Monday, 14th June, 2010

Happy birthday, Your Majesty

It is the Queen's Birthday Holiday today so we are having a long weekend.  Of course in the northern hemisphere her birthday is celebrated now because the weather is warmer than in April when her true birthday is.  But here in Australia it is winter.  Further south in the snowfields there is rejoicing because the ski season has started with good falls of snow. In Sydney we very rarely get snow and it doesn't settle if we do, but last night it reached -2degC and only 17deg during the day.  For us that is chilly.  Peter worked a night duty last night so I had a good chance to shut myself away in my workroom with the heater on and work on Miss Marple's Cottage some more.

Sue's instructions say to fill the gaps in the joins between the conservatory walls and roof with tacky glue, then paint over them.  So I did that this morning, and allowed it to dry - it needed doing a couple of times to fill them properly.  Letting them sit and fully dry all afternoon has allowed me to redo the parts that they needed doing again tonight.

The walls for the garden were fun.  I want to make the stone finish on the trim rougher, so I will paint them again, adding a bit of sand to the paint, or a bit of talcum.  But of course I can't locate them at the moment either! That's the way it goes just now.

Peter usually goes to bed about 6pm for a bit of sleep before he leaves at 8pm (they work a 10hr night duty at his hospital) but tonigh't he stayed in the lounge room with me 'to keep me company'  And promptly slept through the news (which I had seen before) and the following show (which had no interest for me) but if I moved he woke up again lol!  But it was very nice just to have him there anyway.

After Peter left  I added the windows, having realised that of course I could do that - they don't depend on the floor being in.  That took ages actually, they are tricky little things.  They would fit in the 'dry run' then once a spot of glue was added to the corners of the house - the windows decided to be difficult and wouldn't go in.  And I decided to put the front door in too.  Even renewing the flooring on the ground floor won't bother that.  The instructions say to paint it green, but I have done it blue.  It took a bit of experimenting to decide which blue I liked best.  The first one wasn't suitable when I actually put it on the door, and when I painted over it I got a bit of a streaky, aged effect which I quite like so I have kept it. It is quite subtle and doesn't show in the photo, but it is there.  And I've decided to leave it ajar - that gorgeous ginger cat might want to go in or out, and it looks so inviting.  I've also added gold to the knob and keyhold inside and out.  For the 'glass' in the windows I used some of the acetate left over from the conservatory rather than using modge podge as suggested.  I prefer the effect.

Next it was time to add the brown timber trim to the house.  I haven't found my grey paint to touch the edges of the roof up - can't think where it could have gone since I was sure all the paint was kept together.  Having pre-prepared the trim, windows and door, according to the instructions of course.  And here is the result.  Makes a real difference.

I can't remember whether I've mentioned before, but when I was doing the roof trims I also went around and did the 'eaves' of the roof with cream paint to cover over the wallpaper that goes right out to the edge of the roof pieces.  Just a little detail but I don't see many eaves on houses wallpapered vbg and you might have gathered by now that I am a bit of a perfectionist.

And then - adding the timber to the conservatory, and it too was finished and ready to add to the house. And isn't that conservatory just the most gorgeous thing?  I can just imagine sitting in there among some plants, with a purring cat and a magazine (mini of course!) and enjoying some gentle warmth coming through the glass.  Lots of plants, and wicker furniture.  Haven't looked for wicker furniture for this conservatory yet though.  And it is very small - no pun intended!

After this, I can  move on to landscaping the yard.  I've already constructed the base in readiness.  I tend to do things like that while I wait for stuff to dry or whatever.  But before I left things for the night (and it was getting very late by now, my eyes were quite blurry) I couldn't resist putting it all together on the base for a trial run.  The tape is still holding the base trim in place - that's the cream bit across the front.  And I had to put the birdbath in (yes, I've finished that too, early on) and the birdhouse and clematis vine I did last week just to give it a few flowers.

And that's when I realised that I hadn't put the timber trim on the peaks!  Now some people call me very patient, some call me stubborn, and some call me obsessive.  (It's all right Zoe, Mummy Jan is just on the floor because she is laughing so hard - give her face a really good lick and she'll get up again!).  But I could not go to bed knowing that the timbering wasn't finished.  So I had to do that too.  By then I really couldn't see straight, and didn't even take a photo, as I found out this morning (Tuesday) when I had gone on to the next step.  But here it is.......