Mystery House Revealed

....and thank you Jennifer for your perseverance!

Jennifer really entered into the fun of things. She was determined to discover which house the Mystery Project was - and she did! Yes, you are right Jennifer, it is the John F Craig house, by Debbie Young. I posted about it arriving in November 2010. When you said that is has been discontinued, it was a real shock - it's not all that long since I was looking at the furniture for it on Debbie's site.

Because Jennifer really persevered and read lots of posts on my blog in an effort to discover the secret, I am going to do a petitpoint cushion for one of her dollshouses. So let me know what style you like Jennifer (see my reply to your last comment) and your preferred colour scheme and I will get busy with needle, thread and silk gauze :)

Here is a look at the front of the house (photo is courtesy of Debbie Young)

And here is a view of the rear of the model. Again, this is the photo that came with my kit.

Now I am home again, and today more Pickett Hill furniture kits arrived. So I am torn between doing those, doing more on Pickett Hill or continuing on the John F Craig. Solution: do some of all of them :) Hopefully I'll be able to do some tomorrow and will have photos for you tomorrow night. Till then -

Lots more on the Mystery House

and a soggy end to a wet holiday .....

I never mind the weather when we go away, and nor do Peter and Nathan. We just love being away. Which is just as well, because apart from Monday and a few hours this morning, it has been showers or solid, steady rain all the time - usually the solid, steady rain. We have however had a lovely time with our wonderful friends in spite of that. And we haven't had any problems with the widespread flooding affecting all of the east coast of Australia. Even Warragamba Dam, which supplies Sydney's water, has reached capacity for the first time in 50 years and they've had to open the sluice gates and let water out for several days now. The name 'Warragamba' is an Aboriginalword for 'place where little rain falls' by the way, so of course they built Sydney's main dam there! Just a few years ago it was down to something like 30% and we still have water restrictions in place, though not as severe as they were then.

Sadly, tomorrow we pack up our soaking wet annexe and the soaking wet and muddy flooring to the annexe and our damp clothes etc and go home. And yes, I have taken photos of the beach, the lagoon, the seagulls and the pelicans. But it all looks quite grey and misty so they are not good photos at all.

Today we went to the Nan Tien Buddhist Temple, a very large complex with the biggest temple and the only Buddhist university in the southern hemisphere. It is really beautiful and very peaceful and we enjoyed our visit and the delicious vegetarian meal we had there. However the photos again are against a grey and misty background and I came home soaked to the skin from taking them.

Progress on the Mystery Project

There is a lot to show here!

Ground floor wallpapered

The ground floor looks great with the wallpaper done in all the rooms. On the left looking from the back is the dining room, and on the right is the living room. The dining room is done in a green stripe with a lovely ivy border around the top.

The living room is elegant in its burgundy wallpaper

And the little porch room going off the living room is papered the same but without the formal border.

Tall doors

There are three tall doors leading from the ground floor out onto the verandah: two into the sunroom from the dining room and one into a small porch room from the living room. These are an elegant touch. The instructions suggest adding lace to them for decorative effect, and I will look for something suitable. So the doors are just sitting in place at the moment in order to enable me to do that.

Entrance hall & staircase

I love an entrance hall, and this one makes a 'statement'! It is quite spacious for the size of the house, though there's not a great deal of wall area to arrange furniture against.

The staircase is really beautiful, with the balustrades specially laser cut by Bruce Steinke of BJ Miniatures. I decided to paint part of mine with brown instead of keeping it all white. Then I adhered a laser-cut edging from Jeanetta Kendall as a ‘carved’ feature. I’ve left the stringers and risers white, but done the treads brown as per the instructions. Then it looked odd with the underneath still white so I did that brown too.

Another change I made was to wallpaper the little wall under the stairway in the same paper as the rest of the hallway instead of doing it the same as the living room as it is supposed to be. What do you think? Oh, and I also changed the wallpaper.

