Manor update and what I did not get for my birthday!

Hello everyone,
I hope you are all doing well. I'm sorry it's been such a while since my last post, but I've been rather busy with real life renovations and it took me a while to figure out how to put together the attic rooms, but I'm hoping to have a progress report by next weekend...even new finished rooms.
In the meantime, since the 2 main floors of the manor are 95 % done, Here is a tour of the house, from left to right, the way I see it. My camera is not working right now, so you've seen some of these pictures before...I promise only new pictures next post:

First Floor

The House

Kitchen, Scullery, Butler's Pantry

Dining Room

Great Room, Game Room

Great room, Drawing Room

Entrance and Grand staircase

Music Room

Second Floor

Dressing Room

Master Bedroom

Girl's Bedroom

Boy's Bedroom

Gallery

Library

Bedroom Hall and Attic Staircase

When I look at these pictures, the first thing that comes to mind is I have A LOT of accessories to buy to fill the Manor.

The timing for this post is actually perfect. Yesterday, May 2nd was my birthday. Unlike many I LOVE my birthday and make it a point to make it all about me! This year, I wanted to celebrate 34 years of existance and mischievousness (my idols are Calvin from Calvin and Hobbs and Daffy Duck)  by taking a weekend day to myself, watching episodes of "The Golden Girls" and "Keeping Up Appearances", while eating cheesecake and admiring my presents which I hoped were chandeliers. The reality was working on the real life  renovations and the chandeliers, which were ordered January 2nd, were not ready and we have no idea when they will arrive...after the dissapointment, I did manage to have cheesecake...lots of cheesecake, and even though I had a great time with my family, I swore next year my 35th b-day will have to make up for this one!

I make a big deal about my birthday because it's the one day of the year I like to reflect and think about what I've done, my accomplishements, what I want, making sure I'm still as childlike as ever... and obviously one of the biggest accomplishements was the Manor. I have to thank you all, very sincerely, for everything you have given me the past year. I always find fault with my work, am always afraid of failure andam always my cruelest critic. Your comments, support, suggestions and kindness have kept me focused, make me always want to outdo my previous work, and thanks to all of you I am starting to feel that no matter what life shortcomings I have, I know I'am good at one thing.

Sorry if my rambling made anyone sick to their stomach. So back to the Manor. my deadline of having all the interior rooms done is obviously not gonna happen, so in true Honey Badger form, New deadline: Finishing the interior and exterior for Christmas 2012...and if it doesn't happen, I am not a competitive person at all, so it will just be pushed back. HA!

Thank you all so much for everything, when I say I appreciate all of you very much, you can trust it is sincere and very heartfelt. Keep up all your great work, I might not always have time to comment, but I see all!

Big unbirthday hugs to all,
Giac,
Honey Badger of Miniatures

Finished Kitchen, Butler's Pantry and scullery

Hello Everyone!
I hope you're all having a great week. I had the day off Friday, and spent it working on the Butler's pantry, the last part of the kitchen.  I usually just put the furniture in for my posts, but since I've shown you the furnished kitchen before I decided to take out some of my accessories for this one...I don't want to bore you!

The kitchen measures 24" x 20". As I made progress on the manor, I realized the space was big enough to incorporate a scullery and a butler's pantry.

The butler's pantry is the first thing you see when you walk  from the dining room to the kitchen. The first floor of the manor is 14" high so I decided to go as high as I could.

When I was looking up butler's pantries, the one that caught my I had a backsplash and counter top covered with one sheet of copper.The unit measures 9 3/4 inches large, and 11 1/2 inches high. The top part has 4 shelves and glass front doors with locks, and the bottom part has 4 small locked drawers for silver, and 2 larger ones for linen. the bottom drawers are glued on to a base. Because they are at the back of the room I didn't see any reason to make them functional...it is all about illusion after all.

The copper counter and backsplash is 2 pieces of 1/4 inch mdf glued together and covered in embossing copper sheets. I glued them on with The Ultimate Glue and gel Super Glue. The bottom part and counter/ backsplash was easy. What took a little thinking was the shelf section. I didn't want working doors. I don't mind putting in hinges, but the shelves are far enough that opening them and putting in dishes could be a little difficult and I'm afraid I might pull the doors off accidentaly. Once the unit is glued in place this would be difficult to fix. So here is my solution

The shelf unit is glued to the wall, and the front of the unit with the doors just comes right off. You can see in the picture above I glued a piece to go over the top of the unit, drilled holes that went through both, and glued a piece of dowell to the top unit. This way, I just lift off the door section and slip it back into place once I've put all the china in.

