Beacon Hill - The beginning

I finally have a measurable amount of work done on the Beacon hill kit that arrived a few weeks back.  I can tell already this is a very persnickity build.  The two sub-assemblies went together rather easily, the stairs are complicated but all in all I can't say they were terribly difficult.  However getting the stairs into the sub-assemblies.. well that's a different story!

As I'm not one to build and then decorate, most of the work has been determining where lighting will go, how I will conceal it, and then figuring out the priority in which to get the paper on the wall and the paint on the ceiling!

I went with a floral fabric for the hall/dining room paper.  It's bold, but I am still reasonably convinced I can pull this off.  It lends an over the top victorian aspect to the staircase, and I'm sure that once the room is filled with dark furnishings it will be toned down considerably.

For some reason the photos always make the paper more yellow than it actually is, the background on this fabric is cream, not yellow - but you get the idea :)

As far as the exterior goes, I've been waffling between two styles of masonry, but I think I have finally decided to go with the red brick.  Every BH I've seen (with the exception of one) has had siding, so I want to avoid that at all costs.  So here is my inspiration photo, lol and I'm about to learn a lot about bricking in minature!

A House in 22 Days - Day 6

Naturally, as tends to happen, when you have a short time frame a million things come up which eat into your time.  I got shipped off for a conference this week and last week there was a rash of people quitting!  It's now December 17th at 12:30 am and the panic is settling in firmly.  The walls are starting to go up but there's still a solarium to build, wood to be stained and windows to install!

Overall, it looks like a bit of progress is being made, that is the benefit to blogging - you can see how far you've come!  In addition to what's in the photo, i have the front door stained, baseboards are drying, and the glue is setting on all the major parts of the structure.  Tomorrow the mantles will go in and the remaining outer walls will be complete before lunch - then I start on the solarium while Ben tackles the kitchen (bathroom "tip out" in the kit).  The plan is to use the left room as a dining area if we can ever find a set for his niece.

The lino tiles are holding up well to the twisting that comes with construction, and the spackle grout hasn't chipped at all which is rather surprising.  As you can see I have the wall braced with scrap wood and a small box, four clamps, tape, and positive thoughts!

The fireplace mantles are stained and will be ready to go in tomorrow.  We picked up some beads at Walmart tonight to make a sculpture to hang over the mantle, as well as a sun plaque to hang on the other side of the chimney to break up the white a bit.  The trim work has been cut/stained and should be able to go in tomorrow as well.

Glencroft - Day 14

Well the move is finally over and the boxes are rapidly approaching "unpacked".  I even have the place to myself tonight so I dove head first into the miniature land and worked on my Glencroft with fervor for the first time in weeks.

I had been debating the idea of making larger, oriel windows in the smaller main floor room of the house because I want to use it as a dining room.  With a sample dining set in there the windows are far too high for the room to function at all in this capacity.  I had been debating building a larger window before I got the kit, and this approach is far out of my comfort zone, but I knew I wouldn't be happy with the finished product if I didn't try.

The trusty dremel eventually made it through the wood and I ripped the window opening on the right hand side down an additional two inches, and thus became committed to figuring out how to build windows from scratch.  Tonight I started building the oriel casement but soon realized that it was a bit much to take on considering I have no idea how to build scratch windows.  Instead I am building a cantilevered window with a tall exterior casing.  I want to add carving detail to the upper "cabinet" of the structure, or possibly just stucco the upper portion and frame it in Jacobean stained wood.

I am happy with the results so far, it's really opened up the room.  I briefly toyed with expanding the front window slot to allow for two smaller windows to be installed to centre them more from the interior.  It may still happen, nothing has been ruled out yet :)


I then wanted to feel like I got something done so I started on the stucco for the outside of the house.  I knew I didn't want to use the spackle and paint method because of the small spaces between the 2nd floor brackets, plus I find the texture is too "big" for this scale I'm working in.  I went with the toilet paper stucco approach and I think it's pretty bang on - not to mention easy!

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Glencroft - Day 4 through 6

I've been working sporadically on Glencroft while I was sick this last week, mostly because everything I need to finish off the Chantilly is still in a box, somewhere, probably wrapped in paper and dust.

I have the second floor installed and glued.  I put white cardstock up in the living room rather than try to plaster, and I was very sure I didn't want stucco on all the walls.  I then undertook the paperclay fireplace.

First off, Paperclay is vastly superior to the DAS modelling clay I used in the Chantilly.  It has virtually no odour, isn't sticky, and takes longer to dry so it is far easier to work with.  Also it goes through the pasta machine much slicker which is again because it isn't sticky.

I rolled out numerous strips of paper clay and glued them to the bare plywood, then with a moist paper towel I smoothed the pieces together and built up some texture.  Next the stones were shaped by pressing the lines in and pulling the clay towards the centre of the stone to add depth.

