Roofing and Exterior

Things are coming along pretty well.  Since I have been on vacation from work, I have had a chance to do more on the Storybook Cottage.  I decided against the stone block exterior and ended up doing the stucco.  Yes, I know it's kind of a cop-out, but it suited the style of the house. 

I have the front roof and am working to paint the roof trim and get the top roof done.  I found that the shingles they provided in the kit do not come apart very easily on the scored lines.  It could be the age of the kit, but I have had to use sissors to get them apart having cracked a fair amount of them.  I can only hope that I have enough.  I also found that the shingles do not like to be put on with the white glue as they tend to curl.  That means that I have been using the hot glue and working hard to get them positioned quickly before the glue has time to set.  Pretty nerve-wracking.   I started using the hot glue actually to get the front porch roof onto the building.  I first tried with the white glue and it slid around so much I was at risk of having it on in the wrong place, so the hot glue is where it's at.

The final touch for the roof is that after I shingle and stain, I am going to put "copper flashing" on it.  I haven't looked for that, but I fiddled around with using some scrapbooking paper cut narrow enough which worked pretty well.  Now I just have to find a copper colored foil paper at my regular scrapbooking place.  Or maybe wide copper foil from the stained glass supply place.  My husband suggested that touch.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my mini friends. I hope that Christmas is great for all of you and 2010 brings you everything you want it to be.

Welcome

Welcome and thanks to my new follower, danitza zarate! Hope you enjoy what you see here.

Decisions, Decisions

The base coat/primer is on the house, and I have started painting the trim. I'm beginning to make decisions about what I am going to do to the exterior. I wasn't thrilled with the stone block idea, so I decided on a antique white for the walls and green for the trim. The roof shingles are going to be a dark brown. The antique white paint I got has a peach undertone, so I think that will look nice with the green, and it could be marked with lines so it looks like stone block if I like that idea. I may even mix the paint with a sand so it has a texture. Any ideas would be welcome.

I purchased a lighting kit so I have to now decide where I am going to place the lights and put togther a lighting plan. It's a small house so that won't be a major thing. But it's coming along!

Coming Along

My Storybook cottage is coming along. Today I got the roof and and a couple days ago I finished the bay windows. I am holding off on the Sugarplum Cottage until I get this one finished. I was trying to do both at once and that doesn't work. It's hard enough to get one done!

I have it sitting on the side and I will get to it at some point.

Meanwhile in my real life; its Christmas! It kind of snuck up on me and today we awoke to a blanket of white. This is the view from my front door. It's still snowing and there is about 6 inches on the ground. My husband is out plowing and is likely to be out at least until tomorrow when it is supposed to stop. We were to get our Christmas tree today and it would have been great to be able to get that all done up today while the snow fell, but it looks like I won't be able to get it at least until Monday night. Oh well, at least I got the wreath on the door and my Nativity Scene up with my angels and my lighted houses. It feels a little like Christmas now. I also am into my year end two week stay-cation from work. It feels really good to say "see you next year" to everyone when I walked out yesterday. So I will have time to decorate the tree and finish my shopping during the week.

Oh, and of course continue to work on the Storybook Cottage!

Getting There

I have started doing more work on the Storybook Cottage and am getting a lot done on it. I have been looking around on the Internet for appropriate exterior for it. It reminds me of an American Gothic Revival house, so I found a picture on the web that I really like and I am going to do the outside in a similar fashion. However, the picture I found is done in stone blocks, I am going to "cheat" and do the walls with a colored material similar to the color of the block. Pictured is the look I am hoping to achieve on the exterior. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get that look, I am open to them.

As to the fate of the Sugarplum Cottage I started, Casey from http://caseymini.blogspot.com/ gave me the wonderful suggestion of taking out the second floor and turning into a studio or store. I have often fantazised about thatched roof cottages so I am going to do that on the outside and an artists studio on the inside. For now I have remove the second floor and blocked up the second story windows with the pieces that were removed. I found a picture on the web which stirred my fancy and I am going to do the outside of it like the other picture. I think it will work splendidly. I will need to square off the front door, but that should not be a problem. Thanks, Casey!

Starting Over

Drat! I guess I have learned my lesson the hard way. I was all excited to start building the Sugarplum Cottage and found out after I put the second floor on that it is not 1:12 scale! I am glad I found out now before I got any further. I was trying out the sofa and chair I had gotten and when I put them in there it looked really weird. You can see in this picture how the furniture looks gigantic through the window.

So now I have started the Storybook Cottage. As luck would have it, my neighbor is moving (well not the moving part) and she had an unopened Storybook Cottage kit that she had purchase a while and didn't do. So I looked at the outside and lo and behold it says it right on the box. I feel pretty dumb right about now.

Anyway, I started on that and here's my progress. Obviously I haven't gotten that far, but it's coming along.

So I learned my lesson to look at the description before buying anything. I will hang onto the little one and maybe one day work on it.