Patience... and more patience

An interesting and important thing about documenting my creation of Womble Hall is to show, to myself and to others, how much work there is behind every project. In most cases, people see the finished house and at best can admire it. Even with many online tutorials, it looks far too easy. No tutorial will show you the slow process of painting twenty-plus identical windows because it isn't much to look at. But it is unavoidable when you actually do it.

I was quite close in my estimate that it would take me four hours work on each window frame, even before I start glazing and setting them in. There are twenty-eight windows in the house, most of the them on the front, one on the back and four on each side. All with elaborate glazing bars. Most twelve-light (it's a rich house whose owner can pay window tax), some larger, two smaller and five dormer windows. Each has to be primed, sanded and painted. I tried to cheat and skip priming, but, as I should have anticipated, it was a complete failure. Besides, it is much easier to sand after priming, because the pressed sawdust the windows are made of gets hardened. Less risk that it will break.

I haven't timed every session, but it took me most of the morning to prime twelve windows. It's delicate work, and you don't want any paint blobs. I can only do this outdoors because the primer smells, so I hurried this morning while it was sunny.

In the evenings, Staffan and I listen to music. I like to do something with my hands when we listen to music, such as sewing or knitting. Sanding windows is good. So now I know that during an average CD's playing time I can sand four windows.

I have taken a picture of the four stages of a window: unpainted, primed, sanded and painted. It may be hard to see in a picture, but the difference is huge. Wish me patience.

Playing with colours

In my planning, I have now come to the entrance hall and upper hall. You need a lot of imagination to see what these rooms may look like when finished, because the most prominent feature is the central staircase, and obviously I cannot put it in before everything else is in place. But I still wanted to test possible wall decoration, and I painted the upper hall with yellow tester paint. It turned out to be a very small tester, and it was only enough for one coat. Still, you can see the room emerging.

I started paiting the interior walls, which was very awkward, so I removed the back wall to paint it. While I was at it, I tested walls on other rooms. Upper right and lower middle are walls in rear corridors, and I am not at all sure yet what colours they will be.

I also painted the back partition in the entrance hall, using another tester. Again, not sure it is right, but will look at it for a couple of days. I like the colour, but not sure about the panel. The staircase rails and the double doors will be dark, so I believe light panels will be best. (Try to imagine the staircase in its magnificence). The floor is obviously unfinished. It comes from the Victorian house where it was built around a staircase. Because of the floor pattern I really believe the walls should be light.

The upper hall will have railing, but so far I like the colour, even if it's unfinished. With cornices and skirting it will look good.

Yet another fireplace

My next fireplace is for the drawing room, which is on the first floor, above the grand reception room. The name drawing room comes from "withdrawing room", the place where ladies withdrew after dinner while the gentlemen enjoyed their port and cigars. Then they "joined teh ladies".

In Womble Hall, the drawing room is on the left from the upper hall and opposite to the dining room, so the ladies will have to cross the hall. The furniture and ornaments will be moved from the left part of the original Victorian drawing room. The fireplace there wasn't done properly, even though it did have a chimney breast where the cabinet had a protruding board. Now I need a proper chimney breast, but I am using the same fireplace front, the one I bought long, long ago when I didn't believe I could make one myself. It is a nice and neutral front that will go well with the purpose of the room.

Again, I will not describe how I made the chimney breast, because I used exactly the same technique, although I must admit that with each project I made different mistakes.

I wanted a different kind of panelling in this room, and I used a piece of embossed 1:1 wallpaper with vertical stripes to echo the pattern on the wallpaper above the rail. I used old and quite worn-out wallpaper from the old house, with ugly marks of blue tack where the pictures and other ornaments sat. Note to myself: NEVER EVER use blue tack to fix things on walls. But, just as in the 1;1 world,. the solution is to cover the mark with a picture.

Unfortunately, I don't have more of this particular wallpaper, and it may not be available anymore, but this is just a test. I will find something similar. I think it will be fine because I want this room, unlike the reception room, to be light. I haven't decided yet what kind of floor I will have. Possibly plank that I have already started making for the master bedroom and that I will show in due time. I don't want too many fancy floors because they will probably be distracting, and of course fancy floors were expensive, and not all rooms in a house would have them.

I now have five out of nine rooms on the main three floors somewhat planned in terms of walls and fireplaces. I will probably have a simple fireplace in the master bedroom. But the next few important decisions with be about the main and upper halls. Come back soon. 

