Baby, take a look at you now!

I have it on good authority that the whhole neighbourhood is thrilled with the developments at Toadstool Cottage and are hoping that the new owners will be able to start stocking the shop within the week.   Excitement is rife and the progress day by day is the main topic of conversation.

Today a lot of progress was made, so I know that they were all pleased.  Indeed, I think it is time that fixtures and fittings are ordered so that they arrive in time for the construction worker (me) to down tools.

First step today was to finish off the flooring with the lighter coloured paint, applied with a sponge and dragged to create a nice grain effect.  While that was drying I glued the ground floor partition into place, holding it at 90 deg right angles with some Lego blocks. It looked really good sitting there.  I wish I'd angled the cottage a bit more when I took the photo though.

It's

It's always surprising the little things that suddenly make a huge difference to a piece you are constructing - this time it was putting in this wall.  The cottage started to feel like a cottage once that was in place.

The ceiling beams for Toadstool were much easier to paint than the ones for Washtub were because they were painted before they were put in place.  I wasn't sure how they would look since they are just card rather than the matchsticks but once in place they look really good.  Here they are cut out and painted ready to attach to the (pre-painted) ceiling:

And here they are in place on the ceiling.  Don't they look good?

Once the ceiling was completed I could put the ceiling/floor into place and now we were really making progress!

I put the shell of the cottage aside to dry thoroughly and went on with the clay for the chimneys.  There are two parts for this and they were quite fun to do though I do find that Creative Paper Clay does tend to become rather dry quite quickly in our summer while you are working with it.  I keep brushing a tiny bit of water over it though and that seems to work okay. 

While I had the clay out I also did the 2 chimney pieces and the pavement for Washtub Cottage.

At least the glue dries quickly too vbg.  Once the clay work was done and I had (again) cleaned off my hands etc, I was able to trace around each of the side walls.  Then I drew the beams on the outlines.  I carefully made them different forgetting that they were mirror images of each other so both ends have finished up looking the same despite my best efforts to make sure they didn't. 

Here they are before, all pristine and bare:

         :

And here they are after adding the 'beams' and distressing it all

 

Of course I couldn't leave it at that so here is the front too, before -

And after

And the back ceiling of the first floor as well

So there it is - well on the way now!  I fell in love with this cottage when I first saw it advertised on the Petite Properties site and it is living up to its promise, just as all the projects do that I have bought from them.  Each so different yet each so enjpyable and full of character.

More tomorrow.........see you then!