Columns seperating living area

Two pairs of columns define the entrance to the living area from the hallway. Each pair consists of a full column and a half column, set against the wall. They are pretty elegant, I think.

Ground floor completed

Showing you the completed ground floor:

Textured finish on foundation

A small bag of texture material is supplied, to be mixed with paint to a creamy consistency and painted on to the foundation of the verandah and the parts of the house that will not be covered by the verandah. It is painted the same colour as the house in the model but here it is still white, as it went on.

Ground floor ceiling/first floor installed

I have put the ceiling/floor in, but the ceiling is not completed. As the lighting is installed, I will be also be putting in a textured ceiling. The instructions are to wallpaper to provide attractive ceilings but I am going to try embossing heavy paper to create something like the lovely ornamentation that one sees in 19^th century houses.

The first floor (or second floor to American readers) has two bedrooms. It is much more straightforward than the ground floor was. On the left is a bedroom papered in a pale brown with a turquoise border, called Mocha Floral (I think)

and the bedroom on the right is in blue.

The hallway has stripes on the bottom half and green 'Impressions' on the top. I've put a dimensional two-layer strip between the two, and need to put a border around the top because there is still a gap. The walls were freshly papered when these photos were taken, so the windows weren't cut out yet and the paper hasn't been trimmed properly at the edges. And yes, most of the papers are from the Lydia Pickett Collection.

I couldn't resist dry-fitting the 2nd floor once I got to this stage (naturally!). There are two more rooms, a small bedroom and an office in the model, and a 'hidden' bathroom in the centre.

Have you guessed yet what the house is? Try looking at posts for 2010!

Welcome! And a clue....

Welcome Lidi and Thelma! How nice of you to have a look here and to sign on as followers - thank you for your interest. Have you had a think about the mystery house yet ;) No prizes for a correct answer but I hope you'll have a bit of fun trying to guess.

I love comments, being one of those who don't have anyone nearby to share minis in person, so please feel free to comment - it makes me feel that I am not 'strange' in having minis as a major interest in my life :) Everyone I mix with in real life think that this interest should be relegated to just a few minutes at night when there's nothing else going on.

It's always great to see you at the Sydney Fair Lidi, hope to see you again this year. Neither of you list a blog - please let me know if you have one.

So - have a browse when you have time, I can tell you that I was very excited indeed when I bought this kit. I posted about it. And that is today's clue vbg.

I still have the rest of my Christmas money to spend, and some birthday money too. I have been looking around at kits and I've been talking on The Beehive with someone who is doing the Petite Chateau by Suzanne & Andrew. Anyone else done this beautiful house?

We have friends visiting today, but tonight I can promise that there'll be some interesting developments as far as the mystery house goes. Til then.....

Bought the wrong coloured paint!

Isn't it always the way?

I don't think I told you that the other night I also added the siding to the exterior walls. Next morning when I went to cut out the window and door openings, I found that cutting down your packing to the bare minimum doesn't always pay. I had decided not to pack the larger craft snap-off knife or any other larger knife, I would just bring a couple of small scalpel-type ones. But they didn't cope at all well with trimming out the siding from the windows and doorways, and when Peter went to do some grocery shopping I asked him to pick up a larger craft knife of some description.

While he was gone I painted the interior side of the walls with light ivory (because I have more of that with me than I have of white). That wasn't in the instructions but those of you who have followed my building for a while know that when I first started doing minis I bought a 'how to' book. In it the author stressed sanding and painting all walls even if they were going to be papered, firstly to seal them, and also because white or off-white paint shows the colours in the wallpaper to its best advantage. So I am a bit obsessive about painting the walls before I wallpaper.

I also sand them really, really, really well because there is nothing more annoying for me than to put wallpaper on a wall and find that a blemish in the wood has made a bump or mark in the wallpaper. If necessary I fill it with wood-filler and sand it again. Perfectionist? Who, - me? Whatever makes you think so?

