Thursday 22nd July 2010

Now it’s ready for landscaping

It sure looks better with those Front Annexe Trims up the right way lol! Last night and tonight I finished working out the stairs, covered them with Creative PaperClay and did the rocks beside them, building them up into something similar to the photo of the model. I didn’t want the pile of rocks at the bottom of the chimney that the model has, just put some around the bottom of the Annexe trims. I know the side bits aren’t quite the same height but probably won’t worry about that, at least for now.


So here it is, with the rocks in place, brown paint where the garden beds will be, more or less, and green paint where the grass will be.

I really like the way the colours of the rocks and the outside of the cottage and the roof all blend together without being too similar. I know I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again: I love this cottage!!


Here are two more photos, showing views from each side.

On the layout plan supplied for the garden, there is a garden shown on the lower level at each side. In the photo of the model there is no garden and there certainly didn’t appear to be sufficient room for a garden of any size when I did the two bases with rocks – the most it would have been was a space of about ¼”, which would have only been equivalent to 1’. So I decided not to worry about a garden either. However I might end up putting a few bits of greenery draping over the sides, depending on what it looks like after I do some planting.

I have the twig bench to put on the lawn on the left side and that dictates what the nature of the rest of the garden accessories will be. They can hardly be formal, can they? So now I need a bird bath that is in character. Maybe I’ll try making one out of PaperClay. And I think the birdhouse with the coneflowers might fit into this garden.


And I’m considering a small tree too. I won’t go overboard with this one like I did with the larger tree for the Australian Colonial Cottage vbg. That ended up twice the size it was going to be in the beginning – but it sure was fun!


And then I have lots of flower kits to finish because I have used quite a few of the ones I have made up on Rose Cottage (formerly Miss Marple’s Cottage).

So there's lots of fun to go yet, even before I start to furnish and accessorise the inside.

Monday and Tuesday 19th & 20th July, 2010

Stage One completed – Stage Two begun

Stage One is what I call the house itself.  It looks pretty good, even if I do say so myself! And here it is, with the beautiful and delicate wooden windows and doors attached. I tried to do the PVC glue thing with the window panes but couldn’t get it to work, but fortunately had some very thin plastic sheet tucked away left over from other quarter scale projects and was able to use that.

It’s interesting that tonight the photos have come out looking paler than the roof is in reality, whereas in other lights the plaster comes out darker.

 Here’s a view of the side window. It also shows the outside Alcove Trims, which flank the front door.

Because the house has a plastered interior, there are no inside window trims. But I have put in strips of stained wood trimmed to sit the bottom of the window, for sills. They will look nice with little things on them.

The next photo beneath shows a close-up of the inside, showing the window sill. The same shot also shows the ladder that I made. I used the pattern supplied, and after it was all dry I sanded all the edges to give them a rounded and uneven, worn appearance before I painted it.

And here is a photo of the rear of the house, with the doors and windows attached.

Then it was on to Stage Two. That’s my name for doing the base. I had bought a mould from Suzanne & Andrews when I bought the kit, especially to try out for forming the rocks for this base. This is what it looks like; the black around it is because it’s sitting on my computer:

I found it good to use except for the fact that once again I started rather late in the evening and of course then had to keep going – far into the early hours of the morning in fact. Not a great idea because I started to mess things up. But I did get it finished and today I painted the ‘rocks’. And that’s when I realised that I have glued the annexe trims on upside down lol!

 Here’s the front view, showing both layers of base glued together and the house attached to the base:

These photos of the side views show that there are small areas on each side of the house for gardens, as well as the large front area on the lower base. On the right side there’s not much room but there’s a little more on the left.

I also notice that on the rear some of the rocks have chipped off. I will fix them later, when I work on the walls each side of the stairs. I had glued the section back on but moving the house around to photograph it must have dislodged it again and it has disappeared.

I still have to finish working out the stairs before I can start landscaping. I have done the basic structure out of foamcore but want to cover that with Creative PaperClay and decide what surface to put on it. The instructions with the cottage don’t specify anything, and the illustration just has them with a greyish finish. I think I’ll do a similar finish, but give it some markings as though it is cut stone slabs. So that will be my aim for tonight.  And of course fixing up those Annexe trims.  Once the brickwork is all done, then my self-styled 'Stage Three' - the landscaping, can begin.

