Saturday 24th April, 2010

My Workroom Revamped

I have mentioned  that we are still living in our caravan after returning from our 7-month trip around Australia.  The caravan is parked in my brother's driveway (about 5 minutes from our house) since our driveway is taken up mainly by a large shipping container measuring approximately the same length as our caravan - 18 feet.  The container is chock-a-block full of all the contents of our house, packed in teachest-sized packing boxes.  Except for my minis, which are largely in the clear plastic boxes in which I have them stored in my workroom.  When we ran out of boxes I also used any other object that will hold things until we could buy some more, much to my nephew's disgust, since it was his pride to arrane and rearrange it all to achieve the most efficient use of the space - right up to the roof.  So when I say it is chockers - it really is chockers!    In fact, the last 10 boxes wouldn't fit into the container at all.  Remind me not to move in a hurry vbg - that doesn't even count the furniture!

The reasons for this big cleanout are various, but while it is happening we are repainting the interior of the house, having the place fumigated, the carpets and upholstery on the lounge and armchairs cleaned and doing an enormous sort-out and throw-out!

My nephew will no longer be living in our caravan, he will be living in what is presently my study. Just before we moved all the furniture out of the study I took these photos as a reminder of what it used to be like.  The walls are painted in a colour similar to what I call 'Ikea blue'.  It is actually a very pleasant colour to work in.  The woodwork is called Regency White - only just off-white, the cherry wood furniture looks really nice, and I had natural calico tab-topped curtains.  The shelf along the side wall had white magazine holders (also from Ikea vbg) filled with syllabus and other school things, and I had transluscent blue folders for bank statements etc.  Lots of white photo boxes for receipts, photos and scrapbooking bits and pieces on the shelving units on the right which also held albums and scrapbooking materials and photo albums.  But I didn't have enough space by a long way.  Peter had the hide to suggest that perhaps I had too much scrapbooking material - what a silly thing to say lol!  Men have such odd ideas.  On the wall that had the door from which I took the photos I just had room for shelves that held a television, my laminator and binder along with printer paper and laminating supplies.  To the right, at the end of the shelves, is a doorway to my workroom.

So I am losing one room and combining everything that was in there with everything that was in my workroom.  Since I am no longer teaching, that sounds fine, right?  Except that none of my teaching materials are in the study any more, nor are any of the things I used for my university studies.  I have two storage sheds for all of those (they are in the works for clearing out next!!!!)  And when I say that I didn't have enough room for my minis in the workroom or the patchwork and sewing and machine embroidery in the workroom, or for the scrapbooking in the study, and now I am combining all three in just one room, you will get a picture of what the situation will be.

Here are some views of the workroom which we have re-painted, before I start to put things back in it.  First, an overview of most of the room (left).  We chose 'Restful Green' for the walls, and the woodwork is again in Regency White, not quite cream and not quite white. The green is slightly deeper than it looks in these photos but not a great deal. I will hang the same calico tab-top curtains at the window and that is the same desk on the right - it is the longer of the two desks.  My Horn sewing table is under the window and the shelving units are to the left.  I have a reproduction Singer sewing table at the end of the desk, with my nearly-finished 'Coventry Cottage' sitting on it - with luck, having it more accessible will mean that I will do the final details to finish it off and do the landscaping. 

You can just make out the strips on the right wall.  They take the brackets for the shelves on which I store the plastic containers of miniatures, each one labelled with the contents: landscaping materials, Christmas items, fabrics and trims,furniture kits,china & porcelain, etc. I had the same along the entire length of the opposite wall before, so I have lost 10ft of storage shelves!  I had four levels of shelf, I think, on each side.

The second photo has a mind of its own and won't go where I want it to go, which is further down the page.  It is another view of the shelving unit and the smaller of the two desks, along that side wall.  There isn't room to have the extension part of this desk up, unfortunately.  I had hoped to have the two desks forming an L-shape in the corner where I have Coventry Cottage, with the sewing table at the end but we just couldn't get it to work - we were about 4 inches short.  So no go.  At the moment this is the most workable arrangement I can come up with.  And there is even room to open up my Horn sewing table entirely (third photo) for patchworking, which is good.  Rather cramped but as you can see in the first photo it closes up nicely when finished, and it is great to have the whole area when I am quilting especially.  I don't have to have the extension on the left open if I don't want to, but it is handy to support the weight of a big quilt for quilting or as a surface to keep a lot of threads on if I am using the embroidery machine.

