Chateau Shingles

I had purchased cedar shingles for the Chateau and with the grey color on the exterior, I decided it would be best to have darker shingles. I had experimented with a few grey shingles, but I don't think it would have been enough of a contrast.

I finally stained these over the weekend (needed nice weather, no rain, not hot). I had read of other miniaturists adventures in staining and wasn't looking forward to it. I got some foil roasting pans and was going to do the sieve method - poking holes in the bottom of one so the stain would drip into the bottom pan. Turns out I got too large of a size, and the bottom of these pans was not flat, had ridges for juices. That really wasn't working for me.

I was on my concrete patio, using an older wrought iron table. I had brown craft paper on top of it and this was where I would lay out the wet shingles. As I was poking holes in the roasting pan, I knocked over the stain, and it did a fabulous job of making a mess. Quickly moping up and removing the wet craft paper, as I watched it drip down to the concrete patio...not a great start. Once I was ready to start again, I placed wax paper down first, then more craft paper and began. I gave up on the roasting pans and chose a smaller metal container. I finished the first of 3 bags and was nearly out of stain (1/2 pint). Off to the store for more, and then back at it. I got a rhythm going and finally finished all. Did a bunch of blotting with paper towels and really ran through blue latex gloves like they were going out of style!

I again laid out the 2 collections of shingles today to dry and they look really nice! 3000 shingles....count 'em! I used Minwax Red Mahogany.

Here's the original 3 bags - puts it in perspective about how many I have, and what the natural color was.