Back to the Rosedale, and long-lost teddy returns.

Entry posted by rbytsdy November 16, 2013

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Had to take a break from the Rosedale to finish my Spring Fling entry (you can see it here, "Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's House" http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/index.php?app=gallery&album=6487), but back at it now!

First, I don't think that I showed yet what I did with that unfortunate bathtub (which was not quite to scale):

I used thin basswood to side it and I think that its footprint (at least) fits to scale much better now (though I suspect that its depth would probably be enough to dip one's feet in and not much more, but oh well ).

And here is the roof going on:

The reason that those craft sticks are being clamped to the outside of the roof edges is that the edges were very bow-y and I didn't want them to get worse during the roof clamping!

Here I am routing the wiring; I decided to mount the house on a little base (actually a leftover piece of MDF from one of Ernie's Creatin' Contest kits that I got but never finished) trimmed with some trim from the hardware store. I ran all the wires down the sides and across the underside of the house to the right side, where I am going to put some sort of lean-to situation with a hinged cover so as to access the power strip.

Sorry that the one pic is so blurry-- I was trying to show the porch light!

I hope that kellyannmo will accept my imitation as my most sincere form of flattery-- I was so taken with her 1/2-scale Rosedale (her Devonshire Hall is here: http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/index.php?app=gallery&album=5613) that I decided that I wanted a round stone treatment on my Rosedale too. I am also a great admirer of the stone finish on Bogie's "Spinner's End" Glencroft (here: http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/index.php?app=gallery&album=5554) and used both of these houses as my inspiration.

I thought for a while about how to do this; I couldn't tell from looking at the houses how kellyannmo and Bogie had formed their stones, whether they applied the paperclay in a sheet and then formed them, or applied little balls one by one. But my local climate made the decision for me; it is very dry here, and I've found that my paperclay starts to set quite quickly (half an hour or less?), not giving me enough time to sculpt. I'm using DAS paperclay (cheaper :prop: ) which seems particularly susceptible to this. So I opted to glue on little balls one by one, which enabled me to work on the house in sections so this worked out pretty well for me.

Well first I did roll out an amount of clay and cut it into strips for quoins. The house looks so different with quoins applied!

You can see that I have applied a sandpaper top to the roof (60-grit), and the first layer of shingles.

I have decided to put a stucco-like finish on the bays (like kellyannmo did), as they're a bit tight for stones I think.

I've also decided not to use the kit trim for the bays and rooftops; I splurged and ordered some Grandt Line O scale (1/4-scale) trim from http://www.oakridgehobbies.com/ (though that was a week ago and not a peep yet :glare: ). Widows walk for the roof and bay tops; scalloped eave trim to dress up the fascia; little porch brackets to dress up the porch (got that idea from Deb's full-scale Rosedale ).

And now for something a bit different-- I found my bear! :bear: When I was a kid I had a little jointed bear that I took everywhere with me, including the beach on family vacation, and that is where he got lost. Never quite forgot him, and whilst surfing miniature blogs the other weekend, I was reminded of him by somebody's rendition of a Paddington bear. My bear was unclad, but I remembered that the same company had made a Paddington of him also. After some searching, found out the name of the company (Eden toys) and found a single bear for sale on eBay. No other bidders, very reasonable price, so I finally have my bear again!