Monday, 19th July 2010

It’s marvellous what a difference a roof makes....

Saturday and Sunday nights were very productive and what a difference it has made to Storybook Cottage! First the chimney looks so much better painted. The instructions for the Cottage don’t say whether or not to let the PaperClay dry first, but mine was totally dry by the time I did it, and I don’t know whether that makes a difference. The first wash of dirty black and brown didn’t take and I had to make it a bit more concentrated than the instructions said. But after that it went like a dream. And I am particularly pleased with the results.

While it was drying I finished preparing the shingles and then started shingling the roof. This is a lengthy process and carried on over to Saturday night as well, but by the time we had finished watching ‘Midsomer Murders’ it was done vbg. That’s our ritual on Saturday night, and it finishes quite late.


And what a difference it makes with the shingles done – it really brings this beauty to life!  I notice that I've ended up going to the golden brown colour again, even though I started off with the duller burnt umber grey-brown colours recommended.  Not sure my choice was the best for such an old house with it's sagging roof vbg.  But I like it.  And it seems to go better with the colours of the eave trims and the plaster than the other colour did.

And here are some more views. First, showing the side of the main wing:

And here is the view of the rear:

I say the same about every project I do, and that’s a good thing I think: I really love this cottage! It has character, it presents a bit of a challenge to build but is so rewarding to do, it teaches me new skills and is so lovely when it is done. I really look forward to doing each next step.

Monday 12th July, 2010

Three trades in one day

Plastering, painting and bricking – that’s not bad, is it? Unfortunately it is in miniature and not real life or I would be really good at DIY lol!


I wasn’t all that pleased with the finish of the plaster – it was too smooth for my liking. So I redid it today with another layer, and made it a lot rougher, both inside and out. I’m much happier with it now.


While I was thinking about the paints for weathering, I went ahead with the chimney, even though this step was supposed to be done after the painting part.  Peter cut me a board and  two strips 1/’8” thick ply so I could roll the Paperclay evenly the right thickness for the chimney. I covered the board with plastic wrap taped tightly down to protect the clay. It will come in for lots of use from now on, I have a lot of Creative Paperclay in my future. It's really nice stuff to handle and it covered the chimney quite well. I had an old credit card that I cut up to use for marking the lines of bricks. One part  has an end just 1/8” wide for the height of the bricks, and another part I used for the horizontal lines. And another part has a right angle which is handy for making sure those corner lines go evenly round in narrow places.  I should have used the index card provided though because the lines are a bit too deep.

It didn’t take too long to glue the Paperclay on to the wooden chimney but obviously marking the bricks was a lengthy process. Then while the lower chimney was drying for the first hour I did the upper chimney, going through the same process, and put a ‘donut’ on the top after marking the bricks on that part. Here's a photo before I did the next step.

By then the lower chimney had been drying for an hour so as instructed I went over it with a toothpick that has had the point rounded off with sandpaper, to clean out the grooves a bit more and define the bricks more clearly. This really did take a long time, because I shaped each brick individually, rounding corners and giving the bricks an individual, hand-made look. On some of them I dug out a corner or piece of the brick, or made a ‘crack’ in them. I’m really pleased with the result too.

After quite a bit of thought I decided I didn’t want to wait to get the medium and oil paint, and just used the usual acrylic paint for aging. I experimented with a few different combinations of washes and finally came up with one that seemed okay. I used a really watery wash then rubbed it with a cloth to remove some, leaving it darker in the corners and at the bottoms of the walls.  But the first effort was far too dark. 

I had to go over again with water and rub even more off. The photos still make it look even darker than the darker effort!  On the outside I did leave it slightly darker all over, and slightly more so at the bottom of the walls and the entrance section. The photos of the outside are rather closer to the true colour.

