A very lavender update

and it's a lot of lavender!

A bit of a whinge to start with - I really don't like the way Blogger loads photos at the beginning of the post, before the title instead of being able to place them where you want them like you used to be able to do. Though it seems to have solved the problem of the line spacing going to pot when you add photos, so something has improved.   Okay, that's my whinge out of the way.

I've been caught in the 'do a bit and find ten more fiddly bits that need to be done' cycle so the photos don't really show the amount of work that's been put into it. 

First an update on the front wall.  There will be purple flowers added to the vine, and of course there are still the windows to add.  The vine is actually made using leaves from an SDK miniatures clematis kit, and yes, each leaf is added individually to each stem which is also added individually.And yes, there are a lot of leaves and it takes forever.  But I keep doing them lol. The very rustic pots at the front have the beginnings of two lavender plants.  The flowers will be coming soon. There will also be more lavender bushes in the bare areas surrounding the porch.

Then here is the view of the front rooms.  The lounge (living) room on the left will be left just painted, and it needs re-painting.  It's not stuck in yet either.  The coffee table will have to be painted/decorated as well, and I'm envisaging some art work on the walls but I'm not happy with the effect of the white chairs.  What do you think?

So there could be either another two chairs or another lounge (sofa) but covered in another colour - please offer suggestions.  It could be this floral, 

Or this lavender (I've just 'borrowed' the lounge from the breakfast room to demonstrate)

Or something else.  Please, please - ideas.  Norma??? Sharon???anyone????

Dining room, done in floral wallpaper.  Here it is with white furniture, but I think it needs more wood - how about a wooden top to the table or an all-wooden table?  I thought too that a collection of pictures on the wall would be nice, and would also break up the wallpaper.  There is a shelf unit sitting in front of the room - you can see it in the overall photo of the front of the house - that I thought I'd leave in a wood finish, to perhaps go on the wall as well.

The beddroom on the right is done with wallpaper from the Betterleys, the one on left, with wallpaper from Judith Dowden.  The attic needs some bits and pieces in it, but not sure what I'll put there yet.

Rear of house - study on left.  Hallway has been widened, so I can put something there such as a table with a group of photos or objects, flowers etc.  The hall carpet is from Judith Dowden, part of the Dove Point Cottage carpet pack.

Bathroom first floor right, lots of lavender and purple here.  Tiles are printies.

Ground floor rear of house is the kitchen/breakfast room/family room.  The kitchen is kit-bashed from part of a small kitchen and part of a Dove Point kitchen from Judith Dowden plus some wall cabinet kits from elsewhere.  The doors will be added once the cupboards are filled - so far only one has anything in it. The vegetable bin is a kit from BJ Miniatures, the pedal bin and microwave are from Leprechauns' Garden, the cannisters are from Debbie Young (they are resin and I've painted the lids and covered the sides in ribbon) ; there's a coffee maker and toaster too add, which are from a kit of kitchen utensils that I bought but I can't remember where.  I bought the African Violet at the Sydney Fair from Judy Moras. There will be a table and chairs in this room as well, to provide a place for breakfast as well as meal preparation.  That area under the stairs should have a little cupboard in it, but I forgot to put it in there for the photo.  It will probably have a vase of flowers or some collection of items on it if I can find things.

At the other end of the kitchen/family area, the lounge is a Pam Junk sofa that I have kit bashed a little bit to make it look a bit different, the hutch is also a Pam Junk one, the pie cabinet is from BJ Miniatures.  There will be another lounge or chairs in there and I don't know whether the pie cupboard and hutch will both stay, it depends how much room I end up with.  

The little shelves with the tea set on them are left-overs from an extra shop kit I bought in the Debbie Young Town Square series.  They will go on the rear wall, once I have the window frame in position so I know how much room I have left to place them.

So that's where I'm up to so far.  Lots done that doesn't show, as I said, and lots still to do.  We were due to leave on our holidays yesterday, now will be leaving tomorrow instead. I've decided I'll take the cottage with me so perhaps I'll get some done while away.

I'd really appreciate constructive comments please.  

  

Some progress.....

Some of the lavender wallpaper has arrived, the designs I ordered from the Betterleys. Not sure if it is just what I want at the moment, the stripes are very stripey and the mottled is a bit pinkish! But the rest of the papers and carpets should arrive from Judith Dowden soon. I have ordered the set that she sells to go in Dove Point Cottage, even though I will be ordering another set for that cottage too. So I will end up with two cottages done in lavender!

Two chimneys from Petite Properties have been cut down to fit the living and dining rooms. The mentlepieces are painted brown for timber and the rest left plain, ready to wallpaper.

I love lavender, but I tend not to buy a lot of fabric or accessories in this colour for some reason, so I don't have the large number of resources to fall back on that I usually have for a house. Going through my container of fabrics I found a very dark print, and covered the lounge with it. My vision for the living room is to have it quite light, with two white armchairs but the lounge giving a dark contrast. The floor, mantlepiece and some side tables give a timber accent, and there will be a rug on the floor. I'll decide on the wallpaper when I have a range to choose from. Cushions will be in lavender floral, white, and hopefully as much variety as I can manage.

