Bits And Pieces....

 

 Step By Step....

Sometimes, Dear Readers, It feels like we are Wandering in the Wilderness with no guides to speak of, and every step matters because it takes us along a path to Somewhere... that great aimless "forward" that Time insist on, but doesn't always yield the expected results. We have Dreams, dangling out there in the distance, the carrot on the stick so to say.... tempting us onward... "if I could only get this done..." we think... "it will make such a difference....!" ..... but then the next beacon is pulling us onward... Do we simply Stop and Ponder, as Buddha did... until we have it all figured out.... or do we just keep on taking the next step....? The Castle.... that Great Enticing Behemoth in my Room.... makes me think these thoughts. It is like a confounding Maze, there is always another twist or turn to try! You can see above the next small steps for the Adam and Eve painting. It would seem such a simple thing.... just paint the background.... then complete the smaller details... the paintings are only about one and a half inches square... what could possibly take so long? As you know, I had previously painted the background a rich earthy ocher only to decide it was too rich a color for the Fallen World of Adam and Eve. Better to stick with the blue sky we all know so well. But to get there I had to once again paint the background the bare bones white which you can see on the left hand panel. This is necessary for the over painted color to appear as itself.... as un-muddied by what has come before as is possible. 

 

And here you can see both panels have been given

 their brilliant azure background.... 

but already I am uncertain if it is the right tone.. 

it is perhaps too dark a blue. 

I was aiming for the blue I used on the 

backgrounds for the Creation scenes.... 

(when the ceiling is in place they are 

directly overhead above this painting....) 

but once again... I feel they are too rich 

for the earthly realm to which 

Adam and Eve have been demoted. 

It is too close to that fresh clear Heavenly color.... 

it needs to be a paler more faded hue.

 

And while I ponder this issue, I am reminded

 that so many of The Castle's outer opening doors

 need those "overlap panel" strips added

 to the already "finished" doors. 

No time like the present to make those little changes, 

think I, and quickly cut the needed strips of wood. 

And yet, many of those doors have window trim 

that will need to be cut away along the side

 to make room for attaching those overlap panel strips...

 

Here you can see the Stables door.... 

the simplest example to alter. 

The protruding stone trim on the left needs to be 

cut back by about one eighth of an inch 

to allow for enough width for the overlap panel 

to be glued securely. 

I have started to make the saw cut in the above picture...

 

And here the offending "stone" piece has been abbreviated!

 

Here you can see the strip being glued in place... 

it needs to have enough overlap to cover the gap in the doors

 while still having a good amount of glue attachment to the door itself..

 

This is the interior view showing the needed

 abbreviation of the window trim "stone".

 

And this needed to be done for all the doors 

that have already been "completed".... 

most of which are in the Lord's Tower. 

I will not bore you with showing every trim being trimmed... 

suffice it to say the Lord's Tower panels have been attached! 

 

And while I am waiting for the Glue to dry, Dear Readers, 

I turn my attention to the ever annoyingly unfinished 

sections of the Tree House which stands at my shoulder,

 and ponder the possible "next steps" to take

 in the quest for "stability" if not completion. 

 

The Nursery and Nanny's room have been 

"under construction" for a dozen years now 

(utterly ignored for the first ten of those) 

but I was chasing other Dreams and had lost my path. 

 

 

The partially completed walls would fall down

 every time the house was shifted or moved, 

or decorated with snow for winter..... you get the picture. 

I used tape to hold the doors closed and the walls in place.... 

But what would it take to attach some of those walls? 

Were they ready to be glued in place? 

What exactly was the "next step" for this 

complex puzzle of partly finished pieces?

 The most rickety corner was the little side wall to the

 Nanny's Room where it extends past the original hinging post.

 Was there any reason not to make it 

a little less likely to fall down...? 

Some little "support braces" perhaps? 

I scrounged in the worktable scrap pile and

 came up with two little cutoffs... bits of matchstick... 

to glue alongside the wall... you can see them there

 abutting the little wall and they keep it from tilting outward!  

So simple.... not a problem, not in the way.... 

not even preventing the wall from being removed

 (not yet glued down!) but backstops to all accidental movement!

 So emboldened by this success was I,

 I needed to see if I could determine what was keeping

 the walls themselves from being finally glued down...!

 

This required the "overhead view.... 

(and results in a too dark photo.... sorry about that!)

 Several of the walls have been removed 

(otherwise called fallen down). 

