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Willowcrest, San Fran, Westville, Beacon Hill and others

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Painting and sealing.

After a few paint and wash layers: The egg carton was starting to get weak from all the moisture, though, so it was time to seal it (with my own special sealing mix, mostly white school glue with a bit of water and some Minwax semi-gloss waterbased sealer); I soaked it pretty well for the first seal (wasn't stingy, went through alot of glue), let that dry overnight, and then just gave it a decent over-cover for the second seal:

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Chimneys almost done.

Whew...! ...And as you can see, I did find my Magic Brik powder after all. I like the effect-- might need to go over it again after grouting, though...

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Ho-hum, egg carton work...

Well I actually finished the main exterior walls, after many boring hours, and now I've glued the chimneys on and am working on them: Edit: well I say "finished"-- I mean finished with gluing on the egg carton! It will need alot of painting and washing and sealing and grouting and more sealing before it's truly finished... The chimneys are coming along a bit faster because I'm basically using the cast-off strips for an effect with thin, long rocks.

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Stone work on the Willow.

But first, a couple pics of the new chairs and sofa in the Willow parlor: I don't think that this is where they will live, however; I have something in mind for the "Lisa's country cottage" kit that I never got around to making for Ernie's contest the other year... Snooze-ville here, on the Willow exterior! Slowly and laboriously cutting and placing every single rock... What I am going for is, the pre-Civil War "primitive" stone

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More chairs (what I was doing instead of making books)

Well I did get a number of "books" made for the roombox but I got sidetracked! (It will take many books to fill up those roombox shelves...) I wanted to see if I could make a little couch and I am pretty pleased with the result. I based it on the chair patterns, making a few adjustments for height and curvature. All these pieces were made with 1/8" balsa because I was running out of 3/32"; I prefer 3/32" though because it is easier to work with. The legs were ma

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Clock.

I had a little watch in the form of a key-shaped pendant; had to get another battery for it, and decided to extract the watch part from the key shape to use for a working clock. I made housing for it out of 1/16" basswood. The pendulum is a jewelry finding, and does not work. I am also working on books to fill the bookcases (this will take a while!) as well as framed pictures.

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More roombox bits and pieces.

I messed around with some basswood and balsa and some spindles and fashioned a little chair; it is a bit wobbly but that's what I like about roomboxes-- everything gets glued down at some point, and I can hide the mistakes! I also made an ottoman because I decided that the lamp table wouldn't be able to hold the chess board very gracefully: Well the Scottie dog came in, but I didn't look carefully at the dimensions when I was ordering him, and he is much too big!

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Telescope.

Well I found some square dowel rods and used my dremel to "mold" them into something resembling little legs for the plaid wing chair; they didn't take stain well so I am thinking I will paint them at some point. I also put cord on the chair, and made a little pillow stuffed with seed beads: A colleague found some little pieces at a junk sale and got them for me; there aren't any markings on the plastic table and chair set (which look half-sc

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How I made the wing chair.

This is mostly for myself so I won't forget, but if anyone else tries it, I'd love to see your finished product! Edit: note: this part is a bit fiddly; I cut the card a bit oversized so that I could fit it around the chair and trim it to shape. Just have to do this by eye and see what will fit well.

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Wing chair for roombox.

I wanted to make a wing chair, and started off with the pattern from Vivienne Boulton's book The Dollhouse Decorator; it's a simple pattern but I wanted to see how the size worked out, and modify it from there. That sad pile on the far left is the first attempt; the cloth was unworkable and I quickly figured out some ways to improve the assembly. The purple one, I cut the inner form into three pieces and installed them separately. The third, I tried some more tricks with how I put it together. &

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Desk for roombox.

I went to the craft stores today; found some interesting paper at Michael's (might make nice "linoleum"), and some cotton cord at Joann's that I want to try to use for cord trim on upholstery, and a sale on bead findings at Hobby Lobby: I was on my way home when I remembered that I totally forgot the main reason to go, which was to take the roombox to Hobby Lobby to get a custom frame made for it! Oh well... Last weekend I made a little desk for the roombo

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Lampshade.

I don't know why I took these pictures-- maybe I had the window light on, though one couldn't tell it with this lighting... I didn't like the cheapy plastic lampshade that came with the table lamp; not very realistic. So I found a tut for a lamp harp and a tut for a lampshade, both by 1inchminisbykris (love her work!) and gave it a whirl. I used copper wire for the harp (not quite sure what gauge it is) with clod-sy results; it was clumsy an

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More roombox work.

I have been working on the wall piece that holds the window, finishing the window frame and treatment (I made the curtain rod from a piece of balsa sanded to a roundish profile, and two drawer handles that I pulled off a Dollar Tree side table, and two bead findings), and making sure the lightbulb behind it works before I glued it in: I have been using tacky wax to hold things in place for dry-fitting, like the window frame pieces-- I used i

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Dormers and entry, and a little roombox work.