Then I could permanently attach the rear wing roof and roof extension. The roof extensions are to give the roof a really curved shape, as though it is sagging with age. Here is the rear wing roof still taped into position while it dries and the first floor just sitting in place ready to be glued.  Even though I have lightened the wash inside here, it still came out far too dark in the photo.

When I did glue in the first floor, I added a little strip of wood to cover the bit of wall that was left bare. And I also went over the rest of the interior patching up some other little bits that needed a bit of tidying up, such as a slight mark that showed where the floor joined the wall and such.


And now I will leave the Paperclay to dry thoroughly. I have already damaged it several times while fiddling with other parts of the cottage, forgetting and putting my hand on it accidently or leaning the chimney on something while I worked on the rear section. So I have put it aside and left it in peace now.


I spent the rest of the evening painting the shingle strips that I have snipped already, and trying out different arrangement of the base pieces to try and decide whether I will use them as in the model or differently.


And that was as far as I could go today – what a good day’s work it was too.

But to finish, here are a couple more photos. First, a close-up of the finish on the exterior entrance.

And below is another picture of the cottage front, slightly side view.

Sunday 11th July, 2010

More plastering, lots of snipping....

It was freezing sitting out at the Dollhouse Garage Sale all day today, and it took ages to thaw out when I came home.  But bit by bit I recovered and after a hearty dinner I got back into the cottage.  Adding the roof parts should have been straight forward but for some reason all the parts wanted to go their separate ways.  I would have one of them nicely lined up and glued, and taped into place to dry and next thing I knew it would have moved out of position.  So back into the microwave oven it would go to soften the glue, and I'd move the part back into place.  Then the next piece went on and I'd end up having to go through the same process all over again, often having to rearrange the first piece as well.  When you put a piece in the microwave there are only a few seconds to move it the way you want to, before the glue hardens again, so you can hold it in place and it hardens where you want it.

It didn't take long at all to do the strips of timber with the wash of burnt umber paint and I put it aside to dry while I was doing the next part, ready for the ceiling beams later on. 

Plastering the inside was enjoyable again - I really like using this woodfiller.  While it dried thoroughly in the cracks where the roof and walls joined together I started preparing the shingles, snipping them to different lengths.  This is a lengthy job, so I continued with it whenever I was waiting for something to dry during the evening.

Once the plaster was dry I added the strips of timber cut into lengths for ceiling beams. These need to be cut a bit short of the height of the roof so that the rear roof can fit on without them being in the way.

Now I am continuing to snip the shingles and trying to find out what Winsor & Newton Liquin Original is, so I can use it (or its equivalent) along with Burnt Umber oil paint to age the interior and exterior plaster and to the timbers.  A visit to an art store tomorrow is in order, I think.

Sunday 11th July, 2010

I'ts plastered!

In the nicest way possible of course vbg!  Having all the pieces prepared the carcass of the house went together really smoothly, and the dry fit made it so much easier to know where everything was supposed to go.

That gap between the wall and the floor that I was worried about wasn't really a gap there, but the wall of the annexe bit does project beyond the floor and the side wall and I'm not sure at this stage whether that is supposed to happen or not.  So I've just left it for now.  I dry fitted the roof and it fitted perfectly - not a gap in sight.

Aging and weathering the trims was fun - I took to them with a little screwdriver as per instructions and chipped, scraped and sliced away.  Then I sanded the trims over again to merge it all a bit more. I think they look pretty good.

Next step was to attach the lower chimney and the apex trim and the cottage is certainly taking on character.  Each project I do is quite different really and each has its own charm - I fall in love with every one as I do it, and keep loving them afterwoods too, which is the real test

.

Then I got down to plastering.  Taped off the edges with masking tape, and did a section at a time with the Elmer's Carpenter's Woodfiller provided in the kit.  It's white, and spreads easily with a spatula.  For small areas such as around the roof and chimney, which are difficult to reach, I used a long narrow craft stick.  I also found that dipping the tool into water occasionally helped.  And to keep the spatula clean all it took was to dip it into the water and wipe it off on a tissue.  I really enjoyed doing this step and it feels that things really are a'movin now!

I'm out for the day but tonight I'm looking forward to doing the next step!  Things will be progressing for sure, so watch this space.

