Countdown - 4 days to go

This would have to be one of the most frustrating days I have ever had!  For the last few days I have been receiving notifications that my email storage was over quota.  I spent hours and hours last week deleting and deleting several thousand emails but still the notices kept coming in.  The notice said that it would take a minimum of 48 hours turnaround after getting emails from my provider, but it was way past that.  So finally I uninstalled the email program and reinstalled it and the emails started coming in - nearly 10,200 of them!!!  And that is just the ones since January this year.  So as they came in I deleted.  And deleted.  And deleted.  I kept going, keeping fewer than 500 of them that I could see were necessary to keep.  Of course all the emails that I had read and marked to keep from the previous program are now lost forever, as far as I can work out.  My contacts are also lost unless they are on the new emails. I had been transferring saved emails to documents and moving them to files but it was far too slow and now they're gone.

That was bad enough but by the time my inbox was empty it was 7pm and I hadn't done a thing on the Fairfield the whole day.  I just couldn't leave it at that, I had to go to bed knowing that something had been achieved, even though it has set me back seriously.

There aren't any photos, sorry about that.  I did take them but my download cord had disappeared in the mess - I will get more organised tomorrow but I'm just too tired tonight.  It's late, I didn't sleep well last night and it's been a tiring day.

I did get the windows painted as I mentioned yesterday.  The finish isn't as good as I would like except for the kitchen, which I did before installing the windows but that's just too bad at this stage.  I've installed the kitchen windows and the trim on the bay window.

And I've also put all the doorknobs on the doors.  That was a real business!  They are too small for even the pointiest of tweezers to hold, and tend to go flying off into space at the least excuse.  The plastic glue that I used doesn't want to keep them in place - I only hope it becomes more solid overnight.

I've gone ahead and installed the bathroom door and the door trim that came with the kit.  I'm not going to risk waiting for the trim timber to come, because it won't leave me enough time to do anything with it now and these trims are already painted and prepared even if they are not the best of fits.

I've also remade the hearths for the dining and living room fireplaces, covered them with the vinyl brick and edged them with wood trim.  And I've closed over the fireplaces in the first floor bedrooms to make more room for furniture in the main bedroom.  I want the dressing table to be able to be seen and if I put it against the chimney wall it can be seen to better advantage than if it is put in the corner with its back half turned to view.

So that's it for tonight.  Again, I'm sorry about the lack of photos - I'll straighten up tomorrow morning and hopefully the cord will turn up.  When it does I'll do a post with the photos.

I have a strong feeling though that I won't be exhibiting this house at the fair!

Countdown - 5 days to go......

....to the Sydney Fair, when I will be exhibiting the Fairfield.  That's if I count Friday, but all I have on Friday is the morning.  We need to leave by 4pm to take our buildings to the Olympic Exhibition Centre at Homebush to set them up for display over the weekend.

So what have I been doing in the last few days?

First I've finished adding the trim to the windows:

And spent ages doing the edges of the window frames with woodfiller to smooth out the different layers.  By the time you have the interior wall, the cladding and the exterior trim, it is very uneven and unattractive.  So I smoothed it out and will paint it tomorrow.  Bit of advice here:  it would be much easier to do this before the interior windows are installed, to avoid scratching or damage to the delicate  acetate windows.  Guess how I know this!

As mentioned before I needed to re-wallpaper the first floor hallway, and I did that last night.  It's still so messy inside the hallway, lots to do there still but I feel better that at least it is re-papered.

I also spent ages struggling with the wallpaper in  the attic landing.  All the awkward angles and shapes made this just as difficult as I thought it would be, if not more.  I'm not at all happy with the result and went to bed quite disheartened because the quality of the work wasn't what I like to do.  I need to put a trim over the edge of the l-shaped part you can see on the left of the triangular wall to the spare room.

Today I put wallpaper in the kitchen.  I didn't completely cover the walls because the cabinets will cover a lot of the area and there will be tiles between the upper and lower cabinets.  After painting the woodfiller in the  kitchen window openings (windows not yet installed) I will be able tomorrow to go ahead and install them, and add the trim to the arch in front of the bay window.

And a lot of today was spent painting the 5 doors that I have for now, ready to install them.  It took five coats to cover the grey plastic well with the Regency White paint - the cream would seem to cover when it was wet then as it dried you could see a grey shadow through the cream.  I am hoping that the timber trim I have ordered will arrive in time.  If it is not here in a day or so I will use the trims supplied - or I might use them anyway.

I've also added the trim to the arches on the entrance and the bay window in the living room and to the arch in the dining room leading to the kitchen.

Still lots to do!  Will I get it done in time to exhibit it?

