I've been working on some further concepts for the project over the last few days, however I still need to gather research to finalise my designs of both the environment and the time machine. Phil mentioned a Victorian trend of cabinets known as 'Cabinets of Curiosities' which would display relics, antiques, natural history items and works of art. These are closely associated with the collector/inventor type environments and should be a good reference to look at for the clutter in the environment.

1655 - 'Museum Wormianum'

Above is a drawing of a Danish physicist and antiquary Ole Worm's cabinet, or room, filled with objects. Whilst below is the oldest record of this type of cabinet in art - Ferrante Imperto's  'Dell Historia Naturale' or 'of natural history' from 1599.