Darling husband to the rescue!

Fire got the best of me....

I struggled enough making a firegrate for the fireplace. It had to be firm enough to hold the 'fire' LED bulbs because I wanted a 'working' fire. I have this set from Evan designs, there are 3 little bulbs: one red, one orange and one yellow and they flicker in turn giving a very realistic fire effect. The only problem is that the combined size of the three is quite bulky for a little 1:48 scale fireplace, even though I have almost doubled the depth of the fireplace provided in the kit by adding some timber behind it, and then covered it with Creative PaperClay to do the bricks.

As if that wasn't enough I then had to make the 'fire' itself. the bulbs sit up quite high and need to be covered with some holographic cellophane. Isat the bulbs right down into the grate so that the stems would go down into the hole drilled into the floor, and started to add small sticks cut from the tips of some prunings of a shrub that had dried out quite well. I ended up with something about as elegant as a stork's nest! Ungainly, ugly and a total mess.

In desperation I roped my dear other half into helping me. After all, he can build a fire in real life and I have never tried. He rose to the task beautifully even though he spread it out over about 7 hours, with breaks for doing different things 'while the glue dried' vbg.

All I had to do then was thread the wires through the hole in the floor and pull the whole thing into the cottage and into place. Come to think of it - I forgot to glue it in! Oooops.

I've just twisted the wires together with the battery wires for now and here is the result - unfortunately it is a still photo, which is a shame because it flickers beautifully.

I haven't mentioned before that Cockleshell Cottage is lit on the ground floor. Here it is with the light on - no lightshade yet.

The more I do on this little cottage, the more I love it. That's the way with Bea's kits, I find. Each one has real character and you can't help getting really involved.

I also started making the workbench/cupboard that will sit between the icebox and the stove. I had a piece of nice timber offcut from something or other, and I had lots of bits of flooring left from the John F Craig House. So I sat and fiddled. The length of scrap timber was the right thickness and width for the top, and about the right length - so that's the length I made it. I cut the floorboards to size and added them. I wasn't too fussy because it will all be covered up by a gathered curtain on the front, except for a bit in the centre which will be open to show a few things stored there. Here it is so far.

And now it is getting on towards sunset, the Sabbath hours are coming in and I will be putting it all aside until after sunset tomorrow night. Talk to you again over the weekend!