23 Saturday Mar 2013
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So starting from here…
…I cut out many more floor boards to continue the pattern. But when I laid them down, I realized the pattern was off a little and the cracks between the boards were getting awfully big on the left-hand side.
So I pulled them all back up. This means tomorrow I will have to do a lot of custom fitting to get this pattern to work right…..sigh.
Too tired to solve the problem now.
And so, good night…
21 Thursday Mar 2013
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Tonight I started like this…
…and added this.
Stained and glued them…
Made more…
Stained and glued those…
Then decided to call it a night.
Amazing how much time these little pieces of wood can take…
Good night.
20 Wednesday Mar 2013
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Tonight I went back to work on the nursery floor. First, I finished the trim boards and glued them all in.
Next, I started cutting out several little boards–each 3/8″ X 9/8″–to make the herringbone pattern.
After I got about thirty of them done, I sanded and stained them all…
…and placed them on the floor.
It’ll take quite a while to finish this floor, but I think it’ll be worth it in the end.
At least I hope so…
Good night.
20 Wednesday Mar 2013
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I started out tonight by taking apart the nursery door…
…so I could put it back together with the door opening on the other side.
Then, after having glued the hallway stairs and floor into place, I cut out the inside and outside doorway walls for the nursery…which required a lot of readjusting and fiddling along the way.
Finally, I had both doorways glued in and could put the door in place.
I painted the nursery floor black, because then if there are any cracks between the floor boards, they will look more natural.
And I stained the door and door-frame (I still need to stain the two window-frames the same tint).
Next I started to cut out and stain the boards for the outside trim of the floor.
Haven’t gotten very far but it’s bedtime now…
…so goodnight.
19 Tuesday Mar 2013
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Sometimes you spend hours working on something that looks like very little progress in the end. Tonight was one of those times…
Since I was dealing with uneven floor issues (left over from earlier leveling problems), it took quite a while to glue in the north wall of the nursery correctly…and then to wallpaper it in such a way as to cover whatever issues were left.
I’m not a hundred percent sure I like my wallpaper seam on the back wall, but I’m too tired to try again…
I also started cutting out tiny floor boards that will eventually make up the pattern I found in this photo.
But for now, here is the east side of the house.
And here is the nursery table…complete with Aesop’s Fables, a sheet of tiny paper dolls, and a set of eyeglasses for the governess.
Good night.
18 Monday Mar 2013
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Spent a bit of time today on the nursery chimney and fireplace. Made the walls for the chimney first.
And attached them to the outside wall with the fireplace wires passing through the two walls.
Then I placed the walls and the fireplace into the room and set a model ship on the mantel piece.
Reminded me of Neil Finn’s song lyrics:
“Well there’s a small boat made of china
It’s going nowhere on the mantelpiece…”
Here’s this side of the house for now.
I took the wallpaper I was planning on using and modified the size to print it.
The wall part looked right, so I glued it on, but the swan trim is too big (for that matter, so is the wallpaper I leaned up against the hallway wall…it’s hard to predict the way it’ll turn out when you’re using photoshop). I’ll have to try again tomorrow.
Slow going, I know, but for now….good night.
16 Saturday Mar 2013
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After a lovely week off for spring break, I got back to work on the hallway floor tonight.
It will fit next to the stairway here…
I also chose a wallpaper pattern and printed it out.
Varnished the floor and stained some wainscoting that will go along the hallway.
I also arranged the furniture in the yet-to-be-decorated nursery.
And I found a wonderful little ‘china’ doll for the nursery…couldn’t resist buying her.
And for now…good night.
04 Monday Mar 2013
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Long day, so not much energy to work on the house..but I did make a decision about the bathroom lights.
After moving the sink and the mirror to the left and taking a photo holding the sconces in place on each side of the mirror so I could see what it looked like, I decided that was really the only way it would make sense.
So I made another hole in the wall and ran some wires through. The actual lamp wires are still on the outside because I need to run them through the wall tiles when I put them on…which I can’t do until I fix one of the lamps, since I managed to pull out one of the wires over the past couple days…
My trusty work companion was not very responsive to my need for him to fetch a soldering iron (not that I own one)…
…so instead I trimmed the ceiling so it fits now. I need to finish painting the back corner and it’ll need some wood putty to fill the gaps because, like in all old houses, the room is no longer completely square.
As I said, not much work done, but here is this side of the house for now…when I get my 9V power strip, I’ll be able to put more than one light on at a time.
More time tomorrow, hopefully.
Good night.
03 Sunday Mar 2013
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Today I worked more on the bathroom walls. Printed out the white tiles, one more dado and the top trim.
Taped some of the tiles in temporarily to see how high I wanted them to be.
Then I painted the ceiling and the tops of the walls. The ceiling is not cut to the correct size yet, as you can see…
But it gives a pretty good idea of what it will look like. Here it is with the tiles clipped on with a clothes pin to see how it will work.
I have second sconce to put in, but I can’t seem to decide if it should go on the other side of the mirror (which is just taped on temporarily here and thus skewed), in which case it would be behind the door when it opened, or if it should go on the right-hand wall.
On the other hand, I’m thinking of making a Victorian shower attachment for the tub, like the one in this photo…in which case the lamp doesn’t belong there.
Decisions, decisions…still haven’t figured what to make that shower out of, either, so the people of the house will have to content themselves with baths for now…
Next I went back to the linen closet and, after making a hole for the lamp to run through, glued the ceiling on. I also cut out some baseboard for the closet.
I still need to figure out what kind of shelves I want on the left-hand side, and fill the shelves more fully, but I stained the baseboard and glued the lamp in…
Then I turned the light on…
Good night.
PS Interesting things I’ve learned today: if you google “knight cider12”, this blog comes up first on the list (although I’m pretty sure I’ve never used the word ‘knight’ in this blog). But if you google “cider12”, you get my blipfoto site first and this blog doesn’t show up for several pages. Makes no sense whatsoever….
And by the way, the reason I know this is that someone apparently came to my page having typed “knight cider12” in a search engine…
28 Thursday Feb 2013
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After some tinkering with color and size, I printed out the dado tiles for the bathroom and glued them in.
Which means the two rooms on this side are on their way to looking like rooms (the ceilings are obviously not glued on yet)…
(I think the dog must have sniffed something out in the laundry basket.)
And which means this side of the house is getting quite colorful…
Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier that I got the most beautiful vase full of tiny tulips in the mail…
And for now…good night.
Victorian Mini 