Revising the List

So the infamous list is being worked on and revised.  Here it is as of last week.

Glue in curtains
Roof
Trim (bedroom ceiling and outer walls)
Gutters & downspouts (paint and age first)
Add flowerbeds & vines.
Wire living room lamp to battery in table.
Finalize furniture arrangement
Add all accessories & stick them down as needed.

My time off work started on Friday and I got right to work.  The downspouts were the first thing, along with my little mystery project.  Then I added the downspout holders.  I used chalk paint on both, and then sanded off some of the white top coat to age them.  Same colors as the aging on the gutters and the rest of the house, just a different method.  I don't want the whole house to look crackled, just old and beat up.

The downspouts started out square and I used my dremmel on the corners to sand them down so they were vaguely oval shaped.  The braces are cardboard, bent into the right shape and coated with white glue and water to keep them stiff.  I used head pins for the screws and cut off the ends then painted everything with the chalk paint, the same as the downspouts.

Obviously the mystery project was a little roof for the side doors.  When it rains as often as it does in LA and TX winters there are very few old houses that don't have some sort of overhang/awning or roof over the doors.  I used the same crown molding as I did on the balcony and aged it with the crackle finish.  The braces had to be of a different style since the roof is angled downwards.  I got some strip wood, quarter rounds and the scallop trim I used for the detail over the balcony and glued it together until it was a bit more built up. 

I also wanted to get the utility meters onto the side of the house along with the hose and faucet.  And as you can see my back steps are done.  They're removable right now because as I turn the house back and forth I don't want them to snag on anything and break.

The pipes for the utilities don't quite hit the ground because I'm planning on a flowerbed below them.  I wanted them to look a little beat up so I didn't paint them or anything.

Anyone who's lived down near the Gulf is familiar with the way mold/moss/kudzu can grow on darn near anything.  Even tin roofs can end up with a greenish tinge if they haven't been scoured clean by driving rain.  (Sometimes even then.)  So I dabbed glue onto the roof and began to add some green fuzz to the roof.

I've got plans to get a harder brush or some coarse sandpaper and take a bit more off.  Right now its a little too green for me.

I also got some house numbers up next to the front door.  They were not the easiest to glue, or to get in focus with my camera.  A photographer I'm not.

I'm also working on a table for the balcony for the mint juleps to sit on.

I'm kinda excited about this.  I might make more than one if it goes well.

So the list is revised...but not by much.

Glue in curtains
Roof
Age Roof
Trim (bedroom ceiling and outer walls)
Gutters & downspouts (paint and age first)
Eaves & Age Eaves
Roof of back door
Light for back door
Add flowerbeds & vines.
Wire living room lamp to battery in table.
Finalize furniture arrangement
Add all accessories & stick them down as needed.

Roofing, Lighting and Little...Details

I hope you'll forgive me for only one blog this weekend as well as last weekend.  There was a lot of waiting this week and last weekend.  Normally I like to make a bit more progress but with the light fixture for the bathroom there was a lot of waiting for the glue to dry.

Then there was an issue with a broken wire...which necessitated me taking the whole thing apart and redoing that.  Mental note, wires are fragile and don't like to scrape against sharp metal jewelry findings.

But after a lot of work, some mental gymnastics and multiple episodes of swearing and backaches...I got the light fixture up on the bathroom wall.  And miracle of miracles it works.

Can you tell I aged the corner post next to the sink?  It was pristine and didn't match the waterstained ceiling or wallpaper.

So what do we think?

I also was doing some painting of bathroom accessories.  So far I've got the toothbrush holder, a towel rack, toothbrushes, two soap holders, soaps and the long handled scrub brush.  I did everything with slightly different finishes because having everything match (at least to me) implies having the money to shop for all the bathroom accessories at once and our home owner definitely does not have excess funds.  If she had extra money she'd probably do something to get rid of the rust.

I also made a loofah since its a more feminine accessory and our home owner is definitely female. Just in case you couldn't tell from the pink and green bedroom.

