More progress was made on our Christmas House makeover. The board and batten was cut and glued to the 3 sides that will be displayed. Next, Babette painted the entire house white, the windows frames black, and stained all 5 support columns for the front porch. She asked me to wrap painter's tape at the bottom of each column so none of the plaster would get on them when she applied it to the floor and foundation areas.
Babette was excited to see the new multi-colored Christmas lights she previously ordered arrive in the mail. Of course, we were also anxious to see how they were going to look strung around the house. Babette said let's get started, so we attached part of them just across the roof line on the 2nd floor. The light string she ordered is rather long because Babette only wanted to run 1 string for the entire outside of the house. That meant we needed to do some thinking on how this could best be achieved. Since the battery box needed to be located inside the attic, we decided the best place to start would be on the chimney side and string them around the 2nd story over to the other side of the house. Then the lights were dropped down to the 1st floor where we stopped. At this point, Babette's plan is to wrap the string around some green garland and loop them from column to column around the porch roof line over to the front door. If we calculated it properly, there should be some extra lights left. Those will be attached around the door frame. Hope, hope, hope we did it right, but time will tell. I'm confident Babette figured it correctly.
Next, I cut a piece of luan wood to fill in the open area on the back roof and attached it with some small hinges. This will allow access to turn the lights on and off; plus, change out the batteries as needed. Most of these premade doll houses are open in this area. On our Halloween house, I replaced this piece with a new one in order to cover the entire roof area.
And what the "say hay" is this notched out area and hole? Ah, Babette and I both know why this is here because I cut it out on purpose for what we think is a very special reason. We'll show more on that surprise in a later post; it's definitely gonna look neat!
As mentioned earlier in this post, our original plans were to use plaster on the porch floor area and then cut some grooves to give a brick look for the outside edges. The rest of the porch was supposed to look like poured concrete.
Yeah, those "were" our original plans, but you know what they say about the best laid plans; yep you got it, ours were scrapped! As it turned out, that process was way too messy anyway; plus, it did not give the look Babette wanted for this house. So, she figured it was time to go back to our original idea. Earlier we purchased some Styrofoam containers. I cut some squares which were scored to fit around the board and batten wood pieces and then glued them down onto the floor area. After they dried. Babette painted the squares grey. This gave the natural concrete look Babette wanted for this project. She was even able to use the curved parts of the containers for sculpting the brick since those pieces fit more easily over the porch edges … Smart Gal! In her stash was an old recycled heavy duty paper type egg carton. Babette tore some odd shaped pieces which were glued in a random pattern to the chimney and around the foundation. EUREKA - THIS WAS IT, the pieces looked a lot more like natural stone and was exactly the look Babette wanted for this house. When this part is completed, a joint compound will be used to fill in between to look like grout.
The final item for today was to attached the front porch swing. Earlier I drilled 2 holes in the ceiling over the porch and attached 2 small eye hooks Babette made using some small wire. The ends were left long so they could be hot glued down onto the porch roof. This should help prevent them from coming loose at some later date. A sled will be parked next to the swing after Babette does a little more work to enhance its look.
So this is where we stand as of today. I also made some beams which were added to the roof line over the 2nd floor window. There used to be a circular window in this area. Babette did not particularly like the way it looked, so the window was pulled and the area covered before the new beams were added. A couple of trees were also placed on the back left side of this lot to give the area a more realistic look. The area underneath the trees was built up so that when installed, they would be more sturdy and not fall over. The wood was cut and sanded so it would have a slope and look more like snow could have built up around the base of the trees.
Babette plans are to finish up the brick and stone work tomorrow. Then it will be on to cutting and attaching the black shingles for all of the roof areas. There is still a lot left to be done before this baby is ready for display, but we still have plenty of time before Babette and I start the process of setting up all of our Christmas decorations. Scary part, we'll blink once or twice and December will be knocking at our door …. YIKES! Maybe there's not as much time left as I think.
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