French Country bath lighting installed

 Finally decided to bite the bullet and direct wire the 2 lights I have for the bath. It was challenging to work in a small space, after having cut the wires shorter and then not having glued on the lights first. Ah well what is life except challenges anyway?? 

These are old discontinued Cir-Kit Concepts lights with rose shades, and they add the perfect rose glow. I'm very pleased with the results. I had previously experimented with LED battery lights and I really hate having to switch each light on. 

Getting into Chateau planning mode

 Now that I've made headway on shinging, its time to turn my sights on what is next with the Chateau. I have primed the interior, and started laying the tapewire for electricity. I will need to continue the tapewire, adding more and then making the eyelet connections for every join. 

My eyelet outlet tool hasn't been working well, and I've broken tips and replaced them a few times. So I ordered another and it should be a week or so before it comes. I also have a BamBam eyelet outlet tool and honestly haven't had much luck with it or I'm just too boneheaded on how to really use it. Here's some photos of the tools and the interior where I have started the tapewire. I did that over a year ago and in looking at it again, I know I stopped because I was unsure how I wanted to handle wiring without the actual 2nd and 3rd floors in place. 

The first is the regular eyelet outlet tool, and then the BamBam tool (it makes a Bam sound when you pull on the spring and release it).

Overview of the beginnings of tapewire.

Here I adhered the tapewire where it will be at about baseboard height on the 3rd floor, and there's some sort of knee wall thing I'm going to have to accommodate.

This house is different than the French Country in that the 2nd and 3rd floors are held in place by the crown molding of the floor below it. I ripped out all that 'crown' because I wasn't sure I wanted that style or size, and so I could prime and do tapewire. So I sort of have to plan this all out again, now that I'm more focused on it. I could potentially glue the floors in place but I can't back up that support with nails from the outside since I have completed the exterior. The 3rd floor is actually one piece, but the 2nd floor is 3 separate pieces. 

Here's a photo before I ripped out the crown molding

I think I can easily continue to tapewire and make my connections with what I have and I will come back later and run tapewire as I install the floors. 

I am reminded that I want to make thin triangle templates for the three 3rd floor windows, for the walls in the dormer. I want to sand and paint those too while I have all the floors out of the way. These triangular pieces will simply fill the space and make the walls flush with the roof cutout surface. Hope that makes sense. There's not much room in there and its really too tight to do anything else with. 

This photo shows the tapewire I adhered to the 3rd floor peak, just behind the hinge of the roof. I try not to put tapewire on walls where they tend to show or are slightly thicker under the wallpaper. While it hides the tapewire it is a challenge to apply, and then to get into those tight spots to do an eyelet connection. 

 

Shingling is moving along

 The front and dormers are now shingled. I have a sense of accomplishment and have a rhythm down now. I am also using "The Chopper" for rows where I need shorter shingles. This is by far the best way to do that, I'm not great at cutting straight with scissors.  

I also got wise to staining the cut edges with a Guardsman furniture touch-up marker before I apply the angle sections. Then on the very peak of the dormer I run the marker over that and the cut edges now are no longer visible. 

Here's the Chopper, note that the 2 wing nuts are adjustable. Easy to shift one so I can cut the short row for the bottom edge of the dormers, and another shift to cut them for the row at the top of the dormer. Just have to remember to replace the razor blade and keep your fingers away from it. 

Last time I used it was on the Foyer tile - with Tid-Bits that were formica and extremely hard to cut. 

Finally doing Chateau shingles

 It only took me a year to start applying the shingles that I stained for this Chateau. I started with marking the lines for all roof surfaces. Just doing that made me realize how much shinglind I had to do!

Next was deciding what kind of glue to use. Over the years I've tried multiple adhesives - hot glue, Quick Grip, Liquid Nails. I got a recommendation from a fellow miniaturist for one I hadn't tried - Loctite Power Grab. I got a small tube and found one size larger that had a caulklike applicator. The tube turned out to be really hard to squeeze, to the point of hurting and while I liked the adhesion, I got very disillusioned thinking about how much I had yet to do. 

I switched to the other applicator, and that actually worked much better, so I added more shingles.

I took a break for a few days and while at my local dollhouse shop, the owner gave me a tip on angles and shingling. She told me about doing a template on thin cardstock and applying a row vertically of shingles on that angled piece, and when dry, turn over and cut them on the angle. Then glue this template to the roof and continue shingling. And she mentioned she only now ever does hot glue. That sounded like a more reasonable and faster approach to this daunting task I have before me.

So I proceeded in this manner, did my templates on construction paper, and dug out my hot glue gun and sticks. Seeing that I had 3 dormers which means 6 angles to cut, I was determined to make this task a bit easier and not be frustrated with my lack of ability to get the nice clean angles that I have struggled with on previous houses that I've shingled. I wasn't going to do flashing for this and really just wanted a nice clean look.

What this meant in terms of templates is 12 pieces - 4 for each dormer. Anyway, I started, and the first was more an experiment. I had to decide the order - so the order was to do the roof surfaces first, and then come back around and butt the dormer roof sections to it. I hadn't considered that the roof section would need to extend to the top edge of the roof, and the template I had was for the dormer, just shy of the roof height. That's why you see a taped piece on my black template. 

So I got into the groove and ended up completing that left side. I'm very happy with the results and need to get back to this - do a section at a time. 

 

Fun thinking about landscaping

I had forgotten how much fun landscaping was! Its been many years since I did any. My Newport was the first (and only) house with landscaping. I went all out, bought all sorts of materials, trees, shrubs, landscaping turf, gravel, flowers etc. I really did a remarkable job. 

I have all the remaining supplies stashed away in a couple of bins, and just started going through them...its like its Christmas morning and I'm a kid!

I've attached a picture of my finished Newport, and then some of my Thornhill with some of those trees just to get the sense of what it could look like.

I'm thinking it needs a vine, and perhaps a stone edging like I did with the Newport. I threw the lyons in there....could mebbe use them!

The pots are hand made by an artist - Julie, I think? I got them from my local shop and have larger ones for the French Country Manor. 

I just realized I never added the keystones to the Thornhill windows...hmmm. 

Here's some brick wall I found...not sure I will use it here but wanted to capture it for later - for ideas on what I could do with it.

My Miniature Village Part 2

Its slowly coming together. I reversed the desk to the right side. Of course I had to remove furniture etc from my Thornhill before moving it. Then I enlisted my husband to help me move it. Its now in its new home! I can now set the steps and hope to do some simple landscaping. 

I tracked down a turntable I had and am thinking about using it for the Seaside Villa Bed & Breakfast, in the corner. I'm not sure how much room it will need to spin. I may bring down another desk that matches the existing 2, and put the Seaside on that instead. 

Here are some pictures of the Seaside Villa Bed & Breakfast.