Doorbell

I realize that I haven't posted here in forever and that is because, in short, everyone in my house has been disastrously, deathly sick and it's been the longest three months of my life. The houses are all exactly as they were when I last wrote, except the Worthington was moved to the basement to make room in the midst of all the chaos.

HBS has recently announced the Creatin' Contest kit for this year and... I hate it. It says two possible things to me and I'm afraid that 90 other people will have very similar ideas. So I'm going to pass unless I get some stroke of genius inspiration. I'm okay with not participating this year because I still have at least three other houses to work on, including last year's competition piece that I never finished. That piece has a forever home though and will be finished at some point. I will write a separate blog post about where that started and where it is now pretty soon.

Anyway, hopefully things will be rolling again soon.

It's alive!!!

After a couple days staring hopelessly at the Worthington, it's started telling me what it wants to be. It isn't whispering - it's shouting so loudly I can hardly think straight.

There is a famous chef married to a well-known author and they have a couple teenage kids. They bought the house for cheap and have spent the last few years restoring and modernizing the interior. A state-of-the-art kitchen with a bay window breakfast nook, an entertainment parlor with old-fashioned marble fireplace, a library with a fireplace and a book nook, a master suite, a guest suite, a rounded southern portico with widow's walk, a solarium, a small attic storage place, and a mud room / laundry room. I am kicking around the idea of a servant's staircase and a dumb waiter.


As for now, this is the color scheme and general idea for the kitchen.

Rockin'

I've spent a large portion of the last couple weeks working on laying rocks and grouting. This isn't the clearest picture, but it gets the idea across.

If you're wondering, the candlesticks were regular brass. I painted them with self-etching primer from Rustoleum (wrap the electric parts in masking tape first), then coated with matte black, and a coat of matte sealer. Later I dabbed them with a mixture of Americana acrylics in Bittersweet Chocolate and Fawn. I still have to work on the candles themselves, but I had to let the sticks dry for a couple days without touching them so all the paint wouldn't come off.

The wire that is hanging down in the firebox is from one of the candlesticks. It is now routed through the wall and taped down. To do the grouting and painting around the candlesticks, I left the wires loose through the hole so I could slide them in and out as I worked. By now, most of the interior walls are painted and sealed. I still need to seal and grout the base of the firebox before I can put the fireplace in permanently. As soon as it's glued in place I can add the side bricks before painting and sealing and grouting. After the grout is dry, I will cover the whole thing with matte sealer before I begin work on the second floor. 

Waiting in the wings...

I have plans to go pick up a new house tomorrow evening. This is the photo from the listing I found.

Some lovely people on the miniature forum kindly identified it for me as the Artply Worthington. It's about 4' wide and 29" high, so... big. I won't get to it for a while but... Maybe I'll have to bump the Victorian for this. I looked at the listing a few times and passed it by because I'm not a huge fan of Georgian mansions (because I'm a huge sucker for Victorians) and, quite frankly, I think the exterior is ghastly. But it's up for sale for $40, so... the worst that can happen is I'll ignore it and re-sell it in the future. But I'm finding that the more I look at it, the more it screams ideas at me and I'm getting really excited about it.

I've been hard at work on my HBS Creatin' Contest entry the last few days, but as it were, I can't show it. Truthfully, it may not be finished on time and I'm decidedly okay with that - plus it has a forever home in Florida as soon as I get it done and photographed so it's all good either way :-)

Also, I've been cutting egg carton bricks once in a while so I can build up my stash for my Victorian project, but that isn't anything to show just yet. 

So anyway, I just thought I'd drop in and update since I haven't been posting much. Thanks for stopping by :-)

Have a seat and stay a while

These are a table and chairs that were picked up in an antiques shop in North Carolina. Going to re-stain and re-upholster them and use them in my San Franciscan.

No other news to report currently, but I did work on exterior painting last week.

Framing Square - The San Franciscan

I made a little progress on my window frames yesterday morning, though it seems wood stain and sanding sealer don't play exceptionally well together- but the result has definitely given me some ideas for my F. W. Know / Old Hickory Tavern build I want to do in the future.

They are completely inappropriate for my San Franciscan at this stage so some experimenting is in order to get them the way they should be, but it's certainly useful knowledge for a run-down or abandoned house. 

I spent yesterday afternoon working on cutting out bricks for the foundation and chimney for the house. I haven't decided on a color for the brick work yet or if I'll do like some Victorian house owners and paint them to match or coordinate with the house. 

Each day I think "I should be able to get such-and-such amount done today" and then the kids need me, or a million other things come up, or I just don't work as fast as I think I should - so I've decided that I'm going to just take it as it comes, hope I get most of it done correctly on the first try, and enjoy the process a little more. If it takes years, it takes years. Over all, it will be a process of gaining a lot of experience, making an individual piece that's never been made, and eventually it will be fully finished. I am not in a race. I am not in a race. I am not in a race. 

I've Been Framed - The San Franciscan

My San Franciscan has 15 windows on the front. Each window has four pieces - two sliders that fit into the wall frame sections to allow the windows to move, and two front frames that sandwich the glass to the slider sections. So sixty pieces total that have to be trimmed, primed, sanded, and painted. I think I have almost all of them primed and now I'm moving on to trimming and sanding. I even got the first coat of paint on a few of them yesterday - I decided on a purple that was left over from recently painting my youngest daughter's bedroom as it goes perfectly with my other color choices.

I don't have pictures because everything still looks pretty much the same as it did last update, but hopefully as I get a few on them painted I can put them together and give them the leading and stained glass. Most old houses had rolled or cast plate glass windows, so I plan to do a bit of effect work for that too. I will probably do the windows as I get the frames put together just to break up the monotony of trim, sand, paint, repeat. I will take pictures during leading and staining, of course.

Anyway, that's what I got done yesterday. Exciting times ahead - I can feel it :)