Monday, August 22, 2011

Chantilly - Day 23

I finally have the chimney bricked and managed to get the rail to stay glued using a prop stick and lots of tape.

The chimney needs some crack fill looking at it this morning, and I need to sand out the fingerprint ridges, but overall I'm quite pleased with it.  I think the brickwork will be red brick.


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Chantilly - Day 22

I'm on the home stretch now!  I finished off two rooms tonight by tackling the ceilings.  I hadn't thought of them at all during the build and then about 2 weeks ago as I was examining it from the sofa I realized that I could see the tabs on the second floor ceilings!

I covered the ceilings in watercolour paper and added beams to the living room and upstairs room.  I'm still on a hunt for a medallion for the dining room as I'm not in love with the one I made .  I may go with a patterned paper... or i'll just continue with my beams throughout - who knows!  I may wake up tomorrow and hate it.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Chantilly - Day 21

Tonight the kitten was sleeping so I was able to spend some time on the house again - I will pay for this solitude at approximately 6am when she decides it's time to be played with again.

I finished off the siding in the 2nd storey eaves, put another coat of enamel on the porch posts and added board roofing to the porch.  I knew I didn't want dark stain on the roof but didn't really want to go with the the lighter stain or paint either - the solution, mix the stains and see what happens.

At this point all I have left to do is permanently install the fireplace, finish painting the dining room set, a few more coats of enamel on the trimwork/posts and finish the porch foundation (lost a piece to the kitten, will have to make a new one) and this thing is ready to go into a box!  Just in time for the move, I couldn't have timed it better.

I am still debating putting boards on the porch floor, but that would involve altering the door and I'm fairly certain it's not moving any time soon.  I guess the doors aren't hinged so they could be built up around and it wouldn't cause any further mechanical issues... but I'm too tired to make that decision tonight.




Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Chantilly - Day 20

The day 20 post had to wait until the glue dried and the tape could come off!  I finally got the posts and trim painted and installed, along with the door!This house is almost ready to go in to a box for moving!!

I had to trim the side pieces to accommodate the siding (next house will have a complete dry fit with pencil markings).  The door was enameled and has 1/2 scale doorknobs glued on.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Chantilly - Day 19

Today was white day.  I've been working on the dining set for a couple of days now and finally I'm getting the enamel to cover the mahogany colour it once was.  I don't want the dining room to get dark and claustrophobic, and with that very dark floor the furniture was just way too dark.  This modelling enamel is amazing stuff but white in any media is difficult to work with.

To top it all off, I'm down to the trim on the house.  I started building the second layer of the window frames this evening, and got three coats of white on all the porch rails, eaves trim, door, and post trim.  I added another piece of dark trimming to the back of the house to neaten up the appearance from the back and started on the final mouldings for the two upstairs rooms.  It was much much easier to apply mouldings as I was building - note for the next project.

In this box of surprises I was delighted to find some doorway hinges, so I think I will be able to get a functioning doorway on this house, that would excite me greatly!