Taking these photos I was standing at the door from the study.  You have to go through the study to get to this room.  Why then did I allocate the study to our nephew instead of this room?  Firstly because this room faces north, which for us being in the southern hemisphere means that it is a lovely light, sunny room.  Mark is a mole.  He likes blinds closed and darkness so he can play his computer games - this room would be totally wasted on him.  I love light for my minis as well as for the scrapbooking and patchwork or sewing.  I also enjoy looking out the window to the street.

Second, Mark is a slob and doesn't like fresh air.  This way I automatically ensure that some air at least gets into his room and so mould doesn't develop and passing through  I can discretely (or openly) make sure there are no empty food containers left lying around to attract bugs. 

And thirdly, this front room is slightly larger and has a built-in wardrobe.  I need the storage!  Here is the wardrobe, which is located on the same wall as the door.  It has a shelf right across the top, which will store all our Christmas decorations.  There are also shelves down the side which will take our stamp albums (yes, we collect them too) and coin collections (and them as well) and my cross stitch - well, some of it anyway vbg.  And the bulk of it, which is about 2 1/2 of the doors, is large enough for my big Horn cutting table.  I can wheel it out when I need to use it.  And there is still room for Peter to put in another shelf across the top of that section for me to use for more storage.

So there it is, so far.  I have a bit more to do before I can start 'moving in'.  The carpets were cleaned yesterday, and since I was 'banished' outside while they dried I did the first coat of paint on one side of the workroom shelves to freshen them up again.  I sanded them back first with my brother's orbital sander - it's an industrial one, and very powerful.  It was FUN!!!!  I looked for something else to sand but couldn't find anything else, which was a pity.  Then I scrubbed some old pots that had years of dirt and grunge on them ready to plant them up with annuals and 'pots of colour' to give some instant colour to the backyard.  They came up really well, looking almost new.  I love winter annuals and will go shopping tomorrow afternoon to see what I can find. 

We cleaned and weeded around the Jacaranda tree, and just loosened the soil.  While we were away my nephew had filled the area with bricks and rubbish for some strange reason, and I was definitely not happy about it.  Partly because I had planted it out with native violets (for the third time) and he had let them die by covering them up with rubbish!  So it is cleared out, weeded and ready to be topped up with nice compost and planted out with yet another lot of native violets and mulched with sugarcane mulch.  And I will put the bird bath back under there and if Mark or my brother dare move it again there will be a big ruckus vbg!  Neither of them seem to like the birdbath.  Given the least opportunity they empty and dismantle it.  Don't know why, it doesn't interfere with mowing the lawn when it is where it is supposed to be, which is in the raised bed around the Jacaranda.

It was great weather yesterday - about 28deg, hardly autumn weather.  Good weather for the carpet to dry.  I even got a touch of the sun although I worked in the shade the whole time.  Not enough to be sunburned, just a gentle warmth.  We didn't even use a blanket overnight, and had all the windows in the caravan wide open.

So that is the progress on the workroom.  We have also put the first coat on the bedroom walls and tomorrow might be starting on the loungeroom and dining room.  The painting won't be finished before our son's birthday party next Sunday - there's too much to do in just a week.  But we might aim to get the first coat on it all to freshen things up, then finish off later.  We certainly won't be moving everything in for several weeks yet, that will happen in stages as we finish each part.  There's lots more to come!

Saturday 24th April, 2010

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside, oh I do like to be beside the sea......

