The Before:
The Almost There:
I've had this Chantilly house kit by Greenleaf for years. I got it from Tracy Topps (of Minis on the Edge - check out her amazing houses!) and was never sure if I wanted to tackle it. The problem? It was partially assembled.
Well, I kept thinking of what a cool haunted house it would be. At least as a "holding" place until I build the much bigger house I want to do. So... I gave in.
Ohhhhh... Never ever do I want to wallpaper an assembled house this small again. As it doesn't have to be "perfect," I did a lot of piecing since it was hard to make paper templates and get my hand in some spots. But I survived! (Cue Gloria Gaynor!) Oh and, glutton for punishment, I did more piecing around the front window since I wanted to put brick paper in. Yeah, fun. The large strips can't be glued on until I first cut and paint the wood strips for the front porch floor.
I made paper templates and measured the floors, too. The living room floor (first floor right) is wood I had. It's perfect for an old house as there's a tiny section missing near the door. You can't tell too much because of how I painted it, but that's okay either way. I still have to figure out a rail by the stairs and find a post I had made a while ago or make another one since I somehow lost the pre-punched railing.
I love the paper patterns I had for wallpaper. It's scrapbook paper. The gray on the second floor and the shabby blue in the dining room are from Michael's. I probably will use those patterns in another house as they work really well. I love the checkerboard look and use that a lot, too.
The floor is interesting on the second floor. It's actually from a scrapbook paper pad. The floor has a slightly shiny coating. I pieced it on the side wall and at the staircase opening. It was really too nice to mess up, too, as it fit the room size perfectly.
I love the green paper's print, too, in the living room, but that's all I have. Probably got it in a garage sale find. I decided to sponge paint the bedroom a two-tone in purple with gray. The floor is another cool scrapbook paper with lamination on it. Too bad that's all I have, too. It's a cool pattern.
The upper attic is simply painted gray with some brown accents. I'll add a photo in a later post once I put in some cobwebs and stuff, meaning lots of junk. ha!
The house's outside is painted a medium gray sand paint (sand mixed in for texture). I'll be dabbing on black around the house edges to age it. I'm painting window trim now along with all the decorative trim. Too-much-trim!! The second floor balcony has to repainted and I'll be adding some plastic "wrought iron" trim around it. Once I get to it, I'm going to try using corrugated cardboard painted black for the roof. Yeah, should be fun cutting the shapes.
One thing I decided for fun was to make some flower beds for the "Punny Plants" that I got a long time ago in a half-scale group swap. (Can you guess what the plants are?) I'm going to make raised beds with foam core and brick as then if I want to move them to the bigger house's yard later I can. I'm also thinking of making a colored brick walkway with some white square plaster pieces I have. I really really don't like all the painting I have to do, but I admit, I am liking the look of this house more as I go along.
The other big project I've been putting off is figuring how to run the wires for LED lights. I'm planning on one in each room. This is the kind of house I figure shouldn't be too bright, so we'll see. I got the 3-volt battery holder with an on-off switch and a AA battery holder from True2Scale. I didn't want to bother with electric this time and wanted to see how this will work. They also have a pretty decent LED tutorial on their site.
Hopefully later, I want to take apart some light strings and see if I can adapt some. Cheap way to do lighting. We'll see.
I'll share some other pix later of the furnishings I made. Some will only be in this house temporarily as it's pretty small, but it's good for the moment.
Oh, and why the title? Well, I've been admiring some amazing dilapidated miniature house photos online - but I just couldn't do it on this one. I'll add some cobwebs and some staining, but I just couldn't totally mess it up. That really is much harder to do than you think. Maybe another house...
Don't forget to come back on Friday for another Paris Project post! Ta-dah! A preview!! (and it's really cool-looking!!)
Until then, Chris