Here is my original drawing and the 4 units that make up the bulter's pantry. I faux finished everything in a dark walnut color and glued it into place.

So here is the butler's pantry

the scullery, finished with taps from Sussex Crafts 

the cooking area

and here is the empty room

And now the first and second floors of Dewell Manor are complete, except for lighting and a little detail work I'll talk about next time. I planned on working on the Attic floor the next few weeks, but some real life renovations might take up my time, but I will put up a new post as soon as I can.

To everyone celebrating Easter this weekend, I hope you have a wonderful, chocolat filled day, and to all my friends not celbrating, have a wonderful week. Thank you all for following my blog, for your comments and your support. It is thanks to all of you that I have stayed focused and have accomplished what I have...you are all the best!

Big hugs,
Giac

Dressing Room and Montreal Miniatures Show

Hello Everyone. I hope you all had a woonerful week. It's been a while since my last post. I just want to thank you all for your wonderful comments and taking the time to follow my work. It means a lot to me and your kind words keep me inspired and focused. So to everyone who has been following my adventure, thank you so much!

Once again I underestimated how long the Dressing Room would take. 3 weeks later I finished:

The room measure 20" x 24". The windows on the fireplace wall overlook the ocean, the back door leads to the Bedroom Hall, the door on the right leads to the Master Bedroom, and the wall we're lookin in from will have a large window overlooking a rose garden.

The room is pretty simple: Wallpaper and ceiling paper, large baseboards and chair rails. I was afraid the room might be a little boring, so I thought I'd put a little extra effort into the floor.

You might remember, when I made the Gallery floor, I glued down one piece of wood with the grain going in the wrong direction. After it was shellaced is stuck out like a sore thumb. I figured I could use different grain directions to make an interesting floor. I drew 1/4 of the design on graph paper and printed several copies. I then put the paper on the wood veneer and cut out each piece with an exacto knive, making sure I payed attention to the direction of the wood grain.

I first glued down the dark wood circles to create the medallion outline. Next I filled in each section. I cut 4 pieces at a time and glued them in place. I think about 20 pieces fit the first time , every other one had to be adjusted or re-cut. When that was done I glued the dark border around the room that matches the one in the Master Bedroom.

The next step was to fill in the the rest of the floor. I went with diagonal slats. Once again I wanted to use the wood grain to create interest. I've mentionned the wood veneers before. You just heat them with an iron to activate the glue. I prefer to touch the wood side of the veneer strip to the iron  for 5 seconds and then put it into place. When I've done about 10 inch section I go over with the iron so the edges my fingers were holding stick down.  

The final step was applying 3 coats of shellac, waiting 30 minutes between coates, and voila

I left it overnight and went over it with Dark floor wax. There is a natural color floor wax, but I like the dark one because it fills in the cracks and makes the floor look used. the next day, I glued it into place.

The fireplace is from Unique Miniatures, and was my very first attempt at faux marbling over a year ago.

The room is big for a dressing room, but in my mind a lot goes on there.

The lady of the house would sit here to have her morning tea listening to the ocean before choosing what to wear. The Corset is by Pedrete. The pictures do not do it justice. It is exquisite!

She would go over the accounts with the housekeeper, approve the menu for the day , and give her instructions for the staff

And finally she would sit at her vanity and get ready, always looking out at the water. The overmantel was made with the window and door trim, crown molding, and a leftover piece of the frieze from the Dining Room

And that's ot for progress...now for shopping.

Yesterday was the yearly Montreal Miniatures Show. I had a lovely time and found some great pieces.

I know exactly which chandelier I want in each room and was happy to find the Sheryl Renee from the Getzans for the Dressing room at the Little Dollhouse Company. The Tea set was an impulse buy from the lovely Janice Crawley...again it was perfect for milady's tea in the dressing Room. The potatoes and trouts I purchased from martha Mclean. She has spectacular pieces.

I love going to the show, but it always makes me antsy to finish construction. I'm enjoying every minute...but I look forward to the day I can just buy accessories to my hearts content. I'm dying to get floral arangements from Martha Mclean, accessories made by Julie from Westwinds Miniatures and...pretty much everybody...Well there's always next year.When I look at the Manor I think it will take me another year to finish it, then about 30 years to accessorize it.