The Nanny's room (the most complete section) 

is to the right, the back wall spans 

both rooms and abuts on the stair tower..... 

and the stair tower is needing completion

 before the back wall can be attached. 

 

Which necessitates removing nearly all the walls 

(excepting the Nanny's room end wall and short wall). 

Here they are loaded into the "safe-keeping box" 

along with the furnishings.

 

So we can access and complete the stair tower walls! 

This picture shows the stair tower from the top....

(with the help of the flash!) 

I had already added the glittery wallpaper to the inside wall 

(the same as used on the lower stairs walls...)

 

Here is the side view of the stair tower door....  

again using flash so you can see the wallpaper...! 

Why is this necessary?

 Because the stairs are visible through the door to the Nursery... 

and it hinges open... so it will be visible in the end.

 It was a bit tricky getting the glue on the outside edges of the

 stairtreads and then wrapping the cardboard tube snugly enough

 to grip the stairs but not get too squeezed out of shape.

 Yes, I stood and held it for a while.... 

quite a while in fact! 

But it worked!

 

Here is the back hallway view.... 

the glue is still drying and I am testing the wall in place

 to make sure the parts all align properly.

 

By now I had decided there was no reason not to glue

 the Nanny's Room opening door wall frame 

and the small side wall in place.

 Because the walls slant a bit (on purpose) 

the attaching join is very irregular. 

I added an extra "matchstick brace" to the slanted junction. 

There will eventually be an extra layer of

 cardboard holding it in place as well.

 

The Tower Stairs doorway also needed some trim... 

being glued bit by bit!

 

The top of the arch abuts the back hallway wall... 

so it needed to be ended at the right spot.

 

And while the Tower Stairs trim is gluing, 

we can take a look from the back side of the 

Nanny's Room opening wall and short wall 

seeing the room from the inside point of view.

 

Which made me realize

 the window seat needed a tiny cushion. 

I pulled out my velveteen scraps...

 and whipped up the perfect little cushion...

 

Just right for that tiny little alcove! 

Alas, this is one of those spots that will be

 impossible to see in the finished room... 

but I will know it is there... 

and I will Dream of sitting on that little seat

 while the moon rises overhead

 and the fireflies dance in the garden below..... 

well, I can Dream, can't I?

 

Well, Dear Readers, I don't know about you,

 but sometimes those bits and pieces

 and little steps lead to the most

 wonderfully surprising places! 

 

So Many Details....

 

 Glue, Glue, Gluing....

One of the complicated parts of this Castle Entrance, Dear Readers, is figuring out which little detail needs to be taken care of Before another one is accomplished, because attempting to manage it later would be too difficult. And since it is really the door And the Electrical systems I am building, it requires that I jump all over the place! So it is that Before I can attach the outer wall to the stairs and electrical box, I need to finish the doors themselves (as well as the electrical wiring, but more about that later!). Above, you can see I have "painted" the boards for the doors and the hinges too. This is following the same method I started years ago, and while there are surely more sophisticated methods of making doors, this is the one I have used for the Castle. I am, after all, just building a Castle Dollhouse from plywood! And after painting the brass hinges, I baked the sculpey "hinge straps" along the same model as for all the doors. And glued them in place. I use basic wood glue for this.

They are big, bold and bulky, and meant to be

 wrought iron and therefore strong as a defense.

You must recall that this castle is a fortress,

 and these are the only ground floor doors,

 so they need to be really sturdy!

And as I was thinking about how they would have 

"barred the doors" from the inside in a real castle,

 I wanted to try to make a way for it to work here!

After a whole lot of fiddling and no picture taking

 I came up with this...

 

This is the inside view. 

The long bar is screwed from the outside

 (so I can access it if need be!)

and so I can turn the screw to make the bar go up and down.

When down, it slots into both the door "holds" 

and prevents the doors from swinging out, or open.

And when it is "up", the bar stands vertically at the side, 

allowing the doors to open.

(It also fits under the stairs which step right up above it)

Here is the view from the outside with the bar in the "up" position.

You can imagine how giddy I was that it actually worked!

The bar and the holds will get a coat of paint, 

but they can be seen better in photos this way.

I began to paint primer on the lowest part of the walls... 

and cut the remaining side wall for the bottom section of the stairs.

I will need to paint the "rocks" on the interior

 of the entry area before gluing this wall in!

I added the one door "handle" that would be needed

 on the outside of the stable doors.

The black sheetrock screw head you can see

 just to the left of the door is the control for the "bar".

It will remain uncovered and accessible.

 All other screw heads will eventually be spackled over and painted.