After the clay dried I added black watercolours to the cracks in the stone and blocked in stone colours with the left over paint on my watercolour palette.  A few dirty washes of grey with a bit of yellow or red and the tones were evened out quite nicely.

The wiring was a touch trickier than I thought, i dug out a channel for the right wall sconce with my dremel and built the clay up over top.  the left sconce and the candles on the second floor have individual holes for the wires to run through, at this point I know the power strip is either going in the chimney or in the foundation,either way the wires are traveling through the chimney to get to their destination.

When I built the baseboard in the living room I left them high enough to accomodate hardwood flooring, they will also accommodate the roundwire should I decide to add table or floor lamps.  The dining room / kitchen will have ceiling fixtures.The hardest part of the wiring so far has been the planning by a long shot.  It's hard to know where you will want lighting when all you have built is a portion of a large box!

Glencroft - Day 1 through 3

Well my move is finally almost complete - almost because I still haven't finished unpacking everything.  It certainly will be nice to be able to use the garage once this endeavour has been completed.  One of the boxes that did get unpacked however is my Glencroft.  I really have enjoyed working on the Chantilly for mom, so I have decided to build another slightly larger (ie. full scale) house, with full electrification, to sit in the hallway of the new house.  I've had my eye on the Glencroft for years so this is actually quite an exciting undertaking.

The first difference is of course the scale, this house is freaking huge!  The second massive difference is I'm now working with a die-cut kit rather than a laser cut.  The difference in detail is definitely noticeable, but then it will be easier to add detail to this scale as well - it all comes out in the wash.

The third difference I've noticed is the cost to work on a larger scale house.  I got wood for the 1st story flooring today and it cost about as much as all the flooring for the Chantilly, and possibly the siding as well.  The entire Chantilly will easily fit in the living room of Glencroft.

That said, I have a stack of HOM furniture kits kicking around, so it will be cheaper to furnish :)

I completed a few dry fits and I think I have narrowed down the problem areas in this house - they are the ceiling beams, the stair well, and the yard if I choose to install it.  Today I papered the stairwell and started staining the lower portions of the living room walls and exposed framework with Minwax Jacobean.  Any of the wood with the "good side" exposed seems to take another coat of two of stain to match the stain put on the "bad side", but at least I'm getting it to match.

I also think I will forego the kit mantle for the first floor fireplace and fashion a more elaborate fireplace to compliment the siding, and then plaster or paper the upper portions of the walls to keep the room from becoming too dark and depressing.  I also need to mark out the lighting and find a place to hide this electrical panel.

 

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.

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!

Chantilly - Day 16

Siding is no longer new and exciting, in fact I'm still a bit disheartened by the window framing fiasco.  I did manage to get a bit more on this evening but it got rather persnickity up around the eaves.  I then decided to frame out around the central upstairs window.  On the bay window and inside this frame I will make scalloped shingles out of clay and paint them the same colour as the clapboard.  It won't be obnoxious but will still add some textural diversity to the house and pay homage to the high victorian siding styles found on older farmhouses along the coast.

However I soon tired of this as well and decided to do some more work on the shingles.  The watercolours have  firmly set and the shingles are now quite dry, so I added a coat of pecan stain to even out the tones a bit and saturate the cracks between shingles.  It's given the shingles a bit of warmth and has toned that blue/purple tinge out of them quite nicely.

The stain was applied heavily with a sponge brush.  I started in the corners and worked my way out (the idea to have darker shingles where moisture would tend to collect, lighter where the roof would be baked by the sun).  I'm debating adding moss to the shingles with my oil paints and a stiff brush.  It could either be really great or really not... I may need to make a practice roof :)

Chantilly - Day 12

Today the clay was dry enough to through the first coat of paint on the shingles.  I used a thin wash of watercolours, burnt sienna and black.  It's going to be difficult to get paint in to all the cracks and crevices on this roof, I may have to go back with a detail brush and fill them in with black to add a bit of interest to the roof.  Overall I'm quite pleased, the roof isn't uniform and yet isn't blotchy either.  Once this first coat dries thoroughly and the cracks are tackled, I will put on another wash of a grey which will just hit the tips of the shingles to add some weathering.

Chantilly - Day 7

Day 7 was a rather mundane day as far as progress.  I spent most of the time sanding and varnishing (floors), staining and gluing (stairs, attic roof pieces).  I was having a difficult time getting the attic floor to sit properly until finally I'd had enough.  I'd just get one end glued and start working on the other when it would pop out again.  I tried my trust book trick but alas the house has a stronger will than first anticipated.  It was time for the clamp.

The clamp works rather well, I'd been concerned about using it on such delicate wood but it held up well and the snug fit hasn't budged in the last few hours.