Not happy really with the bedroom furniture, I gave it another coat of white, thicker this time. Then I tackled the bed. I would have preferred the purple check to have been a micro check, but I used it anyway and dressed the bed with it. If you want to see how I did that, have a look at the page I have done giving step-by-step directions. Not sure whether to use the same print to fill in the door of the wardrobe or use some of the wallpaper. Each of them will have to be tested to see.

After experimenting with furniture layouts, I have realised that the arch from the hallway to the living room wouldn't allow the layout that would show things off in the best way. So that plan has to be changed - I'm glad it hadn't been finalised.

I've also assembled two wall hanging plant holders, and a garden tote kit, all from MJ Miniatures. Once they are painted I will post photos of them.

Seem to be marking time

It feels as though I'm not getting anywhere much at the moment, and I'm becoming restless with the project again, as usual when I can't just get in and get it done. However, when I stop to really look at what I've completed it's quite a bit even though it mightn't show.

First of all I re-painted all the brickwork. I'm happier with it now - it's a softer, lighter colour. I didn't mind the darker colour but I do prefer this lighter shade.

The front door is in two shades of lavender and I've rescued a cross piece from a broken french door to use in the top glass section. The porch from Rosebud looks nice against the softer colour. The pavement has 'gravel' over it, and the soft gold colour of that complements the colour of the house really well.
When you remove the front it's rather overwhelmingly lavender at the moment, but it won't stay quite like that. The hallway will remain painted but the two bedrooms will be wallpapered, hopefully with papers that have predominately white backgrounds to show off the furniture. The righthand bedroom furniture has had a wash of white paint over it, the wardrobe will have either gathered fabric inserts in the doors, or paper.

The dining room, on the right side of the ground floor (below) looks a bit crowded with the dresser in there - I think it will be better in the breakfast room. The dining room also looks quite bare with just plain white furniture in there. By the time I add a pretty carpet, vase of flowers, pictures, some sort of small table with bits and pieces on it, hopefully it will look more shabby chic. Suggestions are very welcome!


Above you can see the chest in the first floor hallway. It's a toy chest from the twins' childhood. I think I'll do it with a timber finish for a bit of a change. The walls keep moving out of place, but when the attic floor is installed they will be glued at the top and hopefully will stay in place.

The archway to the living room on the left of the ground floor is just a temporary one while I figure out how I want it to be. It also has just it's first chair at the moment. There will be another chair beside it and a sofa opposite, with a coffee table in between. I am hoping to get a fireplace in there but I doubt there'll be room.

And here is the removable rear wall. I am very happy with the French doors here. Because they are so very fragile I have put two of them together to give a bit of strength. There will be a larger area off the back, for entertaining.

First floor rear of the house has the bathroom on the right. I need tiles for this room so it won't be completed by the end of April in all likelihood.

First floor left is the study - the wall for this room is still drying. The two layers of matboard have been cut and stuck together, now they are weighted down until the morning. The bookcase looks lonely in there, and that little white piece under the timber on the left is the top of one of the desks.

Down on the ground floor there won't be a dividing wall. It is the combined kitchen/breakfast room. The vegetable bin and pie safe also look a bit lonely in there. The kitchen kit is on its way though so hopefully it will arrive before we leave and I can fit it out.
So: what have I done? Repainted the stonework, put in the stairs, done most of the walls, one of the interior doors and the skirting in the first floor hallway. I've repainted the walls with a colour that is more lavender than it was before, adding blue to the mixture because I felt it was lilac rather than lavender - too pink. I matched the colour to flowers from a couple of our lavender plants.

Of course doing that, I got paint on the floors, so I repainted them too.

I have made a front door and adjusted the French doors, fitting both. done the front pavement. Trimmed one side wall in the rear because it was 1/8" higher than the other.

Repainted the lavender furniture and washed it with white. Done a second set of stairs and fitted them - finally!

Filled cracks and bumps and hollows. Really, I thought that extending the house would be no more work than when I did two houses at the same time. I was wrong.

Maybe now I've shared with you I'll feel more like getting on with it. I think I might take a bit of a break tomorrow night - well, tonight because it is 1.30am - and do something else. I think I lack confidence doing shabby chic too, and that's not helping. So I really would value suggestions please, specific ideas for each room.

Progress report - and secret revealed

I had hoped to have more to show you by now, but I've been a bit lethargic at night and fiddled a lot without actually getting much done. So I decided I'd show you anyway how things are going.

First here is the front, with the painting done. It is darker than I'd intended but I don't mind it. The door is just sitting there and will need some adjusting, the pavement area needs some work and the trellis porch will be cream, not white as it is painted at the moment.

front view

And here is the surprise. Here's a view of the rear wall. The removable rear wall. Why do I need a removable rear wall?