Welcome Audra, Isobel & Hannah

Honeysuckle Cottage.  Kit from Sue Heber

Thank you all for joining as Followers of the blog.  It is very encouraging and I am grateful to all of you who become followers, read the blog and offer encouragement by leaving comments.  You all mean a lot to me - very much indeed.

Audra and Hannah, you don't list a blog - please let me know if you do have one.  Isobel has posted about welding on her blog her blog- I am envious of her creativity!  The beauty of miniatures as a hobby is that there is scope for every other sphere of artistic expression you can think of, done in miniature.

So our numbers are slowly increasing, not nearly as many as my main blog but increasing nevertheless.  And I do appreciate that you have made the effort to join.

Now the house can 'see'!

What a difference it makes to add the windows!  It seems to give 'life' to the house in a way that nothing else does.  It is as though the house can see now.  Most of the windows are now in, except the tower and kitchen windows.  The exterior frames are on but I still need to add the 'eyebrows' over the top of the windows and the supports under the sills.  I have discarded the ones supplied in the kit because they are too clunky, and substituted finer ones that I've made myself.

Tomorrow I'll do the last of the windows.  Looking at the photo I've just noticed that the one in the side of the tower is crooked - what a nuisance!

I've also made up a kit of camellia flowers, and painted the leaves ready to make a nice shrub for the side of the living room bay window.

The extra wallpaper for the hallways arrived today so I can get in and re-do the first floor hallway and do the attic hallway too.  Then I'll be able to do the boy's room once the attic is done - I have to leave the rear wall of the boy's room loose to reach the fiddly walls in the attic hallway first.

It's just over a week now to the fair.  There are a lot of fiddly details to finish off.  The sort of things that take  time to do but don't look like much when done.  But if you don't do them then it doesn't look properly finished.  So I don't know how much time I'll have to do any accessories for inside the house unfortunately.  But never mind, it is a work in process I guess.

Thank you so very much for your interest.  I do hope you'll leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Welcome to five more friends

It is a real pleasure to welcome Alisa, Christine, Shelby-Fay, Kundry's Miniworld and Natalia who have really made my week by joining this blog.

Alisa doesn't have a blog, Shelby-Fay and Kundry's Miniworld don't list one.  If you do have one please let me know.

Natalia  has several blogs, including one on which she shows her clever work with a scrollsaw  http://memyselfandscrollsaw.blogspot.com.au   I do admire you people who can create lovely things using those tricky machines!

Christine claims she has the slowest dollhouse build in blogland but I'm sure that's not true.  Her delightful blog is about Hollyhock Cottage, set in the 1940's  http://postwarthatchedcottage.blogspot.com.au   You squeezed in a March post Christine - nearly time for an April post :)!

I have been trying to get a good amount on the Fairfield finished to show you all but came up against some  unexpected problems.  However I hope to have them fixed by tomorrow so I can update you soon.
Until then

It's starting to look quite pretty now

Well I've realized that people aren't as interested in this little half scale house as they are in my quarter scale ones.  Or perhaps it's just the way I'm doing this little half scale house?  Anyway, for the few people who do seem to be interested I'll continue posting.  And it is a good motivation for me anyway to keep going so that I have something to show you.

I'm really happy to have reached the stage where I can get stuck into the interior decoration. Thursday a week ago I wallpapered the nursery.  This is a sweet paper called 'Crayon' with soft lines in pink, blue and yellow.

I also re-papered the living room - I just knew I wouldn't be able to live with that glue mark on the wall!  I'm much happier now.  And it makes such a difference to have the trim on the arch from the foyer and the bay window.  This pretty paper is called 'Conservatory'.

You might be able to see in the photo above that I did the hearths with some latex bricks, glued on with Weldbond.  It took a long time to dry properly but when it was dry I trimmed them to fit into their respective fireplace openings.  Peter and I drilled holes in the hearths and finally fed the wires down through the chimney - Pete worked out how to get them down past the areas that were giving me problems.   The fireplace fronts arrived later that day which was exciting.  I painted them but I'm not happy with the effect but it has become obvious that the hearths are in fact too narrow once the fronts are on.  So now there is some alteration to be done, after all that work.

I also put cladding on the tower, so it looks much better now.
On Thursday night I spent time 'planting' the flowers I had made whilst away for our Anniversary break. Here are the pink geraniums in their hanging basket.

And here are some of the carnations.  I have some more to make up in various shades of lighter pink.  They will all be mixed together in a bed.  On the outside of the bed will be a row of smaller plants - probably little blue Felicia daisies.

