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........

Last part of your tour for now...,

All the kits I have so far

We will start today's tour on the ground floor, with the kitchen. Here is the island sink unit, not in place yet of course, because I want to show you both sides. This is the side that will not normally be seen from the outside.

And when we look on the other side we can pause to admire the pretty storage tubs that give even a functional room that special 'Pickett Hill' touch. The stools tucked under the end are pretty sweet too, aren't they?

Opposite the island sink unit is the fridge and stove. Here you can see them attached, with the top on, ready to be installed into the kitchen. The doors aren't on the cupboard because I haven't filled the cupboards with real items. I have however put in the artwork supplied to use if you don't want to put real items in.

And around the corner we see the spice cupboard and the buffet. Again, I can't put the doors on the cupboard part until I fill the cupboards with items, and some of those items are on their way right now.

Just to give you an idea of their size

And of course we can't forget the pie cupboard. This will stand to one side of the kitchen.

Now we'll go up to the first floor, admiring the mural on the staircase wall as we do so, and here is Emma's bedroom

Emma's bedroom is any little girl's dream, summed up with the words 'pink and pretty'. Here is an overview of the contents.

The cupboard bed is the dominating feature of the room and is another of the items that I fell in love with right from the first time I saw it. You can see why I just had to give in finally and buy this house, can't you? There were so many things I loved about the house itself and the furniture. Even the things I wasn't so keen on, have turned out to be really nice once I see them in reality.

The bed kit comes with fabric for so many extra cushions that I can't work out how to fit them all in :) If I have room to put a toybox or window seat into the room I will be able to use some of them on that.

Meanwhile here is the bed (cushions not glued in place as yet) Isn't is yummy?

Looking at the side to show you a few of the cushions and a better view of the interior

Emma's wardrobe is just so sweet and feminine too, with it's graceful shape and pretty artwork:

Emma is also well-supplied with toys. Here is her toy kitchen, which belonged to her mother when she was a little girl. I haven't put the tap on yet. I want to put a metal 'tap' on it instead of the wooden triangle supplied.

There is a lovely doll in a trunk (not shown, I just have to add the handles and hinges to it) and here is the doll's bed.

That looked quite big, didn't it? But to give you an idea of just how tiny it is:

And of course Emma has a table and chairs for those all-important tea parties.

On order is a dollshouse, which will complete the room as far as kits especially for this house, but I will probably add a few other bits .

Emma's shelf is a sweet touch, with a dress and hat hanging from it (I still need to add a tiny bow to each of them, made from a single strand of embroidery floss); on the shelf is a darling little pull-along toy, a box (full of special treasures perhaps?) and an E for Emma, painted in gold.

There are also three little pictures to hang on the wall, framed drawings done by Emma. You can see them in the overall picture. The story goes that there were four, the fourth being of Miss Lydia Pickett, but Lydia chewed that one up.

Now we will just have a peek next door,into Robbie's bedroom. This is very much a boy's room in blue. The lovely striped wallpaper has a border of sailing boats around the top, that sets the nautical theme for the room. The carpet depicts a treasure map.

Here is an overview of the contents of the room.

Robbie has a storage cabinet, with tubs for storage in the pigeonholes. They haven't come out true to colour in the photograph. I haven't decided what to put in the rest of the pigeonholes, but have ordered some white-metal toys that might go in some of them. I love the labels on the doors - they should help Robbie keep organised, but I wonder if they will - he is a boy after all :)

The game table has a tiny treasure map on the top, and the sides match the sides of the boat bed.

It came with six tiny sailing boats and a pirate ship as well as four games and game boxes, and a tiny book.

When these were drying on my worktable, it was bumped and the whole lot went flying everywhere. I found two of the tiny sailing boats (about 0.5cm -1/4" or less,) in between pages in the printer; two of them in my waste paper basket beside the table (by taking out every item in it, unfolding/shaking/examining both sides); one in between the cushion and the side of the lounge chair; and one by crawling on hands and knees inch by inch over the floor.

The pirate ship was hiding in the groove/shadow between the leg of the coffee table and the carpet. The games and game boxes were found in various places similar to the above - all except for one, which to this day is still missing. The table landed inside the printer, down where the paper is fed into it.

The bedside table as we call it in Australia, again is a nice little piece and I have put the book on the top of it.

One thing I have added to the room is a tiny cricket bat. I made this by whittling a piece of wood, with constant supervision from my beloved other half (we are Aussies after all, and though Peter and I don't follow the footie we do all love our cricket, especially Pete and Nathan). He made sure that it was the correct length for a little boy, the correct width in proportion, that the handle was the correct length, and that the blade was shaped just right lol. The cricket ball is coming.

The boat bed is really special. I just love it. Again, it came with fabric to make lots of cushions. I have used the checked fabric for one of the bolts of fabric in the Artist's Studio.

Now let's go up to the second floor and pop into the bathroom. You will notice that there isn't a lot of furniture in here yet, the kit for the bathroom is on order. But you can see the bathroom screen - I think I will use this to give some privacy to the toilet area. The little extras for this room are the laundry hamper and the framed prints to hang. There are other prints too, and I'll probably frame them as well - they are quite little and will probably fit the left-over frames from the chicken prints that came with the Coop.

The robe was surprisingly easy to make, using the pattern suppled. There is also a pair of scuffs (not shown)

.

And so concludes your tour for today. I have no more furniture kits to make up until more orders arrive. There is still the Kitchen Accessories kit but I won't do that until I return home and the house is finished a bit further, in case the tiny pieces become lost.

Our nephew is house sitting, the DVR is set to record our favs, mini projects are packed, as well as mini stitching, mini reading (and other reading), clothes etc. And now the caravan is nearly packed.

Later:

There wasn't time to get those photos arranged before we left, thanks to the very user -UN-friendly way that Blogger now has the photos set up, so it is much later. But now we are all set up in our site on the south coast, the ocean looks lovely, our annexe is up and Nathan is organised with his bed out there along with our dining table and chairs. The television is tuned, we are organised inside, we have had a lovely afternoon and evening with our friends...... and all is well with our world. So that's it for today.

During the week I'll post more about what I do on holiday, including (hopefully) - minis. Til then -