Ornate ceiling

Some people in my Facebook groups have wondered why I had to dismantle my house, so I can explain it again. There are two schools regarding the order of building from a kit. One says assemble and glue, then start decorating. The other says decorate as much as possible while it's flat. Having re-recorated several assembled houses, I know for sure I am in the second group.

However, to plan the decoration, the colour scheme. the floors, I needed to dry-assemble first, holding the shell in place with masking tape. Now I have arrived at a stage when I have to put it apart again, in order to finish decoration before I glue it together.

The first things to do was to decorate the ceilings. This is definitely best done when they are flat. I hadn't painted the ceilings at all after priming, and I had some ideas how I wanted to decorate, so I started with the ground floor, which has three rooms: entrance hall and two large reception rooms.

First of all, I painted the whole ceiling white. Very straightforward.

 

But I want all ceilings in my house to be different and unique. Naturally, the ceilings have to match the wallpaper and other decoration. I started testing something with a picture frame and was searching for lace or ribbon to put on it when I found this gorgeous ribbon.

The person who gave me a gift tied with this ribbon some years ago could probably not imagine that I would save it and that it would come handy one day. I am not even sure she would recognise it, but thanks anyway. So what I did was glue the ribbon along the edges on a piece of card. I chose coloured card because white card would show through the semitrasparent ribbon. As it is, it's just the colour I need.

 

I then inserted a piece of white card in the middle. Here I am testing the assembly on the actual ceiling.

The celing rose for this ceiling is a lid from a jar of cream cheese. I have only encountered two such jars since I started making miniatures. I used one in a tea shop roombox. It was originally green so I painted it white and decorated with some remaining bits of the ribbon. 

At this point I had to drill a hole in the ceiling for light fixing. The light will be fake, no wiring, but it will still be neater if the fixing goes through the ceiling to the floor above, to be covered by floor boards. When glueing on the decoration, I hold it in place with an awl, which looks like an upside-down light.

Here is the result. I cannot test the chandelier I will use, because it won't "hang" upside down. I cannot even test what the ceiling will look like in its room because I need to make the other ceilings on this floor first, as well as finish the outer walls. But with some imagination, I think it will be great.