Sunday 27th June 2010

A change of mind

Last night I decided to change the colour of the exterior of the chapel. It is now a pale blue-grey. I liked the other colour but think it will be too close to the colour I will probably use for other shops in the Square.

It was a busy night: the shingles are now painted and attached to the chapel roof, the bell tower and the little roof over the door. The interior of the chapel has been sanded back a bit to reduce the texture somewhat, and the pews and lectern are made.

I changed the pews somewhat too, basing them more on the design of the church in which my grandson was just christened – except that I have made the thick section into a ‘cushioned seat’ and painted them the grey blue that I used in the lightened form for the exterior. I am debating about putting a cushioned back on them as well. Instead of doing the long flat back as instructed, I cut the back short. And instead of putting the cushioned part flush with the rear so that there was a projection at the front (which looked uncomfortable for mini legs to me) I put the projection at the back as a book ledge. Very handy for placing Bibles on, along with hymn books or Order of Service booklets for weddings. Not to mention handbags, cameras etc.


I chose to give the pews and lectern a slightly darker timber finish than the floor, to give a nice warm finish to the chapel. And I’m still debating whether to put ‘beams’ on the ceiling like you see in many old churches.


I don’t know if you picked it up – I certainly didn’t until this morning. But I had marked the raised flooring in the wrong place. I went ahead and glued the floor paper on, then put the raised floor in, and wondered how the pews were going to fit. Checked the photo – oooooooops!!!! – and fortunately could remove the raised floor bit and had sufficient flooring paper to patch over the floor where it was needed. That’s what I get for trying to do just that last little bit before leaving to go out.


We had a lovely family lunch with Peter’s brother, catching up with his family and also with Peter’s sister who was there as well. I came back refreshed and ready to start again on the chapel. I found several different stained glass window designs amongst some files given to me by a generous friend but some were the wrong shape, some printed out too short and some were perfect but when printed out the details were just lost behind the bars on the window frame.

In the end I chose a simple multi-coloured diamond pattern stained glass (left), and a different one for the top section. This is four squares with a smaller diamond pattern set in the middle. So I printed the sheet with these out four times, reducing it by choosing the option of four photos to the page. This resulted in a good size. For one of the interior windows and one of

the exterior windows I used a square with the yellow diamond, and for the two other windows I used ones with a red diamond.

To do the windows I first glued on a piece of very thin plastic then cut it to shape. Then I glued on the piece behind the top section and cut that to shape. Finally I did the lower section, a different part of the design each window.

I glued the bell tower onto the roof. The results were a bit disappointing, because it doesn’t sit properly now the shingles are on the roof. I think it would possibly be better to glue the bell tower on first and then shingle it because it sat perfectly when the roof was plain wood and the shingles would nestle snugly up against the sides of the bell tower.


When the steps were put on the front, there was a gap between them and the wall, obviously because I let the door slip down a bit when I glued it in and now the the jut-out of the step on the doorway is preventing the step from going under it. So I added a bit of timber on each side of the step to fill that space. Occupational health and safety, you know! Can’t have someone catching their mini foot in there and hurting themselves.


All the bases will be painted the same green, to keep some continuity in the series. I have also painted a small (approx 12” square) board the same colour as a temporary base – it is too small for the whole Town Square but gives me something to put the shops on for now. I glued the ‘grass’ to the chapel base except for the pathway, which is the same width as the steps. There’s not much room left for the path between the steps and the edge of the base but what there is, I have done in the same aquarium sand that all the paths will be done with.


Looking at the front of the chapel I thought it appeared rather bare and then I realised: of course - the door peak! There now, doesn’t that look better? And I haven’t put the cross up yet either, because I haven’t quite decided on it’s placement.

So now it is all done except for the flowering vine outside the chapel, and the garlands on the end of the pews. And of course there needs to be some sort of flower arrangement – but that is a special touch which is to come later. I have even done a little ‘Bible’ to be left on one of the pews.

But now it is past midnight and the eyes are somewhat blurry from fatigue so the gardening will have to wait until tomorrow. And so will posting this to the blog, because for some reason my computer won’t accept the latest photos from the camera – I think it’s overtired too vbg.