That's all I can remember of that song at the moment, but it seems appropriate vbg!  I'm taking an evening off tonight, because my back is really complaining and I can't stand up for more than a few seconds.  Hopefully it will be happier in the morning because we have another full day of painting scheduled.  That's what we've been doing - painting our (real life) house.  But I have sneaked in some more moments here and there (mainly in the morning waiting for loads of washing to finish before we leave to go around to our house) to do some more on the Sea Shanty.  Yes, I know I could do the washing at night, but not enough loads because we are getting back home very late - sometimes midnight - and I am too tired.  And besides, it gives me an excuse to mini, even if it is just a few minutes at a time.

I stripped off the previous lot of 'water' and did it again - this time being careful to do it the right way around.  The Capt'n and Mrs McGregor didn't seem impressed with going down theire steps into the waves, for some strange reason vbg.  I'm happier with the result second time around.  Then I did the sand.  The first lot was just a thin covering over the surface, and that would never do.  So once that was dry I added globs of glue where I wanted piles of sand and added spoonfuls of sand to that.  When that dried and I tipped off the loose sand that's just what it looked like - globs of glue with sand on them.  So I mixed sand and PVA glue together into a consistency something like icing sugar and spooned it on then spread it out and mounded it up a bit in places, adding some loose sand on the top.  When that dried it was far more satisfactory so I added another layer where I wanted more depth and even a third layer in places, allowing it to dry thoroughly in between each application.  Being shut up in the caravan all day  with our weather at the moment was perfect; we are having an Indian Summer with temperatures into the high twenties during some days even though it is nearly the end of April.  Beautiful.  Even at night it doesn't feel like Autumn sometimes.

 

I wanted the water to have little 'waves' around the pilings, and the sand to be built up a bit around them.  There is a larger pile near the steps and some on the steps as well.  When I was happy with the sand I anchored the standing seagull into the sand/glue mixture and added the sitting one when the sand had dried.

It felt like an enormous step forward when I was finally able to glue the Sea Shanty to the wharf.  Now I am getting somewhere!

The furniture is almost all glued in place too.  All of the kitchen.  Don't you love the aga?  It's by Jenny Wren, and I bought it from Grace Shaw of Virtual Dollhouse who now carries some of Jenny Wren's lovely handmade items.  I changed the cupboard - the slide-out shelf is now pushed in so you can see the lighthouses on the doors better.   

The pot-belly stove in the living area came out well; it's a white metal kit I bought from Grace too.  I haven't glued the furniture into place in this part yet, I am still fiddling with it. The Captain's desk has had to go, as I suspected it would :-( or else it was just too cramped.  I might get one of those boat-shaped bookcase kits from Karen Cary to go in there.  Or not. 

 All of the bedroom furniture is glued into place except the dresser - I want to add some items to the top of that so need to be able to take it out for easier access.

So - progress has been made in spite of acute lack of time!  Next step - flowers. 

Monday 12th April, 2010

Finally got my hands on one of them vbg!

One of the girls' Christmas stockings, that is.  It is Kirsten's, and I did it for her in 1995.  I remember the year because I finished it just before Nathan ended up in hospital on the 4th day of the school holidays with peritonitis from an infected vp shunt.  We spent 6 weeks in the Children's Hospital, he had several operations on his brain and on Christmas Day he threw an allergicic reaction to Vancomyacin, the antibiotic of choice for brain surgery.  It was an interesting time.

While we were in there, I did a picture using the same design as the stocking.  It still isn't framed lol.  That's typical for me, I might say.  The book with the chart in had both variations in it, so it was good value - and I certainly appreciated having all the threads and the chart handy when I had to make that quick trip to the hospital.  The stocking design is called - The Twelve Days of Christmas, as if it isn't obvious!  It is the design that Kirsten chose herself for her stocking.  It is quite a contrast to that chosen by Kylie - and if Kylie ever does get around to emailing a photo of hers I can post that one too!  But this design is typical Kirsten, and I love it.  I haven't been able to decide what design to do for her husband, but in the end I came to the conclusion that I will probably do the same as hers is.

The first photo shows the stocking then just in case you might think it is mini - the second shows my darling husband Peter holding a 12" ruler beside it.  So yes, it is full size.  Hopefully I will be able to share some more of my full-size cross stitch with you soon!