Well I had been working on the Spring Fling since my last entry (and with the site updates, this is the first that I have been able to post pictures here also ), but here is where I left off with the Willow: Trying some Hobby Lobby 50%-off-sale purchases, just for grins: I especially like the little stand with all the drawers and hinged panels-- I don't know what it is called; maybe an effects bureau? After

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A bit of exterior work too.

Well here I am waiting for my Spring Fling house to arrive, but the tracking no. says not 'til Monday. Oh well, it gives me a chance to vacuum up the craft room and make some progress on the Willow: I had a time figuring out where all the front door trim pieces are supposed to go. I almost just left them off, but then I was determined to figure it out. So I looked at the closeup photos for the half-scale Willow on the co. store site and that helped me out

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A bit more interior work.

Well a bit of exterior work also; installed the exterior window frames. Those frames are delaminating and very brittle; I'll add strips of trim on and around them, once I get the other trim pieces installed, to add visual interest and mitigate the damage... Put in "carpet" (upholstery fabric that I found at Walmart, that I've also used in the Westville and Willowcrest) in the 2nd floor bedroom, and installed the ceiling, to which I added a fabric border:

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Bits here and there.

I installed the staircases and the parlor ceiling, and working on trim and railings: Need to figure out what to do with the kitchen wainscoting, whether to use my "corduroy" paper or to make some panels... Hmmmm...

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Floors, ceilings, and inbetween.

So I installed the 2nd floor foyer flooring: I'll put cherry-stained trim here. I finished trimming the staircases, so they are ready to install: I used some decorative ribbon that I had bought in a Christmas sale a few years back; it was wired along the sides but I pulled the wires out and it worked pretty well. I used 1/8" dowel to form the body of the stair rods, with small beads strung on the clipped-off end of a sewing pin on each end; t

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Plugging along

It has been busy the past few weeks, so I notice that I haven't posted anything for a month! But I have been plugging along with the staircases and laying out where I want the railing: I also put together the 1st and 2nd floor fireplaces, and had a hard time figuring out where exactly they go until it occurred to me that they mustn't stick out from the house any further than the exterior chimney pieces will let them... I had thought paperclay for these two, but

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Willow staircases.

I bored out a hole in the 3rd floor for the 2nd-story stairwell, by overlaying the 2nd floor (which has the same perimeter size) and tracing the stairwell hole onto the 3rd floor. Then I cut out the stairwell hole piece from the 3rd floor with the Dremel using a thin sanding wheel piece (which I discovered does a decent job of this when I was bashing the last spring fling build). I primed, sanded down, and then glued the main pieces together, laying the house on a side to try to weigh down some

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Willow dryfit.

Well here is the Willow in its first dry-fit; finally opened the box to build it instead of raid it for siding and shingles! It is a very plain house-- I believe not Georgian, as some of the kit descriptions out there say, but Colonial salt-box. And a very large one at that. My thought is that there is not a challenge in the actual building of it, but in dressing it-- the exterior and interior treatments. I am thinking stone exterior (I have an abun

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Willowcrest - also finished!

I got the San Fran in the mail and had to take several extra days to get the Willowcrest in the mail also due to just feeling too sick to work very hard on it! But it finally got packed up also (had to patch together two garment boxes to box it in), despite me continuing to find little patches that needed extra paint or an extra piece of trim, and tracking tells me that it showed up at its destination today, so that is good. A view of the front doors: The

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San Fran - finished!

Well it was a race to get the San Fran finished, and me plagued with allergies to boot, but I finally got it in the mail. Some pics- first of the base, which I covered with the brick powder treatment that came with the kit. I had never tried this stuff before and was a bit trepidatious, but it turned out pretty well; alot hardier than I had thought it was going to be. You would pretty much have to take a chisel to it to get it off! I decided not to install any more win

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Willowcrest/San Fran: race to the finish

Boy-oh-boy, time is getting away from me. Well I have been piddling around with both the Willowcrest and the San Fran, because I want to get them in the mail for Christmas; I finished routing the lighting in the Willowcrest, including a lightbulb in the bathroom closet (this is before I glued in the piece that encloses the closet): I also finished up the kitchen, using my paint-sand mixture leftover from the Buttercup. I am very disappointed in the tiny-yellow-checked

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Proof...

...that I did indeed drag out the San Fran and finish shingling: my Minwax golden pecan (oil-based) is almost gone now, but I think the shingles have some nice "pop" to them now. You'll notice that I didn't cut the shingles to an angle to fit the tower slope; those shingles were not amenable to angle-cutting (they pretty much fell apart when I tried), so I decided to trim strategically there. I have been wainscoting the Willowcrest rooms also, while waitin

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