I also added the door handle to the inner stables door.

The wooden "bar holds" on the doors are

 only glued together, using wood glue.

I have debated adding screws for strength.... 

but for now I am relying on just the glue!

Here you can see where the bar goes down...

(it is tightly attached with the screw so it doesn't just "fall" down.)

And from inside the stables, you can see it when it is closed.

If it is ever necessary, I can reach in

 and manually lift it to the "up" position.

But we are still a long way from being ready

 to glue this wall in place, Dear Readers, 

as the electrical wires have not been finished.

And as they are still all dangling off the back wall of the Tower,

 I have been trying to complete a few other little details

 while the glue for the wires is drying and the back wall is available!

Specifically, the exterior windows "rock" trim has yet to be added!

I started with the "sills" for the windows.

And much to my chagrin,

 I realized that I'd done a terrible job of it

 when I built the little window way in the corner of The Lord's Bedchamber!

You can see the way the "inner frame" sticks out from the wall...

 when it is supposed to be flush!

This means all the new Outer "rock" trim

 will have to be notched to fit over the uneven surface.

A tedious and finicky process!

Here they have been glued on.

 I have not even begun to cut the arched window "caps"...

 and still need to design them!

The exterior window frames are exposed to the elements... 

and also are part of the "look" of the castle as a whole!

(I am working on it....)

Meanwhile.... there are a whole lot of wires needing glue... 

and before I can glue them, 

I need to be sure they are positioned correctly and function right...!

I am glad to say progress is being made!

The Lord's Bed Chamber lights all work beautifully

 and are exactly what is required for this room!

In case you needed a reminder,

 this is the Bedchamber (using flash)

There are two candles and the fireplace flame... 

for a total of three 12 v. bulbs.

(The outlet strip is designed to hold twelve plugs, 

so I need to be counting!)

 

Knowing that all those lights were "perfect"

 meant I could confidently glue those wires

 into their newly carved channel!

 I am using Aileen's Quick Dry Glue for this step, 

in part because it dries quickly 

but also because it doesn't get too brittle.

It also dries semi-clear and will not "yellow".

For now I am leaving all these buried wires uncovered.

The next chamber down is the Lord's Council Chamber....

Which you can see here (in case you haven't seen it before!)

It has a fireplace and two candles in the mantelpiece,

 and holders for two torches along the wall.

Alas, those torches have not yet been made!

I had made all the lights for the lower rooms of the castle

 waaaay back in the beginning... 2011 to be exact...

 and had not made any more torches since! 

(I will need to research my methods.... !)

So I cannot glue the torch wires in place for this room....

 But I did glue the hearth wires.....!

I know.... it is dark and gloomy!

It does need the torches on the side wall.... 

and it is a Medieval Castle!

Meanwhile, the Guard Room Torches,

 the first ones I had made all those years ago, needed repairs.

I designed them so that the light bulb, which is changeable,

 can be removed by lifting it up 

pulling the wire through the "torchere" at the top.

 But it is intended to only have to lift up a short way,

 because most of the wire will be glued into the walls

(I leave a small amount slack at the base of the torch).

What you see on the floor above, 

will not be possible once the wires are glued in!

What you can't see here (because I had already fixed it!)

is that the "torchere" part of the torch

 had been knocked apart and was crooked, only held on by the wire.

It needed to be reglued.... but I needed to be sure no glue

 got on the wire which needed to be able to be pulled freely through

 the "torchere" to change a bulb if necessary!

I had originally made these with superglue.

The solution was to very carefully wrap the wire

 in a tiny collar of cardstock where the two parts would be reglued. 

Then add the superglue and push the two pieces together

 over the cardstock collar!

It worked! (Whew!!)

And while I was making repairs

 I thought I would finally try an idea 

that I had been thinking of for years.... 

upgrading the look of the torch "flame"!

So that it actually looks a little more like "Flame"!

And for comparison with the original "flame"...

Really no comparison!

Now I just need to make more of these "flames"....

And just for reference... the whole Guard Room

 with the flash turned on...

And with just the torches lit!

I think the new flames will be an improvement.

The new flames are just plastic packaging painted with acrylic paint,

 wrapped in a cone shape and placed around the bulb in the "torchere".

Here I am making another with a slightly yellower flame....

As always, I like the first one best.... 

and will work on "upgrading" all the torches in the castle!

So you can see, Dear Readers, 

I have been dealing with So Many Details....

And jumping all over the place

 with Glue, Glue and More Gluing!

