past: build in the 12th century, it is the oldest building still standing at Bruges. (SLURL to Bloedkapel)

Only when our skilled building team took a closer look at this holy building to make a plan of action for inside restorations - the sim Bruges took care of the outer part -, we realised that with an old building comes a lot of trouble. Take for instance the ceiling of the chapel: flattened and painted it over with an ugly boring grey. Sadly enough our expert team had to conclude that in no possible low-prim way we could restore that ceiling to it’s original beauty. Someone also covered up the beautiful tiled floor - luckily not beyond repairs -, wallpapered the stone wall and stole all the artefacts, paintings and other belongings.

Armed with that information, the VintLabs team decided they would do the best they could and started to work on restoring - as far as possible - a corner of the Bloedkapel. The scrubbing and cleaning payed off, and soon we had a nice and shiny tiled floor again. Although they could not restore the original ceiling, the team brushed and polished, until the filled up ceiling texture was as shiny that it would reflect that tile floor.

The rest of the story is a bit vague. Although we all agreed at VintLabs that we would not use any bright pink - really, no can do for a chapel that was once dedicated to the greatness of God - we suspect one of our interns did not get that message clearly. When we went to work one morning, we entered the chapel only to see our beautiful restored corner had now grey wallpaper texture with all kind of ‘gradiented’, flashy, shiny metal objects sticking to the wall. The intern claims he didn’t notice anything strange before locking the door and going home the night before and that it must have been His Work, His Will. We always knew she was a bit strange and had a hang for pink - that’s why she got hired at VintLabs in the first place - and don not buy this story. But really, would you sack someone for using pink?

Anyway, in chance that it was after all His Work and Will, we decided to leave the pink as it was and asked the building contractor to texture the rest of the walls in grey that would match the pink. That friendly man also finished off the complete floor and ceiling for us and now we are happy that the first, huge works are finished.

Only the real interior design left to do. We’ve already hung up some shelves and are really proud of the shadow work on those and the shadow these shelves cast. We have a counter and are still brainstorming over the rest of the design: mirrors, a waiting corner for the gent’s, … .

But I can’t shake off the feeling that something is strange about that chapel. We have put up two modelling dolls made out of sculpted prims for later use. A male and a female mannequin we thought to be fit. But upon entering in the morning, we found the male mannequin lying on the ground on a blood texture. The lady mannequin was still standing upright, an axe in her hand. Did the male doll try to sexually harass the female one? Did she act out of self defence? How did that axe get into the chapel? Nobody knows…

Tags: bloedkapel, bruges, building, texture, vintlabs

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