Rear wall

Because I have doubled the size of the cottage......

Here is the front of the house, with an altered back roof, and one of the internal walls just sitting in place. Here you can see the hole in the first floor for the stairs to go through, and the hallway between the front and back sections of the house.

This is still the front of the house, again with two walls just sitting there, not glued in place, and the attic floor balanced on them but not straight as you can see.

The front of the house has a sitting room off the hallway on one side, and a dining room on the other side on the ground floor. The first floor has two bedrooms. At the moment all rooms are painted lavender. I am waiting for some wallpaper to arrive but it won't be here until nearly the end of the month, so I wanted it to be presentable until then and to give me a guide to the colour I was working towards for accessories and furniture etc.

The attic is accessed by a fold-down attic ladder. You can't really tell here but I've distressed the flooring with a very thin black wash.

Below is the rear section of the house, which won't have an attic. The rear roof obviously is part of an extension that was done at some time in the house's history, hence a different roofline.

This section has a kitchen and breakfast/family room on the ground floor, with a toilet at one end. The first floor has the bathroom and a third bedroom which Claire and Caitlyn have made their study since it has a nice outlook over the back yard and the creek.

Now I need to get on with the rest of the walls and doors, and the furniture. I am waiting for the kitchen kit to arrive, but have bedroom, living room, dining room furniture and the bathroom items. Beds need dressing, other trims need doing - still a lot of work, and time is running out.

So what do you think of my 'surprise'? I wanted a house that has more rooms in it, and more dimension. I guess Pickett Hill and the John F Craig House have encouraged my already-existing preference for that. No, I won't be doing it for every house, but I am enjoying it for Lavender Cottage.

Clay work finished

This is my second Washtub Cottage. It's name 'Lavender Cottage' is a bit of a clue about the colours that will be used in it. I know it wasn't on my original UFO list for April, and in fact I didn't consider it a UFO because I hadn't even begun it. Then I read on 'Quarter Connection' that a USO (unstarted object) can be classified as a UFO, - so I guess it does come under that heading after all.

On Saturday night I did a lot of glueing and painting - it felt as though it would never end. In truth I think I was avoiding the clay work. But on Sunday night I tackled the clay. I have taken the advice of Sharon Goldsmith (http://bysharonminiatures.com) and sprayed both sides of all pieces that would be done with clay, three coats of acrylic sealer on each side. That was done on Friday so it was thoroughly dry by then.

Here is a photo of the removable front (I've done the sides too of course).

I know it's not the easiest to see properly unpainted, but I can't do that for a couple of days until it is well and truly dry. As you can see it is still very rough. Once it dries it will have a bit of evening-out in the windows and other areas that need it, then I will lightly re-scribe the lines between the 'stones' before I paint it. Meanwhile I might be able to work on the inside a bit more, and get some more furniture ready to go into it.

Caitlyn and Claire couldn't be put off any longer, they have waited long enough, and you must admit it is difficult to get on with life when you don't have anywhere to live so I'd like to have this ready to furnish by the end of the week.

But I also have a surprise that I'm not telling you about yet! Two of them in fact :)

I've been reprimanded well and truly

The twins, Caitlyn and Claire McNee, saw my list of objectives for April and gave me a good talking to. "Birchwood - okay," they said, "fair enough. But Pickett Hill? That's quite a new project. And we've been waiting for you to finish our house for over a year now! We really feel that it ought to be done first."

So, obedient builder that I am, I have put aside the other projects and have concentrated on Lavender Cottage (aka Washtub Cottage #2 with porch from Rosebud Cottage #2). Last night I spent ages putting together another one of Karen Carey's staircases. Then I found that I had to cut the stairs and the bannister to make them shorter and that is a challenge in itself. It also makes the stairs a bit steep but I have to leave room for a door in the two walls on the ground floor - I want a hallway with a wall on each side.

It took all night adjusting the stairs to the correct height, adjusting the bannisters to the correct height, sticking the little bits in that kept breaking and finally painting it with the first coat of white. Doesn't sound much for a whole evening, does it? Sigh.

And why did I do all of this at this early stage in the proceedings? Firstly, because I started it while Peter was off buying some spray acrylic sealer for me to use on the pieces. I didn't expect it to take quite as long as it did but having started it of course I had to keep going. Second, because I needed to work out exactly where to put the hole in the floor for the stairs to come through to the first floor from the ground floor. And of course how big to make that hole. Whew!

Actually though I remember now that it wasn't quite all I did last night - I also assembled the porches for both Washtub and Rosebut Cottages and painted the Rosebud one with the first coat of white. I'm not sure what colour it will end up being - I'm waiting for the girls to make up their minds, at the moment they can't quite agree :)

There's a surprise element to this house that I don't want to tell you yet, but hopefully I'll be able to show you tomorrow or Saturday night. It makes it pretty special, or at least I think it does. So keep tuned.