Ornate mirror

A quick and easy project (while another chimney breast is drying). I bought all these things at a local jumble sale today.

It has been a while since I discovered the potenitals of junk jewellery, but here are some obvious things: beads, chains, earring fittings. Combs can be made into interesting chairs. But I started with the easiest:

 

Massacre the (incredibly ugly) pocket mirror. Remove the centre bit from the buckle. Paint the frame gold.

A magnificent fireplace and wall panels

I found this fireplace front on ebay when I was looking for ideas, not intending to buy anything. But it was just too good to miss. It is unique. I like unique things. I got it really cheap.

As you see, it comes with a hearth, but it still needs a chimney breast and a back panel. I will not show pictures of how I made it because it was exactly the same way I made the two other fireplaces. Here it is, temporarily placed in what I think might become a music room, with the Chippendale sofa and wing chair.

Such a magnificent fireplace demands a magnificent environment. I wanted to have heavy, dark oak panels in this room. I started by gluing lolly sticks and pieces of a cheese box onto a bit of card - an old, discarded folder I picked up by the trash bin at work. Cheese boxes have excellent wood and are easy to cut with scissors. You just need to sand the edges.

However, I wasn't happy with the result. The panel felt far too big and clumsy. Also, the direction of the grain was wrong. So I cut the central piece in two. Then I kept building on the panel until the edge of the card. (Yes, I painted the first two panels before I went on, because I wanted to see whether it worked).

I painted the panel with dark brown acrylic paint - merely because I had it at hand. When I do it properly I may choose a better colour. Likewise, I stained it with the stain I had, then gave it a coat of varnish.

 

As with my other tests, it is just one corner of the room, and the house is not properly assembled yet. I am not sure this is the right wallpaper, and the floor is just paper. Still I think you can see what it may look like when I finish. 

Testing interior decoration: study

For the study - or gentlemen's smoking room - I want to use the same wallpaper I used in the Georgian house because it goes well with mahogny furniture - and because I like it. However, I wanted to add some more interesting features so I tried to make a wall panel with a rail.

Now, everything is provisional. The house itself isn't even assembled properly yet. The ceiling is just primed. Everything is fixed with white tack. The wallpaper is low-resolution printout. I keep moving skirting boards around, and the door is from another house. The floor is plain paper. The window is not painted. And still you can get a general idea. I like the partition with an arch opening in this room. It creates a sense of space and a bit of mystery: what is hidden there in the corridor?

I have moved furniture around. I had not planned to have the green sofa in this room at all, but suddenly it seems the right place for it. I can have matching curtains. But I am sure it will change again and again. I only know for sure that the tile stove will be in this corner.

After I have done it, I took three steps back and noticed that two rooms on top of each other have similar colour and pattern.This is where planning a dollhouse is different from planning a 1:1 house. In real scale, you cannot see two storeys at the same time. Do you think it matters? I must just make sure that the adjacent rooms are radically different.

Another fireplace

As I mentioned, I have several fireplace fronts that I will use in Womble Hall, but for all of them I need to make chimney breasts. And making a chumney breast for an existing front is slightly different than making everything from scratch as I did last time. This time I will make a chimney breast for my wooden fireplace. I will make it from foam again: I think it worked well.

The only big difference is that I need to make neat sides. For this, I need a balsa strip. It is easy to work with balsa: you just cut it with scissors. The lolly sticks I also use for this project are hard.

It does not matter that there is a gap between the bits because I will cover it with another strip - a lolly stick. 

While the sides were drying, I made the back. I was clever this time as used black card so I didn't have to paint it. Of course I still had to paint the inside. I didn't bother to glue in "stones" this time - I can alsways do it later. I already have a hearth for this fireplace. It is another piece of a plastic lid, and the fireguard is a buckle.

Then I painted the sides. I may need to use some filler to make them look neat. This fireplace will be in the reception room that I tested some days ago. I have not decided what wallpaper I will have in this room, but I wanted to see the fireplace with wallpaper, so I used a bit of a paper tablecloth I had saved from a party. It is not exactly the same colour as the wall, but it is all temporary anyway. The tablecloth is slightly embossed which gives a nice effect.

Now imagine: wallpaper, wall panels, rails, richly decorated ceiling, a chandelier, wall lights, silk curtains, paintings in heavy gilded frames. This will be a splendid room. I may use this old tablecloth for wallpaper.