Complicated....

 

Castle Construction... 

As I am Sure you know, Dear Readers, I Love my Castle, even though it is not much more than half finished! I spend a great deal of time pondering the challenging parts that hinder completion, and one of the longest pondered is the steps to the Castle entrance. Ancient Castle builders did not want it to be easy to enter, (it was a fortress, after all!) so they made the steps narrow and steep, and sometimes just used a ladder that could be pulled inside from above. The entrance was rarely on the first floor (ground floor to you foreigners) but usually at the second floor level (you folks not from the USA would call this the first floor), and while it might have a fancier elegant door frame, there was no grand entrance the way later palaces would have. This is the model my Castle has for it's entrance, and I built the basic door and steps a long long time ago! But the steps have never been attached and fall down all the time. And the fact that they stick out on the outside of the Tower with no base to sit on makes them vulnerable to damage if they are not attached strongly enough to the main structure. The method of that strong attachment is the challenging part!

Here you can see the beginnings of the process of

 trying to design a sturdy stair-base unit

 to attach to the side of the Tower.

I had started on this way back in the Spring before I hurt my arm....

and I am finally getting back to work on it!

 

The idea is to build a framework attached to a separate narrow base

 which the stairs sit upon, and the framework screws into the Tower walls. 

 

 

This also creates a nice box in the bottom right corner

 that can house the electrical outlets for this part of the castle.

So far, the pieces you can see are temporary just to help get an idea of space.

 

And because this is squeezed into a really tight corner in my workroom,

 I decided I would need to turn the whole Tower so I could get better access.

 

As you can see, this side of the Tower has been left unpainted....

all the wiring needs to travel down this wall to the electrical box.

And all the windows still need their trims... 

and the stairs need to be finally constructed!

Here you can see the basic parts. 

The stairs are a glued together unit but not attached.

The landing outside the main door has been there 

(slightly uneven) for ages.

I am adding the base strip and the tall wall on the right

 which will form a "buttress" to the Tower.

Here I am testing sturdier vertical frame sections

 which will screw into the wall from inside the stables.

Figuring out which piece attaches to what

 and in what order is part of the complications!

I want this "extension" on the side of the Castle to be very sturdy!

 

 Here you can see I have cut part of the outer wall to the stairs.

This will all be "stonework" and arches over the entry to the Stables.

I have also cut the "door panel" for the "Electrical box" 

which will be hidden in the right corner.

There will be Hinges!

But that will be later.

First we need to actually construct this frame work.

 

It starts with drilling the screw-holes for the vertical post attachment,

after very very careful measurement (and testing again and again)

from the underside of the new narrow base plate.

 The screws need to be countersunk because they will sit under the base.

Here you can see I am screwing the pieces one at a time

 and testing the fit at the Castle wall to make sure

 it sits square and flush with the wall. 

(The wall is uneven in places!)

At this stage I am screwing together without glue.

Meanwhile I had marked where the vertical frame sits along the wall 

(The flash is too bright to see the pencil well)

This is so I could drill the holes for the attachment

 from the outside so they are positioned correctly.

Here you can see from the inside of the Stables 

where the screw holes have been countersunk.

This will be filled and repainted after the construction is complete.

Because I drilled first from the outside,

 I could be sure the holes are located exactly right.

 

But before I get carried away, Dear Readers,

 and start screwing this together,

 I need to assess the rest of the "buttress structure!

It rises on the right corner to above the door level,

 and needs to be able to "channel a whole lot 

of electrical wires down to the wires box!

 

As you can see from this shot, the "landing" by the door

 doesn't even go as far as the decorative framework.

 This will need to be extended.

And there will need to be another wall....

Here I am trying to hold the test wall in place

 and photograph at the same time!

The wires have room to channel through this buttress

 down to the outlet strip (still not shown).

 

Here I have screwed this wall in place (I will add glue later).

I have also extended the landing.... 

it needs one more piece glued in to reach the wall.

Here I am testing the look of the buttress... 

it will have a steeply slanted roof

 the better to hide all those wires!

And then I needed to test the screws for the vertical framework.... 

that go in from inside the Stable...

(Unbelievably challenging to reach in there with the screwdriver!)

The diagonal row of three screws at the front

 will go into the stairs themselves... later!

All that work, and this section is now screwed in place (temporarily!).

I gave it a good hefting test and it is very sturdy! Yay!

 

Still a long way to go, Dear Readers,

but, Oh my goodness it's progress at last

with this Complicated Castle Construction!