And I started work on the roof.  I wanted to get most of the shingles on so I'd have an idea of how to cut the trim and the gutters.  So I started out with two packages of Alessio's shingles in salt and pepper and bought some black shingles from Houseworks when I visited Hobby Lobby.  I wanted the look of an old roof that's been patched in places.  So we've got mostly greyish shingles with splotches (technical term) of black.

Once all the glue dries I'm going to test how well the glue holds on the shingles over the roof hinges.  I think I'm going to need to nail them in.  I'll go to Hobby Lobby (again) and get some pins to cut down and use them as roof nails.  I've got some little finger drills and if I drill the holes then hammer in the pins I think it will work out well enough.  The last thing I want is the roof beams or wood under the shingles splitting.

But while I'm waiting for the glue to dry, I've got my roof trim and gutters measured, painted, and aged.  There was a lot of waiting during this process so I worked on a little shoe drying box.  I got some little beach pebbles and glued them in a wood box I made.  I'm told the idea is the water and dirt drips off the shoes onto the rocks and doesn't get on your floors.  I have some leftover pebbles I might use in some of my landscaping.

It goes under the coat hooks next to the fridge in the kitchen. Just inside the French doors.

I wired up the white lamp and stuck it to the desk.  It works quite nicely.  And with a lot less hassle than the bathroom fixture.

Believe it or not it's on in this picture.  Easier to see when it's in the house.

You can barely see the switch to turn it on stuck to the underside of the desk.

And finally got the trim glued to the house.

Then the gutters.  The glue is still drying on these, hence the tape.

I'm also working on the back steps.  They've got their first layer of paint here but that's as far as I've gotten.  I need to beat them up a bit, sand them and then add some grey stain to weather them.

I also have a little...surprise that I'm working on.  Here's a shot of it so far.

So that's my progress for the weekend.  Feels like a lot...until I get it onto/into the house then it doesn't seem like much.  But it is progress and I'll take it.

Four more days until I'm on vacation!  I'm hoping to get a lot of dollhousing done in the six days I'm off.

Can I Be Honest With You?

I really did not plan on getting much done this weekend.  The weather is finally cooling down and today I was going to finally go out and get some gardening done.  I have a lot of weeding to do and I need to make some new flowerbeds for my new peony roots. 

By a lot of weeding I mean a lot.  I've got a whole flowerbed that has maybe two flowers and a bunch of weeds because the darn things just took over when I wasn't looking.  But I've got a bunch of bulbs and I was going to get some mulch and cover everything up so the weeds wouldn't have a chance to come back before the bulbs sprouted.

Those were my intentions.  And then I managed to goof up my neck.  The result of which, even after a chiropractor visit, feels as if I've been in a car wreck.  My husband made me promise that if I felt half as lousy this morning as I did Friday night that I'd do gardening another weekend.  After all, he reminded me, its Texas.  We really don't get the good cold weather until the end of October/ beginning of November.  It isn't like I don't have time.  So maybe one of the days I have off near the end of the month I'll do it. 

Or next weekend if I'm feeling better.  We'll see. 

But the end result is there was no gardening for me today.

So I've been dollhousing instead.

I've gotten the trim up on the edge of the hinged wall and over the hinges.

Glued in the curtains

And got the ceiling beams into the bedroom, and glued the roof down.  See my highly sophisticated method of weighing it down?

You can also see in two of the above pictures that I wired my lamp and got the battery pack hidden inside the table.  I had intended to do the same with the octagonal table in the front room but when I took the lamp out of its packing it was broken.  The bulb holder (whatever its called) came completely out of the lamp so it is no longer a working lamp.  Again, Very Disappointed. I've ordered a duplicate because I'm OCD like that.

But I was getting more worried about the bathroom and how dim it might end up.  So I'm making a wall fixture to go above the mirror and sink.  I've got some thin brass tubing and antiqued brass jewelry findings and some glass globes I bought last year.  I've got some battery operated LED lights that I can wire up and hide the battery in the attic under a box.