Friday, 9th July 2010

Our daughter's birthday - and I make a start on Storybook Cottage at last!

Our youngest daughter is 32 today, and of course we gave her a gift, but I gave myself a present as well:I started on the Storybook Cottage.  Finally!  I spent yesterday organising my workroom, redoing the labels for all the containers that I have so far managed to retrieve from the storage container so that the printing on all of them is uniform (yes, I know it's anal) and each says whether the contents are 1:12th scale, 1:24th scale or 1:48th scale.  I only have one house and one kit in half inch scale, and one little container of bits to go with it, so that doesn't take up much room.  Two thirds of the rest of my miniatures shelving is taken up by 1:12th scale, and one third by 1:48th scale.  Partly because everything to do with 1:48th scale is of course much smaller vbg. There's not much room left on those shelves and still a lot more to bring in from the storage shed when I can get the menfolk moving to hunt them out, and I have no clue where I am going to put them all!

But that's to worry about another day.  Today I pulled out the Storybook Cottage kit, rolled up the sleeves and got going.  I like the suggestion to  put little bits of masking tape on each piece and write what they are on them, so you don't get them confused. It's very helpful.

The dry fit showed me that this is certainly not going to be a walk-over, and that is really good. I was a bit confused because there seems to be a gap between the floor and the walls, but then I realized that this is probably to make allowance for the plastering on the inside of the walls.


I’m glad that I did this step. It gives me a much better idea of how things go together.  It also gave me a pretty good idea of the size, so I can start thinking about how much furniture I can put in the rooms.   And I really like the way the base is two layers to give a dimensional effect to the garden.  I played around with it a little bit and am considering changing the angle the house sits on the base.  That will involve filling in the rear section, which is okay.  I have to talk to the people that make the perspex covers for me, to see how much I can fiddle with the shape of the base.

The rear view (picture right) looks rather wonky, because I couldn’t get the 1st floor to stay in place – and it kept slipping progressively further down as I took more photographs. Of course, having all that masking tape doesn’t help the appearance at all either!

The rest of it today was a lot of preparation work before there can be any construction: staining the flooring, painting bits and pieces. But it’s always such a pleasure to start a project, isn’t it? And of course I’m already planning how to furnish, and what the ‘story’ that goes with the cottage.

So the pieces are all drying and waiting to be assembled tomorrow night. The timber floors look really nice, painted and then spray varnished with a matt varnish, the trims are all done with burnt umber paint and the walls are all prepped with cream paint ready to take the plaster.

I won’t be working on it until tomorrow night now which gives everything time to dry thoroughly. The varnish needs eight hours and I don’t want to mess that up while I’m trying to glue the walls to it. But preparation always takes quite a while then pays off later.

One of the major attractions of Storybook Cottage is of course the garden at the front. There’s scope for lots and lots more plants. I already have the twig bench, and some flower kits that will be a good start.  It will be interesting to see how long this takes to do.

Thursday, 8th July 2010

More tiny furniture

And here is the last of the bedroom furniture that I had kits for.  It is the Victorian bed and dresser by Karen Benson.  Yes, these drawers come out too.  In fact the top one has come out a little bit when I was moving it around to take the photo.  No knobs for these drawers, but the dots on them look like knobs and I love the engraving on the mirror and the bed.  There is no mattress either but now I know how the mattress is made on the other beds it won't be any trouble to duplicate it on this one.

The kits are really easy to put together and give great results.  I was a bit intimidated by the tiny quarter scale bits but now one twelfth scale looks enormous to me!  I still use it and love it but it sure takes some adjusting to when I go back to it.

Today calls for a major tidy-up of my workroom, so I can get properly organised to start the Storybook Cottage - when I went to get the bits and pieces last night I realised that I couldn't work on it until all was neat and tidy in there.  But the delay will be well worth it, to have room to move and to be able to find things more easily.

