It's been a long time... pt.1....

I don't know what quite what I did between Halloween and Christmas but it certainly didn't involve Lily! We were so busy that I packed her all away for safe keeping; it was so lovely to unpack everything again after Christmas and this last month I have made so much progress. My laptop's been out of commission so I have not been able to write any posts but I now have my shiny new, rebuilt, laptop (complete with Office 2007!) and a file full of pictures of my progress.

So, here goes...

Painting the ceilings:

Once I had the floors all stained, I decided to paint the ceilings. I wanted a smooth finish to mimic the look of plaster and had planned originally to use wood filler but then found a tub of Polycell's Smooth Over and decided to try that. A test patch worked and I found that I could brush it on which gave me much more control. As it dried I removed any excess and used a wooden skewer to unclog the tab holes. Any Smooth Over that got on the varnish wiped off easily with a damp cloth. It sanded off beautifully and I finished them with a coat of white emulsion.

please ignore the giant pile of ironing!

Finishing the R&P of the windows:
Last weekend my boyf and I decided to have a really lazy couple of days which was perfect for cracking on with some of the more laborious jobs left to do before putting Lily together. I started off by finishing the remaining window frames and sills, door frames etc. Never my favourite thing to paint but I managed to take over half of the kitchen table and get everything primed and first coated in a day.

Glen was engrossed in his new PS3 game so I took full advantage and took over half the living room as well... I was able to finish the wallpapering - a job I love though I do become obsessed with lining everything up perfectly!

Because I've used scrapbook papers, with a couple of the patterns where there are no matching edges it has been interesting if I need a length wider than 12" but I am pleased with the results; particularly the bathroom where I've used Basic Grey's Archaic Rock paper. The pattern is oversized for a dollhouse but I think it works really well; there's a picture of the room later.

As you can see, I was well supported in my hard work: the cats resisted playing with everything and Glen's patience didn't quite wear thin ;o)

Over the course of the next week, I put the window frames on - internally and externally. My initial concerns about the paint are being realised, every piece seemed to be a different shade of offwhite! So I invested in some very good artist's brushes and decided to paint a final coat on the windows once they were glued in. The internal ones are now all installed and painted; just the externals to paint but I decided that they could wait till after the house was put together... It's very satisfying to see some real progress; I'm impatient to have a 3D house to work on now!