It was a struggle to get the pieces out, most of them needed some TLC (as the pictures show) and there were a couple of breakages. The sheet that held all of the casings and pediments was particularly bad, thankfully I had a duplicate pediments sheet so where breakages were too bad to repair I was able to replace them all. There was a huge sense of satisfaction once the sanding was all done and things looked better!
Before:
After:
I painted two coats on everything and have started assembling various parts before a final fill, sand and third coat of paint. The corner blocks I blu-tacked onto newspaper - they held fast and I didn't need to be too careful or fussy when painting!
Slightly off topic, there was huge excitement earlier in the week when I finally bought a Willowcrest dollhouse! Buying it also helped me finally decide the external colour scheme for Lily, so all white trims for her. The Willowcrest will indulge me and take a stronger colour scheme, so I can leave Lily to a quieter scheme: a soft green, white trim and extra railings on her roof lines - I'm thinking New Orleans pretty!
Speaking of paint, I had a slight panic with the white paint I have been using (an off the shelf, good brand, white satin). When I matched up the windows (painted a couple of months ago) with the newly painted frames I noticed that the windows were off-colour. This sent me shooting round the house, and I have a lot of full-size repainting to do as all my newly decorated skirting and doors are also discoloured! I was shocked as I have always been a huge fan of this paint and I'll have to see how much I need to do to repaint over it - I doubt anything as simple as just a coat of another brand's white satin will do the trick! I was also in a panic about the dollhouse as it would be far less easy to paint over everything, especially with plastic in the windows etc. However, I have reached a compromise, I held the green I've chosen for the siding up against the off-white and it works better than the bright white does so I am going to take the chance. I am touching up all the windows as I put the final coat on the frames etc so that everything starts again at the same colour and then I will let fate take it's course and hopefully not be kicking myself in a few months time!
Panic slightly abated and buoyed up on the success of the near completion of the sanding, painting marathon, I started to put up the wallpaper. I may be being a little pedantic, but each section of wall is being measured and a template drawn up before I cut the final sheet, I don't want any mistakes and I'm working hard to join the patterns too as a number of them are quite bold and I don't want bad joins to detract from the overall look.
I am using normal wallpaper paste which I blitzed to ensure that there would be no lumps and which is mixed by eye to a thicker and drier consistency that I would normally use. I then paste the wood and leave it for a few minutes before putting the paper on and the system is working extremely well. Also, most of the papers that I picked are heavy-weight so I'm having no issues with bubbles etc. The only (bubble) exception has been the stripes, but I am not changing it! It was hard enough to find in the first place as I wanted a striped paper as I'd decided to bash out the wall between the hallway and downstairs main room and needed a wallpaper that would sit well in such a large space and also be quite calm against the stronger kitchen and bathroom wallpapers (Basic Grey's Archaic "Rock", I just love those Klimtesque circles!)
In rooms (i.e. the kitchen) where the wallpaper covers slots for other walls, floors etc. I was originally going to cut out the slots but thankfully realised in time that doing so would leave an unfinished piece of wood visible right in the middle of my wall! I am particularly pleased with the kitchen, the pattern is so pretty and the join onto the back of the staircase is perfect.
I can feel the house coming together, it's lovely to see and spurs me on to do more. I'm now going to start to paint the skirting and coving so that the walls will be complete for when they are slotted together.
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