Friday, 9th April, 2010

Who took off with my fingers.....

....and left me with 10 thumbs?  I did a bit more fiddling with printies for a while today, but  frustratingly all my fingers had disappeared and were just clumsy suasage-like thumbs!  It's bad enough doing fiddly printies in 1:12th scale but in 1:48 scale - well!  In the end I finally managed to get a couple of packets of things in the grocery line for the workbench, and some pictures for the frames.  There are more groceries to do but the eyes couldn't stand any more.  One of the printies is also an apron with sunflowers on it, which Mrs McGregor has draped over the back of a chair.

And that's what I get for doing the water when I have a headache.  I've done it back to front!  What do I mean?  The base is just 1" longer one way than it is the other, and somehow I turned it around the wrong way.  So when I put the wharf on it with the stairs in the logical place (ie where the most sand is) it is at the rear of the side instead of at the front.  So I will probably do it again.  Or else poor Captain and Mrs McGregor will have to have their house situated either with the entrance stairs at the rear or else with the house facing the shore instead of facing the lovely view out to sea!

Thursday 8th April, 2010

 I've been 'fiddling' again.....

I'm one of those people who can make great strides when things are straight forward.  But when it's something I'm not sure of, because it's new or whatever, I procrastinate.  And that's what I've been doing with my little white metal 'feathered friends'.  I wasn't sure how they would come out, and it was a bit of a fiddle getting the white metal prepared, and I couldn't be bothered getting our bird books out to check and make sure I got the colouring right....... But mainly I wasn't sure how well I would be able to paint them and was a bit nervous about them.  Now though things are moving on so well that it was TIME!  Yes siree, it was time to tackle those litttle feathered critters. 

And I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of painting them, after washing them in water with dishwashing detergent ( I read about doing that years ago with kits for fireplaces from Phoenix - don't know if it is relevant for these but it couldn't hurt!).  Then I sprayed them with the metal primer I had bought from the hobby shop a while ago in preparation for the great day.  It's a beautiful day, 24degC (75degF) even now late in the afternoon, so they didn't take long to dry.  Peter got out his bird books and we looked up the seagulls and pelicans that are local to our stretch of the coast here in Australia and off I went.  The results aren't too bad, either.

I had also prepared the white metal photo frames at the same time, so they are painted gold and ready to have wonderful works of art inserted. 

Then I asked Pete to help me do the 'ropes' around the pilings of the wharf.  I had purloined some of his string ages ago for this purpose - it is about the right thickness and is nice and dirty and discoloured so looks suitably 'aged'.  That didn't take long and looks great.

When he collected Nathan from the sheltered workshop he attends they went and bought some material for the base, so I experimented with the water made from foil while they were gone.

I spent ages on the internet saving free printies of famous artwork today for several of my houses as well as for the Sea Shanty.  And I also hunted through my collection of printies for different items to include.  Now all I have to do is make them all up lol!

On a roll then, so I painted two cats.  One is a 'giant' ginger called Thomas (I know,  such  an  imaginative name! Not.)  One is in a smaller scale so it is obviously a kitten, and it is a calico cat and really quite sweet even if she is a bit on the skinny side.

I am not however going to post photos of the animals and birds painted in detail, though here is one of them collectively on the wharf.  .  Mainly because they look fine to the naked eye but look disgusting in photos!  I guess that's because they are about  100 times their actual size in photos vbg.  So you will see them when I post a photo of them in position in the whole scene.  The poor pelicans kept falling over, they just would not stand up.  The seagulls are mainly in flight pose, but one is sitting and one is standing.  The 'flying' ones will be a little tricky to use, but I think I have worked out how to do it.

Not too excited about the 'water' either!  It flattened down rather more than I wanted it too, but considering it is right near the shoreline I suppose I could leave it.  Knowing me I probably won't though!  Here's a photo of it - still wet, so it will need going over in the morning.  And more white added to the tops of the little ripples - you could hardly call them waves.  I have some sand but it's not as fine as I would like, or as pale either.  I will have to put it through some sort of sieve and try to get the finest particles to use.  Or else visit a beach!  Hardly have time to do that though.  We bought this lot from a pet store, it is for use in aquariums.  I'll look around a bit more, maybe.