Wednesday, 7th July 2010

Had a mini day

Two deadlines met.  One was over on Saturday, the other was for a GSOLFOT make and I finished that too.  It was the first time ever that I have made 1:12th scale clothing, and of course being me I had to dive in boots and all and start with fabric that would show every little glue mark!   Considering it was my first attempt and I can't find half my supplies (still) I am rather chuffed with my efforts.  After both those deadlines I had the usual nasty let-up-of-stress migraine, and decided that I deserved a mini day as a reward.  So I went to town making up some quarter scale furniture kits that have been sitting here calling out to me. 

So I did several of the bedroom furniture kits, all by Karen Benson except the mirror which is by Karen Cary, and here they are, still in their unfinished state - I haven't stained them because I don't have a stain pen, so will paint them with a light wash of paint and then go over that with a spray sealer or with Shellac.  The mattresses on the bed are removable, and there is another layer to go on them as well.  I will do the bedding after I know which house they are going into and what the colour scheme is.

There is still a Victorian bed and dresser kit to make up, and some fireside chairs to make up and upholster. 

Now tiny as these pieces are, the Mirror swings, and the drawers on the Cottage dresser and the Victorian nightstand come out!  I had enough spare knobs from the Cottage dresser (the one with the little shelves and the oval mirror) to put three on the nightstand - so I will have to hang something out of the drawer I guess, unless I can find another matching 'knob' vbg.

There was a slight pause here - I knocked my 'photography background' box to the floor, don't ask me how, and it still had all the pieces in it!   So a repair job was needed on two of the pieces.  One of those was the table for the conservatory, among the 'wrought iron' furniture from Karen Cary pictured here.  There are three little wall pot holders at the back, one is difficult to see because it is partly hidden by a chair.  Won't they look great when they are painted white?  We are having rain at the moment so it's not a good time to get out the spray can or I'd do it today.

Back to the house, and this darling little (and I do mean little) grandfather clock will be perfect in Miss Marple's Cottage - now renamed Rose Cottage, remember.  There are lots of tiny pieces in it, believe me.  But the results are worth it.  Very sweet.  And the kind of detail that really makes a difference to a house.  Which reminds me, I have some wall clocks somewhere too.......

Now I love dressers.  For some reason they just hold a charm for me that I can't explain.  I have a few by Pam Junk, as part of furniture sets. So of course I fell in love with this one by Karen Benson too.  Again I am not sure which of the several quarter scale projects I have lined up on my shelves yet to do it will go into, but I can see more of these lovely dressers on the horizon.  And yes, the drawer comes out. So of course it will have to be filled with goodies.

But the garden hasn't been forgotten either.  First there is an arbour with planter boxes on either side.  This of course just lends itself to a flowering vine going up and over it, with other flowers on the inner boxes.  And then there's a twig bench to give some garden that lovely rustic touch.  The illustration for this shows it with a throw draped over the right arm and a hat or book on it - just suggests the perfect sunny afternoon, doesn't it?

There's more for the garden too.  This one is a grand Garden Alcove kit, from Karen Benson.  It is much larger than the arbour, and is meant to have a garden seat in it.  I have used the garden seat for the front garden of Miss Marple's Cottage/Rose Cottage, so will get another one (or several - they are just delicious!).  I see it as part of a far more formal garden setting.  I took the photo at a slight angle, everything is really square and spot on.  This is a lovely structure but as the next photo shows, it really does dwarf the arbour

I think you'd have to be careful where you put them if you were to use them in the same garden, or even which house you used the Garden Alcove in at all.  But I love it.

So there you are - the fruits of my labour lol!  Furnishings for the bedroom, kitchen, conservatory, garden and a grandfather clock for the living room.  So I can go ahead and start furnishing Rose Cottage and have some in readiness for other houses as well.   And I have a lovely lumpy, comfy sofa and chairs from Grace Shaw of the Virtual Dollhouse too, as well as lots of wonderful cats and dogs, kitties and puppies, agas and a fridge.  By the way, do visit her store.  Not only has she such a lot of things but she is just so helpful and will get anything for you.  And I get my order within a week, even here in Australia, from the time I order - her service is unequalled!

Now I just have my mother's new computer that I bought for her to set up and take around to her, and I can start on my next project - Story Book Cottage.  So watch this space, friends!