On Friday
More wallpapering was on the agenda but in the end I only got the main bedroom done.  This is a Lydia Pickett paper, called Cottage Rose.

Most of the time available was spent on the wall into the tower room, putting wood filler on the wall in the girl's room and tidying up messy bits in the second (attic) floor foyer.  When it was dry and sanded I was able to get a coat of white on it all.

More excitement on Friday when a huge box arrived from Homes In Miniature, a UK store that specializes in 1:24th scale furniture.  I only ordered the goods a week ago so am very pleased at the speed with which they arrived.  The box held a selection of handmade hardwood bedroom furniture, tables, chests and a Bespaq lounge suite as well as lighting and a stair kit.  A second box from Susan Karatjas of sdk miniatures also arrived.  This held more flower kits and lots more furniture kits.

I started painting the stairs, balusters and spindles. I will be pleased to re-paper the 1st and 2nd floor hallways and put the staircase in.  And guess what?  I've ordered more spindles and balusters - I think I'll be butchering the staircase in the foyer too and changing the ones there!  Never one to do things the easy way.

Saturday night
I fiddled with the girls' room - again!  Made the rear wall taller which of course makes the room a bit smaller.    I also made the boy's rear wall  (right bedroom) join up with the extended part of the roof.  But I wasn't happy with that so ripped out the part I had glued into the roof on Sunday morning.  Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I spent helping Nathan with his toy shop.  But on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I made up some of the furniture kits from sdk miniatures.

For the girl's room I made up this set of furniture, though I don't know whether it will be used in this house - I have also ordered a set of white ready-made bedroom furniture.  The door will probably be glued slightly open so that you can see some clothing inside, so I haven't glued it on yet.  I haven't finished painting the drawers or filling them so they aren't pushed in completely either.

One set for the boy's room though it won't used in this house.  The room is very small for this furniture and even if I swapped the girl's and boy's rooms it would still be too close a fit.  I also have a second set of bedroom furniture for the boy's room that is a possibility though I haven't made it up yet.

On Wednesday this week I made the wall higher in the boy's room, and adjusted the side wall to fit.  The room is even smaller now but I'm happier with its appearance from the opposite (hallway) side.

With all this messing around I've used up the wallpaper I bought for the hallway including the extra couple of sheets.  I've ordered some more and hopefully it will come in the next week or so.

Each change, addition of short walls against sloping ceilings, adjustments in the attic 'foyer' area etc has of course involved filling with wood filler, sanding and often filling again.  Then sanding, painting with a couple of coats of white undercoat etc.

The staircase took a surprising length of time to adjust the length to the size for this house, paint the staircase, treads, spindles, railings, and newel posts.  It looks nice assembled but still needs the railing length adjusted and the newel posts added.  I also made two sets lots of spindles and railings to make the opening safe on the landing so that my mini people won't fall and break their necks.

Thursday
This Thursday was a good productive day.  I tiled the kitchen floor,and changed the light to a different shade.  I'm keeping the round globe shades for the bedrooms if I can install them on the sloping ceiling by putting them on a wedge or something without them looking odd..

The bathroom is now tiled on both the floor and walls as well, and the light installed there too.  The walls are white and the floor is grey with a touch of blue.

The wallpaper is up in the dining room - I love this design.  I printed it out from a book of printable wallpapers I bought.  The blue isn't as dark as this.  No matter what I do I can't get it to photograph the right colour.

Friday
The spare room is now also wallpapered. I took the border off the top of the paper and put it across the top of the straight wall.  Otherwise it wouldn't be seen with the roof on.

And the tower room is partly done as well.  I need to install the sconce light on the wall before I can do the final wall.  This is also a printable wallpaper.

The girl's room is done in two papers, both of them quarter scale papers from Robin Betterley.  The lower part is done in 'Sweetie Pie Light Pink Stripe' and the top is done in 'Sweetie Pie Sponged'.  I am looking for something suitable to put as a border along the join.  It looks so pretty!

That just leaves the boy's room, attic hallway and foyer to paper now.  The attic and hallway are full of funny angles and corners and will be very wallpaper hungry.  And of course the 1st floor hallway to re-paper.

Sorry about all the messy bits in the photos.  There wasn't time to pretty everything up beforehand today.  I needed to do some tidying up of my work area and other parts of the house - as much as I could.

I am really looking forward to adding the windows and their frames now.  They really give the rooms a finished look though of course there's still heaps to do - all the wallpaper needs proper trimming up, then there's adding skirting boards, cornices and  fireplaces.

But I couldn't resist putting furniture into the rooms to have a taste of what it will look like.