While the glue was setting I started working on the stairs, adding trim along the edge of the case and decided on pulling the white paint down off the spindles on to the upper portion of the frame as well.

Chantilly - Day 6

Day 6 and I'm starting to get annoyed with slow progress on the interior of the house, for some reason today this all seems so very fiddly lol.  I managed to get some more wood strips so I could finish off the 2nd storey flooring and got in to the trim, and more trim, and more trim.  I even had the foresight to do a dry fit on the staircase before slapping too much trim down.  I have apparently papered over a very necessary hole for the 2nd storey railing - locating it again was tricky, I eventually resorted to backlighting with a lighter and then a delicate stab to pierce only the one layer of paper, then with the flooring down I had to trim up the end rail and now it should all fit.

I have to say i'm in love with this pecan stain for flooring, I wish I had used it for the dining room floor as well, and somehow I ended up with a brown side and a light side when it comes to the floors, I hope that doesn't make the finished product look too lopsided.

My fireplace is currently drying partially assembled and with its first coat of black enamel.  I just have to decide on the final placement, I still kind of want to put it under the stairs - but that damn chimney, somehow a natural gas fireplace insert just doesn't jive with me!

Lots of pictures from today, looks like by the end of it I was able to pull the rooms for the most part together!

Chantilly - Day 5

Day 5 was apparently a day of deliveries rather than shopping, which is just fine by me because I've already forgotten what I have ordered.  The result of this, well it's much like Christmas :)  The day started with the deliver of my Glencroft, followed by the delivery of my fireplace (remember I demanded it faster from the universe just yesterday), the brass bed, a stack of HOM furniture which is sadly in full scale (how do you think I justified the Glencroft), and the tiny doorknobs for the Chantilly which I haven't opened yet.

I then motored over to the hobby store to pick up more balsa wood, but missed them by 5 minutes, no biggie there's a Michaels around the corner and I wanted to go look at paper there anyway.  I got some of the wood only it was the wrong size, and some paper, as well as some pecan stain for the flooring.

 I'm not sure if the wallpaper is turning the floor orange or if it's actually the colour of the stain, but it's turning into an interesting room for sure.I did another dry fit on the stairs, which is good because my first approximation was completely out to lunch, got the floor laid, carpet down, and wallpapering out of the way. If only real life renovations were this quick to complete!

Chantilly - Day 4

Day four.  Lesson of the day - don't try to work on a house when you're tired.  I started the hardwood flooring in the living room of the house, and then after the strips were glued down I realized (shortly after marveling at how fast it was going) that I had chopped my baseboards rather than the floor-boards.  They look good, but it stymied the progress I was hoping to make today.

I struggled immensely getting the front shell piece in, for some reason that little sucker just didn't want to line up properly.  Thor (the hammer) was involved, as well as two breaks, numerous cups of coffee, and a lot of language normally reserved for working on cars in a remote location where no innocent ears might hear.  It's amazing how many names you can call an inanimate object!

I still have no idea what I want to do with the upper two rooms, to simply paint them seems like a cop out, but I can't really think of an alternative, the selections of wallpapers are somewhat limited in Calgary and I don't want to continue on with the ones I have.. although because of the stair well I may be able to carry the orange up into the second floor and throw a piece of moulding over to cover the gap.


Tomorrow I will need to make a trip to get more balsa wood regardless, so mayhap they will have some new and exciting stock to spur my creativity.  I am still enamoured with this mitre-scissor thing, I'm sure anyone that does any amount of work on dollhouses has a pair of these already but I think they are just about the greatest things ever invented by man (or woman).  I'm also debating painting the floorboards, I think the living room is going to get very dark very quickly if I stain it the same as the dining room.  Also i require the fireplace insert I ordered a week ago to arrive very quickly, as now I'm not entirely sure where I will put it, originally i was thinking of tucking it in a corner or under the stairs, but that would require some chimney making, and under the stairs just wouldn't make any logical sense at all.

I dug out my pasta press and rolled out some polymer clay to start on the ceiling medallion.  Once i got my circle cut I realized I don't really know what a ceiling medallion looks like other than it's round.  After some quick research I decided to keep it simple, added a smaller circle and baked.  And forgot about the baking.  And burned the medallion.  The resulting colour was amazing but wouldn't go with the room at all (boooooo). I then added some leaves and a hook for a non-functional chandalier I will tackle later one.  A few coats of magic white paint (does anyone else tire of white rather quickly?) and it's ready to be glued on once I square up the second floor.

The Pesterhood of the Traveling Stain

To my horror, this morning I discovered that the stain from the floor had travelled up the wallpaper on one of the shell sections.  This just happens to be the section that I hammered in much like Thor, I don't know if it's bad enough to warrant a repapering or not..  I'm going to have to go to work and think about it.