I also need some opinions.  I want to add a lamp to the desk under the stairs and I'm wondering what all of you think.  The front room is black and white with pops of red.  So what would look better in the space?  A white lamp with red shade, a red lamp with white shade, a straight red lamp or a white lamp?

I need opinions folks! Help!

Seventy Four Days!

I'm in a flurry of activity.  Walls had to go up, cabinets put together and a million and one other details.

Remember my list?

Porch/balcony
Porch/balcony lights
Glue in curtains
Assemble walls
Add second floor
Install railing
Drill hole into foundation for electrical
Get lights wired properly into their channel and under the foundation.
Roof
Trim
Gutters & downspouts (paint and age first)

Put it like that and it seems like I'm pretty far along.  Then reality hits.  I spent all day.  (And by all day I mean, I didn't stop to eat more than one meal until 8:30PM from the time I got up that morning.)  But all day putting together the kitchen cabinet uppers. 

I had three of these kits. 

I'm glad I didn't go with the clear cabinets but man it was hard to get those little inserts cut out.  Here's the finished project before I stained them.

I made a shelf for the microwave and under it is where the fan will go.

I decided not to use the microwave kit. I'll save it for another house.  I dug this out of a box of kitchen things I had.  It looks fine and I just did not feel like futzing with the microwave kit this weekend.

I stained the uppers the same cherry as the lowers.  I'd also added some quarter round trim to the bottoms so they'd look a little more finished since they were designed to sit on top of a desk or set of drawers.

Even though I'm not planning on filling them up with food I put the shelves in to give the cabinets some added stability.

Then I glued everything to the back wall.

The stove isn't glued in but I put it in there to make sure my spacing didn't get goofed up.

Here's the wall with the fridge next to the cabinets.

I also got my open shelves for over the sink put together and glued to the wall.

I had some 1" x 1/8" lengths of wood and cut a couple lengths and used some brackets I'd bought from HBS Miniatures under them.  I sanded the edges so they looked a bit rounded and worn.

With some cursing and a lot of sticky tacky glue I got the wall in.  (Okay, a lot of cursing too.)

Now that its dark enough in the kitchen I'll show you my under counter lighting.  The battery and switch is hidden in the cabinet above the microwave.

Then I glued in the bathroom fixtures and the water pipes.  I moved the shelf that goes under the window in preparation for filling it with supplies.

I also made a shelf to go over the bathtub.  The tub isn't glued in, I want to be able to move it in case I have some unforeseen problem.

More brackets from HBS Miniatures and a short length wood.

While I was letting all of that glue dry I did some work on my chair.  Keli had pointed out it looked a little odd on one side and suggested some piping.  Luckily in my raid on Hobby Lobby's embroidery thread aisle I'd picked up some green that was perfect.

I'd also gotten some glue syringes and this was my chance to try one of them out.  Very handy if you don't want glue all over your fingers and fabric. 

So here are some shots of the chair.

It still looks a little worn out, which isn't bad.  But it looks more finished than it did before so I'm pleased.

Then I tackled the insanity that is the fourth wall.  No, not the one that you're not supposed to break in the theatre.  The fourth wall of the house that will keep it completely enclosed so Building Inspectors can't reach their little paws in and steal things like cushions and lamps.

Originally I was going to hinge it to the foundation so it could drop down.  But it occurred to me that using that sort of opening would make picture taking pretty awkward.  So I hinged it to the back wall. 

No, my table isn't messy at all! 

The tape is hopefully to keep it in place while the glue that's reinforcing the hinges dries.  I'm planning on adding some strip wood to the sides, to mimic to look of corner trim and finish it off a bit more.  Then I can glue the curtains to the wall.  That'll be nice. They've been sitting on my table ever since I finished them.  I was afraid if I glued them to the wall they'd get pawed and wrecked.

So the revised list.

Glue in curtains
Roof
Trim (bedroom ceiling and outer walls)
Gutters & downspouts (paint and age first)
Add flowerbeds & vines.
Wire living room lamp to battery in table.
Finalize furniture arrangement
Add all accessories & stick them down as needed.

Why does the list get longer after I cross things off it?