House restoration: bathroom, upper corridor, rear corridor.

I have now come to what I still try to view as minor repairs, although frankly it is closer to major repairs. Bathroom, upper corridor and rear corridor on the upper floor.

The bathroom is in better condition, mostly wallpaper unstuck.

The Adam ceiling was slightly damaged from start, but is worse now. I don't have enough of this paper to replace it so I will probably have to paint over the damaged patches. Or add some rust and pretend it's a leak.

The corridor is badly ruined.

Not just unstuck and torn wallpaper - more behind the stairs - but the door opening and surround are broken.

 On closer inspection, the partition has been pushed back.

I can push it forward, but it will need gluing, and this is a very awkward place to glue. This is the first time since I started restoration that I am really upset and don't know where to start. But I have to start somewhere or abandon the whole project, which is obviously not an option. So take a deep breath and get going.

The bathroom felt as a good start, so I glued back the wallpaper and floor. When I inspected the left-hand side of the rear corridor, using my head light (who would imagine that camping equipment may come handy in dollhouse construction?) I could state that it looked fine, which was a relief because I had feared the back of the house was broken.

 

In this part of the corridor, I used to have an old dressing table with a mirror: mirrors are great for various effects. Also with all kinds of trinkets on. The table is larger than 1:12, but it doesn't really matter in the rear corridor because there are no reference points. It's wrong style too, so some time I may replace it with something more appropriate, but it will have to do for now. The trinkets will have to wait until I have unpacked all small breakables.

So this part wasn't as bad as I first thought, and the bathroom is now done. I will add some details that I had planned to do before the disaster anyway, such as a genuine Victorian water cistern.

Now, moving to the corridor, I was brought back to my state of despair. I gently peeled off the wallpaper with the cornice, and the ceiling came off with it.

Reluctantly, I have to admit that I will need to make a new ceiling. Fortunately, I do have another sheet of this magnificent Adam paper. However, I feel that I need to be fresh and full of energy for this endeavour so I won't do it today. I will repair as much as possible of the other damage.

Edges are fine, but as I have said before, it is extremely difficult to work inside a narrow room, and in this room stairs are in my way. When I did the wallpaper there were no stairs yet. Behind the stairs, I just work by touch. Luckily, nobody will  even see it. And when I put in the large breakfront, nobody will ever see that the left corner is all warped.

On close inspection, the rear corridor is fine on this side as well.

I will not put in the chest of drawers in the rear corridor before I am finished with the ceiling and mouldings. I feel I have achieved a lot today and know what to do next.

As I was working on these rooms I realised that neither had ceiling lamps. I wonder what I was thinking. I am sure I had some ideas that apparently were never implemented. Now it so happened that I recently made some lamps in my miniature club, and one will definitely go well in the corridor.


To be continued.