8th April, 2010

And it's about time too!

I've finally got those beams on the ceiling of the ground floor - forgot all about them for ages then didn't get around to doing them.

And I've put the flooring papers in.  I had to join them, which didn't please me at all, but I worked it so that once the furniture is in the joins will be covered.  Even though the joins show in these photos they are less obvious this morning.  When I took them last night the paper was still damp from the glue and it was under artificial light.

The trim going around the floors certainly gives a nice finished look and of course after I did all that I just had to try all the furniture in (again!) to see the effect and it was really pleasing indeed.  I love this little house - I say that for all my projects, which is nice since so much work goes into them - and am enjoying having something different. It's very exciting.

So now the inside is basically finished ready for the furniture to go in.  I still need the aga for the kitchen and the kit for the potbelly stove for the living room.  They will be here soon, as will some extra white metal ornaments  which  will be nice painted up and put on display.

Meanwhile, in between restoring files from my old computer and trying to find missing photos for my other blog so I can finish off the story of our trip (!!!!!) I am looking for other details too, to make the interior more personal and - some rugs, bits for the kitchen, and so on.  Even though the Capt'n and Mrs McGregor like things neat and tidy I want it to have that 'lived in' feeling.

And it's nearly to the stage where I can start working out how large to make the base - keeping in mind the need for minimum 'footprint' for display but not stinting too much on beach and sea either.  I'll use paper templates, I think, to see what size I like.  The perspex case will sit over the base, with a quite small moulding just outside it to keep it in place.  This moulding will be on a second base, mounted on a turntable so that all sides of the Sea Shanty can be easily viewed without removing it from the shelf on which I plan to display it.  The moulding will hide the turntable without actually touching the shelf.  Well, that's the plan, and we all know how my plans change vbg!

Friday, 2nd April 2010

I'm back - and Easter Greetings!

We're back from our quick trip interstate.  It was wonderful to see Kylie and the boys, and it would have been even better to have stayed longer but we needed to be back before the Easter rush or we'd have sat in traffic for hours on the return trip.  And we have too much to do here in Sydney at our house to be able to stay for the whole Easter weekend.  Nathan turns 21 on the 30th of this month and he has his heart set on having a party at our place.  That means we have a LOT of work to do from now till then - and that doesn't count the party itself or the preparation for it!


I have always loved the Easter break.  My birthday was always a bit of a mixed pleasure, being very near the start of school.  In Australia our school year starts in the hottest time of year (!!!!), at the end of January just after the  Australia Day holiday or around my birthday.  I started my first year of school on my fifth birthday.  I started my first day of high school the day I turned twelve.  We do kindergarten then six grades of primary school, then move on to high school.  I started teaching on my birthday.  And many times during my teaching career the children started school on my birthday. 

But Easter was on it's way and it brought a nice break with it!  Not to mention the Royal Agricultural Show and all that entails - animals, wonderful displays produce, woodchopping, arts and crafts,  amazing handwork and exquisitely decorated cakes.  Showbags and rides as well.  And chocolate - LOTS of chocolate and goodies.  But the break was wonderful.  For many years we had three school terms a year, so they felt like they lasted forever.  Then in 1988 NSW changed to four school terms.  Sometimes they still felt as though they went on forever and sometimes they flew, but for me as a teacher they usually went faster than they did for me as a student.

And as a nice little pressie for me this time, the postie brought me a parcel yesterday with the flooring papers in it.  But they are really small - too small to cover a floor.  So I'll have to wait and see what the next lot that I've ordered turn out to be like.  Failing a difference in size (and I can't see that they would be different) I will think of a plan B.  In between more packing and sorting and packing and sorting .......

But the spiritual meaning of Easter is also important to me.  Not just at Easter but all year round.  So whatever your faith - or whatever your belief - I wish you happiness at this time.  Peace, love and may your break be filled with what you cherish the most.