In his patron's absence, Whistler was inspired to make bolder revisions. He covered the ceiling with Dutch metal, or imitation gold leaf, over which he painted a lush pattern of peacock feathers. He then gilded Jeckyll's walnut shelving and embellished the wooden shutters with four magnificently plumed peacocks.
Whistler wrote to Leyland that the dining room was "really alive with beauty — brilliant and gorgeous while at the same time delicate and refined to the last degree," boasting that the changes he had made were past imagining. "I assure you," he said, "you can have no more idea of the ensemble in its perfection gathered from what you last saw on the walls than you could have of a complete opera judging from a third finger exercise!" He urged Leyland not to return to London yet, since he did not want the room to be seen before every detail was perfect.
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