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.

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…

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.

So it’s been a busy week at work, what with hosting a French Film Festival on top of everything else, and I haven’t had much time to devote to the house.

Today, though, I decided to finish the bathroom floor. First I cut out the floor pieces to fit the room correctly.

I made a hole in the back wall to fit the wires for the sconce that’s coming in the mail. And I glued in the back wall.

Next I cut a hole for the window between the toilet and the bathroom heating stove, and glued in the side wall.

Then I glued in the tiles…

…added the border…

…and took a rather fuzzy view from above of the bathroom and the linen closet (I still need to figure out how to set up the tripod above the house).

I may even come back and do more tonight, if I have time.

But for now…I need to walk the dog (the real one, not the miniature one)…

Today was a ‘miniatures in the mail’ sort of day.

First, I had ordered the bathroom components a little while ago and they finally arrived (I printed out the blue floor tiles and laid them down temporarily so the tub and sink would stand out…or else everything would be white for now).

In the same package, I also received a couple baskets for the linen closet.

And to top it all off, I got a wonderful surprise from a friend in Montreal who had sent me a late birthday present of the most wonderful little books. There’s a book on French literature (how appropriate!) and one on palm reading that includes a hidden key.

There’s also a wonderful kit to make 120 old books when I get the time…can’t wait to make the library. Thank you, Annie!!

For now, the two books are residing in the nursery…the only room in the house that’s safely away from water and cooking grease.

It’s been a busy week at work, so I haven’t had time to do much on the rooms, but I did print out the bathroom border to see if it worked (I think it might be a bit too big here) and put the studs in the last bathroom wall. I’m still working this room out, so I haven’t glued the floor or the walls in place yet and I haven’t cut out the opening for the window either.

I also spent a bit of time hemming and sewing lace on another shelf cover.

(Luckily I’ve got a miniature sewing machine to help me in my sewing projects…)

I also finished some sheets and towels, so the linen closet is starting to fill up a little.

Plenty more to do…but for now, good night.

Worked on the hardwood floor for the linen closet this evening. Cut a set of diagonal planks…

…for the entire floor…

…stained the wood…

…and glued the floor in.

I still need to add the baseboard, which will cover the unevenness on the right side of the floor.

After looking at several photos of old linen closets, I’ve noticed most of them used some sort of lace-trimmed cloth to cover the shelves.

This afternoon I bought a small pile of tiny bits of fabrics, ribbons, and lace, in order to make these linings, as well as sheets, pillow cases, blankets, and towels.

And so I cut out, stained, and glued in three of the shelves….and created a lace-trimmed lining for one of them.

Still much to do, but for now…good night.

Today I addressed the issue that although the ceilings in this part of the house are the equivalent of 8 1/2′ tall, those in the rest of the house will be the equivalent of 10 1/2′. Which means I need stairs in the hallway in order to get the floor to the correct height for when I add the next section of the house.

So I traced out a pattern on the floor.

Then I started building the corner stairs.

One of the last steps will be in the nursery itself.

So it will end up looking something like this:

Having finished the stairs, I stained them a nice walnut color.

Next I started creating a hardwood floor for the hallway.

And put it in place to see if it worked.

I haven’t done the trim yet, since I am still unsure of how thick the baseboard will be. But I stained the part I had done, as well as the door to the linen closet.

I also added studs in all the rest of the walls except the north bathroom wall, so the second floor is really starting to take shape now.

And the dog is just happy to be able to run around in all the new rooms and play peek-a-boo with the stairs…

Good night.

Well, first of all, I’ve discovered that since the table on which I was making the house has a dip in the middle, the house itself dips a little in the middle…

So after transferring what I have built to a more level surface, I thought I’d see if I could unbend it by placing heavy books on the second floor.

It wouldn’t budge.

So I thought I’d level out the second floor, at least, and deal with the first floor bend when I build a base for the entire house. Which meant spending a lot of time with a broomstick checking which beams needed to be higher and by how much.

Which ended up being a frustrating, head-ache-inducing exercise of ‘each time you add a little bit here, it messes up the rest of the beams.’ So I gave up halfway through.

Then I thought I’d work on the nursery wallpaper. I had done some browsing online and had come up with these two different combinations of wallpapers, based around a beautiful swan pattern I had found.

I thought the second one looked more cheerful for a nursery, so I thought I’d give it a try on the printer just to see if it worked well.

The colors, naturally, ended up printing incorrectly and the scale is completely off.

For that matter, I’m not so entirely sure I like the wallpaper either…

So in order to make up for an evening in which I spent a lot of time getting very little accomplished, I thought I’d end with a photo of the lovely child’s bed I received in the mail today…

At least that’s one thing that looks good…

Good night.