Work has been proceeding at a very slow pace, partly because I tend to sit there in front of the house just thinking about what should be done.
So, here's what's new.
I've added a new wall between the living and dining rooms. The original wall was more of a room divider than a wall. It featured a wide archway plus a sort of pass through window. I felt both rooms would benefit from having some more wall space for things like sofas or hutches.
I've also started on adding new flooring. I had several wood placemats stained in dark mahogany that I planned on using for dollhouse flooring, so now I'm finally using them. I cut the bound endging off, then peeled the boards off the fabric backing. I also used some same color stain to darken the board edges where needed.
I added mouldings between the windows and corner posts, but forgot about baseboards. When I realized my error I had to think about it for a while.
Meanwhile I got an idea to add windowsills using some moulding I found at Home Depot, and decorative elements over the windows by cutting sections of laser cut scrollwork I found at Michael's years ago. I'm so glad I bought a bunch of those. Everytime I went into the store I bought a few more as long as they had them.
Finally I got an idea of what to use for baseboards in the alcove. I used some scalloped dollhouse trim and square toothpicks to fashion them. The rest of the room will have Victorian dollhouse baseboard because I happen to have quite a bit of it on hand.
This is a view of how the house looked before I started reworking it.
The balcony railing was glued on badly, the front corner stuck up and didn't match up with the one on the side so I decided to try and remove the red rail to readjust it. It didn't go well, several inches on it broke off. The whole porch was now coming loose as it was, trying to redo the whole rail was out of the question. What to do, what to do?
Cover it up!
I had wanted to use some channel moulding I had, but it was too narrow and wouldn't fit over the existing rail, so I opted for L angle moulding. I liked the look better than the original, even though for some reason, at first it looked a little bulky. I then realized that it I painted out the red strips on the bay window's brackets, they'd look wider and everything would look just right.
I'd had to remove the brackets under the porch, because I realized I had glued them on incorrectly whan I built the house 30 years ago. I should have just left them alone, because 3 of them broke when I took them off, Now I'll probably need to cut all new ones for the porch.
I saw where someone turned their little bedroom window that opens out onto the porch balcony into a door, which I thought was a good idea, so, since I had to redo the window anyway, I turned it into a door too.
Please disregard the mess, reconstruction going on.
Yesterday I started working on a new window to replace the French doors that open onto the little platform above the bay window. I've designed a casement window which will have a window box below. More pictures will be forthcoming when ready.
