Chateau Courtyard and Quoins

As the exterior texture was done, I moved on to the courtyard and laying the slate. After laying, I applied the Mod Podge Ultra Matte, and then grouted, followed by a sealer layer of Mod Podge.

The quoins were painted white, and looked pretty stark against the dark grey house, and it seemed fitting that I give them a more grey tone, more like stone. I used a similar technique on them as what I used on the French Country - stippling.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the exterior!

Third Floor Sitting Room

For lack of a better name for this room, its called the sitting room. No wallpaper yet, but flooring is done.

Third Floor Girl's Bedroom

Once I saw this bed, dresser and vanity, I knew this would be a fru-fru room! Toile and stripe - pink!
There's a Ni-Glo hanging lamp, and a nice rug peeking from the side. The window is also framed out with the actual arch trim that is made for this.

Here's a better view of the rug - punch-needle I think.

This is an interesting shot - almost like the actual neighbor's house across the street.

I have to share how I finished the inside of the arch. I got thin flexible strips of basswood and bent them into the arch.

Second floor hallway

I ended up with a nice neutral paper here, and hung a Ni-Glo lamp in it.

The birdcage has a yellow bird:

Second floor bedroom

This room is set to be more gender neutral, not sure if its a boy's room or just a guest room. But it has come together nicely. I snagged another great dressed bed - one that works nicely here. Here's what's interesting about this bed - the paisley duvet is very similar to a real life duvet I had for my own master bedroom!

You will notice flooring done, braided rug, baseboard, and some other furniture from shows and stores.

Master Bedroom

The master bedroom has gone through its 2nd wallpapering and I'm much happier with it. Previously I had a grey and yellow toile in it - saw it done up in a room. But I didn't plan it well - was short on paper when I tried to match the patterns. So I was going to have to fix that anyway.

So off it came and I chose a completely different color -  Brodnax Gathering Red, and am now happy with it. Notice too the flooring is stained and placed there.  I got a fabulous dressed bed for it.

Here's a peek at the other furniture for the room, along with the chandelier and ceiling medallion:

Foyer

The stairs are now stained and painted - starting to get a finished look here. Crown and baseboard are up too, and you can see the lovely french settee in the corner.

Study

The study floor got ruined when I tried to add a second coat of stain, so back to square one. I have had success with Brodnax parquet so I went that route. It turned out very nice, almost too shiny. 

Here you can also see the ceiling beams I put up, and baseboard I've cut. I decided white was too white for this room, so I went with a tan color. 

This picture shows the beams and crown and they are painted tan. You can see the lights I temporarily placed to get a sense of what the finished look will be. 

Chateau Exterior Makeover

I've begun working on the Chateau over the spring and summer as well. My plan was to paint the exterior a grey, and in order to do that, I had to remove quoins, trim, window trim. Wow what impermeable glue was used. I knew the individual quoins wouldn't be salvageable but I also was thrilled to get those from a fellow miniaturist who wasn't using them on her Chateau.

Prying off the quoins was an exercise in patience, elbow grease, a mixture of products to remove quoins and glue, and scraped hands (okay a screwdriver gone awry).

The next step in order to remove the glue was to take my palm sander to it. Outside it went, on a nice spring day, and first I tried several solvents, to no avail. So on with the sanding!

Once sanded and patched, it was time to give it a coat or 2 of paint. I chose a Benjamin Moor paint, and painted. Looked much better, and I let it sit for a few days while pondering.

It was nicer than the blue but not quite grey enough for me. I had a photo of one done by Lawbre years ago, saying on the catalog sheet they used the color I purchased from BM....but it still didn't look like the photo.

On the hunt, I found this newer paint - Coastal Texture Paint from Folkart. I applied it to a sample and this is what you see above.  I decided to give it a whirl. My first coat, I used a sponge brush and it was not easy to apply without getting brush strokes and inconsistent texture. I let it dry and then bought some texture tools and applied a 2nd coat...much better!

Here's the tools:

Here's the finished effect. I added a sealer - Mod Podge Ultra Matte.