Tuesday 15th June, 2010

Really getting excited now.....

Can you tell?  I slept in quite late this morning, and still have blurry vision vbg but it was worth keeping at it until the early hours.  I glued the cottage to the base before I realised that I hadn't taken a photo of the timbering last night, so I did that while having my morning coffee and admiring it all.  Then (showing great restraint) I left the glue to dry while I cooked my rolled oats and ate them.  Pat, pat, pat - that's me patting myself on the back. Then it was down to business again.

I felt last night that the cottage looked as though it needed horizontal timbers, and this feeling was reinforced this morning.  The photos definitely did not show them, but I emailed an English friend to ask her advice (Hi Sally!).  Then I just had time to glue the wall in place, and cut the grass to go in the centre areas of 'lawn'.  At first I just cut two oval pieces approximately the size I want them to be.

And do you know, great intelligence and years of experience teaching finally bore fruit - it dawned on me that even if I couldn't find my grey paint I do have black and white - duh!  I could have asked any child in the first year of school and they would have told me that, or even most pre-schoolers lol!!!  So I was able to touch up the edges of the roof - at last! - and it looks much better.  Also did the dark burnt umber paint on the floor edges and wall edges at the back of the house.  Hint here if you are doing this cottage: do this first, it's easier than doing it after the wallpaper is added.  Here's the view from the back.

By now it was time for lunch and to set off for a massage.  Sounds nice, doesn't it?  NOT.  My therapist is a lovely bloke, 6'2", an English guy who has immigrated here to Aus.  He is a soccer player and does sports therapy too.  And he shows no mercy!  When it hurts he says 'sorry' and I tell him he's not at all - and he laughs and agrees vbg.  He tells me he does what I need, not what I think I want.  In another flash of brilliance (not) I packed my little cottage into a basket and took it with me.  I've been going for massage to Gary for around 9 or 10 years now, and we know each other well.  His 7 year old daughter has just got her first dollhouse so of course I am very interested in that and encouraging her interest and Gary's support of her as well.  I asked his advice too, and it turns out that there are houses just like the cottage only 30 minutes from where he used to live in England.  He was fascinated by MMC, as he has been by photos of my 1:12th scale dollhouses as well.  And he agrees with Sally that it definitely needs horizontal timbering.

I staggered out of the one-hour session, feeling battered and bruised but a lot less stiff and sore (too much sitting this last week had resulted in extremely tight muscles all through the back, neck and legs) - and with strict instructions to do my exercises lol!  It took me a while to feel up to doing anything when I came home but eventually I did some horizontal wood strips and it looks much better I think.  Sally has given me a link to photos too, and I might even add another horizontal line as well.

Then I started gluing the grass on to the base as well.  Only the outside edge to begin with.

The next step was the climbing rose.  I didn't realise how long it would take - all evening in fact.  The results are pretty spectacular, even though the dried 'baby's breath' is rather out of scale for 1:48 size roses.  But they look great even though in 'real life' they would be something like 9" or even larger. That's some rose vbg!  I took the vine right over the roof to the back as well, to hide the tiny crack between the roof and the chimney.  Handy stuff, greenery.

It took a bit of fiddling to decide what shape and size I wanted the lawn area to be but I finally settled on something I was happy with and glued that on too, and moved the birdbath from it's original spot in the front corner to near the birdhouse.  That way the birds can be watched from the conservatory, and not be frightened by passers by. I have used a different bird bath too, a shorter resin one. You can't see it in this photo but you can further on.

Peter decided at bedtime that he wanted to put some soup on in the slow cooker so while he was chopping vegies I couldn't resist pulling apart the clumpy greens and placing them around the edge of the walls, the chimney and alongside the conservatory on the grassed area.  I also put them along the front of the wall.  I know that doesn't look as neat as the example cottage does, but i like the way it softens things.  

There is plenty of the clumpy green material, even though I have made spacious garden beds inside the walls. But I am going to add some of my own landscaping material to provide some variety of colour - it looks a bit boring all the same tone of green. 

Looking at the photos reminds me that there's more touching up needed in spots - especially the chimney and the front of the path.  I have 'dirtied' up the stone tops of the wall for now, until I find the sand or talcum powder - and by then I probably will have greenery all over them and won't bother vbg.  And in this photo you can just get a glimpse of the birdbath.  And I really like the blue door too.

I can't wait to move right in to this lovely little cottage! Wish I could put some flooring down on the first floor - I do have selection of beds to choose from for there, just need a dressing table and to make up a wardrobe kit I have already.  And I need to make up my mind how I want to decorate the ground floor.  Do I do it as a kitchen/sitting room like the one Sue has done?  It's such a little room, not nearly as spacious as the Sea Shanty but I don't want the Conservatory to be the only sitting area.  I have a whole heap of flower kits as you know if you've looked at the flower post, so have plenty to choose from for the conservatory, and want to put some wicker furniture in there.....what a sweet dilemma indeed.

Next step is more greenery and adding the dried flowers supplied; also drybrushing the greenery outside the wall with paint then adding dried flowers to that as well.  I will probably add flowers from my kits as well if I think it's needed.  So yes, I reckon the garden will be completed in a day or so.