The lounge room with it's lovely table in the bay window, another table on the side wall, and at the moment a Bespaq sofa and chairs covered in green silk that I bought on eBay.  But I have bought another one also on eBay that suits the tone of the house a bit better - I feel this one is too fancy, much as I love it.

 Then the dining room, where the colour of the furniture is set off so well by the wallpaper.  I will be changing the chair seats eventually.  You can see here how the hearth is too small with the fireplace in situ.

The master bedroom, with some of the handmade hardwood furniture.  It is great quality, much nicer than the ordinary stuff.

This second photo shows the dressing table turned around to see it better.  There isn't room to have it flat against the wall, unfortunately.

The nursery with the furniture in process of painting so I've tried not to push the drawers right in until the knobs are on.  There will be a shelf for toys on the bare wall near the door.  Or maybe I'll put the chest there and shelves where the chest is at present?

The girl's room with the sdk furniture.  The shelf unit is actually a second bedside table that I kit-bashed a little bit, leaving out the drawers and filling in the slot for the middle support piece.  There's still a dressing table to come.  If it is a suitable size it will go where the shelf unit is now, and the shelf unit will go opposite its present position.

In the spare room I've put a single bed and a side table that I took from the living room, both of them are from the handmade range.

I couldn't resist this linen press - it is just gorgeous.  It might fit here in the attic hallway when the roof is on, but I'm not sure.  I hope so.  It will be fun to fill it with delicate linen.

Here it is with the doors open.

And here in the boy's room I have put a half-round table to show you.  Plain but beautifully made.  Not sure where I'll use it, maybe in the 1st floor hallway if it still allows enough room to get past it.

I bought these lovely Bespaq chairs on eBay too, for just a fraction of their normal price.  I am considering using them on the porch.

Another eBay buy at a great price is this Bespaq sofa and 2 chairs, which I might use in the tower room though it's rather too much furniture for such a little space.  I might just get another couple of chairs for this room.

I also bought a lovely hallstand from the handmade hardwood range but forgot to take a photo of it - which is a shame.  I'll have to make sure I do so for next time.  It's rather a pity that it will be hidden away in the foyer.

So there it is, a taste of how it will be furnished.  The rooms are small on the attic level but adequate.
Hope you like it.  Keep tuned!

It's April......did I meet my deadline?

You might remember that I set myself the deadline of trying to finish the Fairfield by the end of March or Easter (which turned out to be the same thing!).  Did I make it?

Weeeeelllll......not quite.  Here it is so far:
The third (attic) floor is being divided into rooms, which is taking a while.

The hardware store was of course closed over Easter Friday and Easter Sunday and we don't shop on a Saturday (Sabbath) so I  had to wait until Monday to buy some extra plywood that I needed to finish off the walls and adapt the roof.   Here is a view of the side without the roof on.  It has been divided into two bedrooms.

 And here it is with the roof on - though some adjusting still needs to be done.

 Here is the left bedroom, left side.  This will be the girl's bedroom.

And the right side

 This is the right side bedroom - the boy's room.  The boy's bedroom has a rear wall that fills in some of the arched opening in the original roof, and a hallway between the two bedrooms gives access to both rooms.  It has had a short wall inserted at the rear the same as the left bedroom to give more usable wall space.  I'm still adjusting this wall so it's in progress.It's considerably smaller to allow for the hallway.

 Both the bedrooms have the flooring down.  The rest of the attic has the flooring cut to fit but not glued into place as yet since the lighting for the attic hasn't been completed.  In fact it would have been better if I hadn't glued the bedroom flooring down until the lighting was done in there either because I have changed my plans on how I am going to do it.

The rear view shows that I have made the tower room accessible from the attic.  This has resulted in a  considerably larger space in the tower room, which is excellent.  I will put a small wall on either side of the opening to allow for a doorway at the entry.  Whether there will be an actual door there or not is still up in the air at this time.  Sorry about all the wood putty - there's a lot of tidying up and smoothing out still going on.

There is a small room on the right hand side, just the same size as the bathroom below.  I debated with myself what that room would be: a guest bedroom? a second bathroom? a reading nook? a sewing room? a study?  At the moment I think it will be guest room but that might change.  The flooring is ready to put down in this area just as soon as all the wires that are going along the channel under it are in position.  The blue tape is holding the bathroom light wires in place.

I'm repeating the same photo below to show that the rest of the attic space has room for the stairs that will come up from the first floor.  I just have a spare set of stairs that I was using to try out there there at the moment until I put the permanent stairs in (the stairwell is covered with blue painter's tape just now to stop the dust from sanding the woodfiller from going downstairs).  The landing won't have much headroom in reality but since there is no roof in that area we'll have to overlook that inconvenient detail.  It is pretty generous as far as floorspace goes and the little nooks and crannies provide places for small items of interest to be placed there.  Of course the walls all need tidying up and lots of neatening done.

