Went back to the wainscoting for the back hallway tonight.

Finished cutting out all the pieces.

Stained them with walnut stain.

Started gluing them together…

…and decided the spacing between the slats was too wide. So ripped them off and started again with narrower spaces.

Placed the wainscoting piece in place to see what it would look like.

Then realized I hadn’t glued anything down in this hallway last fall, so I took all the pieces apart.

Painted two of the hallway walls a light buttermilk color.

Glued the side wall into place.

Glued the “tile” floor onto the pantry under the stairs.

Glued the back wall into place.

Glued in the little black door step between the “tiles” and the kitchen to cover the crack there.

Started gluing the floorboards onto the back hallway (pushing them all the way to the kitchen doorway, once again to cover the crack between the two, since these are two separate sections of the house).

Finished those and then glued the wainscoting onto the back wall.

Then I had to deal with the crack in the corner between the two walls.

Used wood filler to fix it up and then painted over it.

Then pulled this section of the house away from the kitchen section, just to make sure I hadn’t glued them together accidentally. The house itself will be in three different interlocking sections, otherwise it cannot be taken through doorways and would need to stay here forever.

Here it is separated and pushed back together again.

Then I needed to paint the third wall of the hallway.

Cut out pieces for the wainscoting for this wall.

Stained them and then glued them into place, using one of the slats as a spacer.

Also cut out and stained trim for the doorway into the kitchen. Had to cut out a couple notches so it would fit around the wainscoting.

Then I glued the little inner wall into place.

And glued the wainscoting and the door trim on.

Tomorrow I will paint and finish up this last side wall and doorway (simply laid in place for this photo)…

…as well as this wall in the middle of the staircase (also laid in place).

I also need to continue with the wainscoting up the staircase, the staircase needs lighting, and the pantry under the stairs needs shelves and a wine cellar.

But for now, I leave you with this image of the unfinished area.

Good night!

Hello, hello. I am back!

So when I wasn’t at work, I basically spent the past three months on the couch dealing with 24-hour morning sickness as best I could.  And the house got  hopelessly neglected…

But that seems to be over now and I’m also back from the holiday celebrations, and so the new plan is to try and get as much done on the house before life becomes suddenly quite busy this summer.

So this is where the house was when I left it last:

I did manage to procure a few key pieces amid all the nausea, including this fabulous Victorian organ for the sitting room:

So the front sitting room will look vaguely like this in setup.

And I got this really cool pie cabinet for the pantry under the stairs:

Started work today by tracing out a pattern of the floor for this section (which I had forgotten to do earlier), so I could use it as a ceiling pattern and second-floor pattern later on.

Then I returned to the back staircase which is almost done. Decided that the baseboard I used in the hallway simply would not do.

This is the hallway/staircase where all the buckets and mops and coal scuttles would be carried through, and it needed to be better protected against all that wear and tear.  So I decided to make a simple wainscoting that would continue up the stairs.

But I needed more materials for that, so I went out to get some and then started creating the wainscoting.

Didn’t get  terribly far with it, but you have to keep in mind that a lot of my house-making time was spent driving very slowly in the slightly freezing rain to a town 15 miles away where I get my supplies…and then just as slowly back again afterward.

I’ll get more done on it tomorrow. But for now, it feels good to be back at it again.

I’ll leave you with a photo of this awesome organ which will find its home in the music room on the second floor (I pity the movers who have to bring that one up!)

Good night and happy New Year to one and all!