Here is a view of the walls, just to give you another clue to help solve the mystery. I notice that I still had to put siding on the peaks of a couple of them at this stage. The siding wasn't trimmed yet for reasons mentioned above. I stared on the largest piece but had to give up.

Instead of using a stain pen for the floors, I mixed paint in various browns, terra cotta and tan to a colour that I liked - or I liked it in the wet stage, hoped I would like it when it was properly dry, and fortunately I did. Here are the three floors painted but not yet sanded or varnished.

I also painted the rest of the interior walls for the ground floor, and most exciting of all, started to assemble the house itself! First, here is the view from the back.

And from the front. You can see that the floor has now been sanded and had a couple of coats of satin varnish.

And again the front, with the verandah sitting in place.

Instructions then called for painting the exterior, so I brought out my paints. I remembered that as I was packing I saw the colour that I had ordered especially for this particular house, sitting on the table. I grabbed it, thinking 'Mustn't forget you, must I?' and packed it into my tote along with the rest.

Yesterday I went through the paints and couldn't find it. There were two of a similar colour but none of the one I need! Not happy, not happy at all! While washing up I realised that the supplier I bought the original one from was not too far north of Sydney, and Express Post would get a new one to me within 24 hours or 2 days if we are not on the guaranteed express route. So I looked up the supplier on my favourites list, checked the colour chart - and it is no longer listed. I have emailed her, and am waiting for a response. Waiting. Waiting.....

So last night, after the visitors had gone, I just did some painting of bits and pieces so there's not really anything to show of that yet - because they all need another coat. There were doors, door trims and stair railings etc. Not exciting and very fiddly but necessary. But after tonight there will be something quite exciting, so stay tuned. Have you any idea yet of what this very special house is? I showed a photo of the kit when I bought it (clue!) If you love gingerbread you will love this house (another clue!) ..........

Short holiday at the beach - and a surprise for you

How long will it take you to guess what it is, I wonder?

I brought a mini project away with me (naturally!). It is a new project, and I'm starting it entirely from scratch. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I don't think it will take some of you very long to work it out :)

Monday

Really Day 1 of our holiday, we woke to sunshine and blue skies. We can see the water from our caravan, though we are not right on it. There is a constant procession of people down to the water and along to the bridge, carrying their fishing gear or their surfboards, and apparently the fishing is pretty good.

Peter and Richard needed to find a shop that sold caravan bits and pieces, so they and Nathan went off together and Marilyn and I stayed at the caravan park. It was really funny because Rick took the GPS to try to get used to using it, and became all confused. Good job both he and Pete knew exactly where they were anyway! They were gone for hours, and while they were away I started on my mini kit.

I set out all the bags and bits as I always do. There are a lot of them, aren't there?

After sanding the foundation pieces and the three floors, using 250 grit then 400 grit sandpaper, the individual floorboards (1/32" x 1/8" timber strips) had to be laid on the three floors of the house. It took me 3 hours to do the first one, 1 1/2 hrs for the second one and only 1 hr for the 3rd one.

I left them to dry with our hydraulic jack sitting on top of them (it's nice and heavy) to weigh them down and ensure that the boards all had good contact with the floor.

After the ground floor was totally dry, I trimmed it and sanded it thoroughly with the two grades of sandpaper as before, to make sure all the boards were even. Then I did the foundation and glued this to the ground floor.

Does that help at all? After that the next step was to attach the porch pieces and its foundation, and do the flooring for the porch.

Maybe the shape of the porch will give you an idea? It's definitely a house I've told you that I've bought. After trial fitting all the walls (so very exciting!) the height of the porch is marked on them and the siding glued on above that mark.

Now that wasn't bad for one day's work, was it? I spent about 10 1/2 hours all together. I don't expect to be spending that length of time every day, that's for sure. We went to bed around 11.30, leaving all the pieces again under the cutting mat to protect them, with my magnetic jig on top to spread the weight evenly and the heavy jack sitting on top of that.

Any idea yet? Next post will show a bit more........