The lighting is done in bedrooms 1 and 2 (I don't know why the floors look as though they have a bend in them - they don't in reality),

 the bathroom;

 and I did have one in the hallway.  The hallway light has been changed from the sconce on the wall to a ceiling light.  This has left a hole in the wallpaper that will be covered up with  the stairs going to the second (attic) floor.  You will notice that I have butchered the landing on this first floor too, removing the balustrade that was there.  And incidentally damaging the floor in the process.  This had to be removed because I couldn't match it for the next flight of stairs so will be replacing it with Houseworks spindles and newel posts.  It looks pretty messy and sad at the moment and is about to look worse because I'm also going to remove the door frames and put Grandt Line doors in, with wooden door trim on the reverse side since Grandt Line doesn't supply the exterior trim and they don't fit the trim that comes with the house.

Because I used the ceiling light for the hallway instead of the kitchen I don't have a light for the kitchen but the groove is ready to take the wire when it does arrive.  Since I am still waiting for the bathroom tiles to arrive as well that isn't holding me up at the moment - if the tiles arrive before the light then I'll simply put the tiles in without fixing them permanently for now.

Lighting in the attic rooms is not completed because those lights haven't arrived yet either.  And the channels for the wiring need to be prepared.  From the left bedroom, the wires will go around the edge of the floor to the corner and down the corner cover strip.  At the end of the strip they will go through a hole in the foundations and then through a hole in the base to the lighting strip underneath that holds all the plugs.

From the right bedroom the wires will go down the nearest corner strip in the same way.

In the tower the light will be attached to a side wall.  The channel for the wires will go down the interior wall and across the floor to meet up with the channel for the wires from the hall light below.

There will be another sconce light in the hallway and in the small room at the end.  Their wires will also go down the walls and join up with existing channels.

Looking at the exterior, I took the fourth wall of the tower and cut pieces from it to extend the sides out to join to the roof.  The tower is now ready for cladding on its whole height.  To fill in the gap between where the tower roof sits and the roof of the house I'll just add a small piece of roofing to the addition.  The tower roof is removable at the moment to provide easy access, and I plan to keep it that way.  So there is a fair bit of trim that will need to go around the top of the tower room to give it a neat finish.

The verandah is fully assembled with both parts glued together.  The joints are filled with woodfiller to make them less noticeable.  It needs to have the final coats of paint.  And the side post has broken off again!

The exterior walls have had the slots filled with woodfiller as well, and given the final coat of green.  The side trims have been added.  At the moment most are being held on with tape while the wires are being run down behind them.  They will be 'tacked' on with glue so they are more easily removed if necessary to access the wires.  The first photo is the rear of  the dining room

Here is the Kitchen Bay window wall 

Front of the house showing trim on verandah and side of house 

Here is the side of the house.  I'm not sure whether to put trim on the inside corner of the bay window - I rather like it the way it is.  What do you think?

I've marked the roofs with lines for the shingles.  I did this before installing them on the house.  To begin I placed  a row of shingles with just their pointed ends hanging over the edge of the roof and marked that measurement, making sure that it was square across the whole roof.  Then I measured the distance I wanted the next row to be from that first one.  It turned out (conveniently) to be 1cm, so I marked 1cm increments all the way up the roof and ruled the lines, keeping them square.  The rear roof and the side roof are just sitting in place at the moment while I finish working on the attic rooms.

While we were away for our Anniversary I spent some time in the evenings doing some flowers for the garden, so there will be a bit of colour around the base of the house.

I'm disappointed that I didn't meet my deadline.  In fact, I'm wondering whether I'll get it completed by the end of April ready for the fair but I'm pleased that the house is getting closer to completion.   The problem has been that I find it hard to stick to one project and there have been quite a few days when I've just been rather bored with it and not done anything.  Or I've fiddled around too long with one particular part like the foyer - which I'm going to destroy anyway and change over to Houseworks spindles and bannisters!  I've also helped Nathan heaps with his Toy Shop but that hasn't made a major difference - it's mainly been because I kept getting bored.   I'll make a big effort this coming week and we'll see how far I can get it.  I've ordered heaps of furniture to go inside and it should be here in around a week or so and it would be lovely to have the house  ready to put it in when it does arrive, or nearly so at least.  The trouble is that I'm running out of time to order things.  Everything takes around 2 weeks to arrive from the UK or USA so anything I need now I'll have to order very soon.

Wish me luck!