Well, that's it for this week. I've been asked which issues of Miniaturas Dewell Manor is featured in. So far ssue 167 showed the Great Room, 168 the Entrance and staircase, and 169 the Library. i believe they are out in Europe, but not sure when they ged accross the ocean.

 Before I start work on the Attic floor I decided to build a butler's pantry in one section of the kitchen. If I'm not done by next weekend, I just want to wish everyone a very Happy Easter, and happy weekend to those not celebrating, or celebrating the week after. As always, I look forward to seeing your work. You always inspire me with your amazing talent and creative ideas.

All the best my friends, I send you great big hugs,

Giac

Master Bedroom

Hello everyone! I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend! Today I finished the Master Bedroom:

The bedroom measures 16 inches x 20 inches. When I put together the shell of the house I designed  a nook for the bed and nighttables to add a little architectural interest. The plan was to frame it with columns that were very similar to the Great Room ones.

The first step was making the floor. Again I used 2 types of iron-on wood strips which I attahced to an illustration board subfloor and finished with shellac flakes dissolved in 99% Alcohol.

Next came to nook columns. First, I glued together 2 pieces of lumber to go over the corner wall at each side of the nook. I then used my door and window frame molding to create the bottom half of the column

Next, I put a small spacer at the top of the column. This spacer is used to create the angle of the top half. In the next picture you can see I put a big glob of glue on the top spacer and just above the bottom half of the column. I then put on the angled piece.

When this was dry and solid, I had to fill in the space on the sides. In the Great Room, I used spackling and it worked great. However, this time around the angled piece was thinner and kind of waved a little when I was applying the spackle so it cracked. I then took out a piece of thin lumber and cut it to cover the side gap. I added some quarter round molding to the angled piece and voila!

I thought it would be nice to cap the columns with a statue of some sort. I decided I wanted the sculpture to be a griffin. A griffin has the body and back legs of a lion and the head, wings and front claws of an eagle. They were creatures who would protect treasure or very valuable things...so I thought it appropriate that a husband should have them over his bed to protect the woman he loves. I made a few quick sketches

I tried to sculpt them is sculpy, but they had to be a maximum of 1 3/4 inches with the wings so the detail was so small it kept getting distorted as I worked. Not one to fight a losing battle, I thought about and decided to carve them out of basewood. I started by taking a 1/4 x 1 inch piece, drew on the overall shape of the griffin, and cut it out using a utility knife and an exacto

When the overall shape was done, I started to round out some details with and exacto so they would not look so square

I cut out a large piece and a small piece for each wing, and then cut out the back leg. I chiseled out a little wing detail and glued the pieces together. I only detailed the side that people can see. The wings are quite thin and I was afraid to overwork them.

Finally I faux-walnut painted them and glued them into place. Not perfect sculptures, but they create the illusion I was after.

The column cap the griffin is sitting on is just a box with molding, a corbel I cut in half, and a cameo for the center carving. I made a third box for the center of the nook opening and joined everything with leftover molding.

I purchased a tudor style mantel from Sue Cook and used small pieces of door and window frame molding, as well as chair rail molding, to create the fireplace. Finally, I paneled, chair railed and baseboarded the rest of the room.

Here are some pictures of the empty room:

The door to the right of the fireplace leads to the balcony over the Loggia. The door on the back wall leads to the dressing room (which you have to go through to get into the Master Bedroom. The opening panel will have a large Bay window. The Pattern in the floor will be copied in the Dressing Room.

And that's it for this week. The next room I will tackle (last one before I get working on the attic floor), is the Dressing Room.  It's been a while since my last post and I would of liked to have more done, but month's end at work is always very difficult and last weekend was my Niece Alina's Christening. My sister asked me to make her cake and I could design what I wanted...so it naturally ended up being one big cake and 6 little ones. It took my mother 11 hours to make the roses, and it took me 22 hours to bake, assemble, sculpt and detail all the rest...but the look in my sister's eyes when she saw it was worth it...

It was a lot of work...but sculpting fondant bears and vines is much more delicious then sculpy!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and wish all of you the best. I really appreciate all your comments and your support. It is such a privilege to have met such great people and I can't thank you enough for being so kind to me and taking the time to follow my work.

Big Giac hugs to all,

Giac