More Painting...

 

The Boring Kind...

Way Back at the beginning of Summer, Dear Readers, I mentioned that over the years I had come to think of Summer as "castle building season". This is mostly because the light is better at his time of year, and the windows can be opened to easily ventilate the paint fumes which arise with the larger painting tasks. Some of you might remember that it was a few years ago already that I realized the plywood exterior of The Castle really needed to be painted to protect it from becoming too dry and brittle... and even so, I was not able to accomplish painting all the walls inside and out that summer nor the next and so on! The last two completely unpainted rooms remained in the "Lady's Tower" above The Chapel, as you can see in the above photo taken last June. July was spent working on the Great Hall windows and August saw much progress on The Chapel interior. September was mostly consumed by travel (preparing, going, returning and recovering!) and suddenly here we are in Autumn. The days of open windows were quickly disappearing.... 

                                 Was there still time to get the Tower rooms primed and painted?

                                                     There was only one way to find out... 

                     And that was to start painting.... primer coats on everything... both sides...

 Sorry about the dark photos....

 it was hot and the blinds were closed...

(Blogger has been giving me trouble with the line spacing... no idea why!)

As you can see, The Towers get used for storage

 and I had been avoiding clearing it off...

But I wanted to paint the crenellations too....

The placement of the interior stairs wall was going to

 be too close to the back window... 

and I was resisting the idea of fixing it....

 I decided to paint the rocks while I debated.... first the rock outlines.....

 Then the texture...

 But the window would have to be reduced in width!

Fortunately, I still had the original cut-out 

and was able to reshape the opening.

For both windows!

And with primer on the inserts....

And the rock texture added....

Every now and then a flash photo... 

here with the smaller windows...

 And finally painting the grout lines!

And the grout lines on both walls!

And the whole exterior with the doors attached...!

                                               Well, Dear Readers, it would appear that I did have time to paint the two remaining rooms... even if I was not able to paint the exterior of the Tower's last side wall. That wall will need to have the wiring and a buttress added before painting it. And since I have not been able to figure out blogger's line spacing problem.... I will leave it here... Just the boring kind of painting!

 

A Few More...

 

  Stitches And Rocks...

I Had nearly finished the stitching, Dear Readers, on the background of the Medieval Ladies Tapestry before I left for my Travels all those weeks ago. And once I returned, it was not difficult to complete. I don't know about you, but I do get so absorbed in these projects, I almost don't want to finish them! Except that I know I will Love looking at them when they are finished and installed in their home. And I must confess, that the final steps involved in order to truly be "finished" with these tapestries, adding the tabs for hanging them and sewing a backing, do not excite me one bit... and tend to take a loooong time to get done. But meanwhile, let me show you the completed stitching!

I think it turned out as well as could be expected of a "hybrid" design!

And here it is with the other Ladies Tapestry... 

so you can see just how well they go together

 and suggest that they were once all one Tapestry!

All I need to do is hem the new part, add the tabs etc.

We can pretend that I'll have it done in no time.... 

while I go sweeping off to stitch my current obsessive project....

The Baktiari Carpet.

You might be able to tell I have been attempting to get

 all the outlines complete for the "lozenges" 

in the middle of the carpet.

And as I was working on the ones at the bottom,

 I noticed that I had counted wrong on the "legs"

right below the "knot" where they join each other...

most of the lozenges have only two stitches before they spread apart....

 but on the bottom row they need to have four stitches!

(If you need to see a reference picture,

 the partly stitched beginning in the previous post will show you!)

Fortunately, I was able to un-stitch the parts that I had done wrong!

Above you can see it after the removal of the mistakes...

Here you can see I have started to lengthen

 those "legs" to four stitches long...

(If you get out your magnifying glass and count very carefully!)

And while I was wrestling with those few stitches, Dear Readers, 

I was also trying to reacquaint myself with the rock-painting process

 for the door surround on the Lords Bed Chamber door!

Here I have glued the vertical pieces in place already....

 (you didn't need to see them being painted, did you?)

But those were the easy ones...

It took the entire next day to cut, fit, prime, paint

 and glue the remaining five rocks!

And I didn't get to the grout painting, 

which needs to be done to tidy up

 the courses of the rocks.

(Dare I say the rocks for the Bed Chamber are done?)

And as for the few stitches on the new carpet...

I finished fixing the Lozenges and then some!

As I am sure you have noticed, Dear Readers,

I find it impossible to only sew a "few" stitches!

Just a few more.... 

and a few more..... 

and a few more....

Retro-fitting....

 

The Castle.... Again....

It was Twelve years ago, give or take a day or two, Dear Readers, that I began to build the Castle Dollhouse! And you must imagine my amazement to realize it has been this long and I am only about half way through building it! As I am sure you have noticed, there have been a few detours along the way.... I don't seem to follow a straight path to the end. But I have been feeling a certain urgency to get the building constructed... none of us are getting younger... so I had better just get organized and ... well... work on it! So I have been making an effort over the past few years to accomplish some of the many remaining tasks. And because I started the "shell" of the building so long ago, and it being my very first self built dollhouse... there are many ways in which it needs "improving" from the original plans. Above you can see the Lord's Bed Chamber in the very first stages of construction. This room is the top most room of the Lord"s Tower and is directly above the Lord's Council Chamber. It is the uppermost room of this Tower (I cannot reach any higher...!) and above this room is the open top of the Tower with it's crenelated battlements. In the original design, I intended the stairs to the battlements to go up the outside of the Tower from the top of the Great Hall. This meant that there were no stairs inside the Lord's Chamber. The more I have thought about this, the more I wanted to put a separate set of stairs just for the Lord to use that would spiral up in the corner inside the walls. This way he would always have his own escape route up to the topmost battlements. Suffice it to say that I had to give it a try and see if I could make the stairs fit into the corner! 

I started by constructing a spiral stair from blocks of 1x2 pine cut to shape

(I made a diagram of the steps and cut each block and fitted it into the corner.

Here you can see I am trying to make sense of the structural elements of the room...

where does the bed fit... where does the fireplace fit.....

The wall on the left separates the stairs from below...

And you can see the spiral stairs cut across

 the windows in the back corner.

But I can make the window smaller....

By just filling in a part of it...

Here you can see it in the morning light.... 

with the wall on the left removed.

(All the stairs in this Castle go up inside the walls.)

I managed to find the very same piece that was

 originally cut out for this window... 

and fitted the top shape correctly!

I simply made the opening smaller.

And the lop-sided shape will be corrected 

when the window glass is fitted.

Here you can see it from the back side....

Remember I painted the backside last summer?

In the bright morning light... 

you can see I am testing the arrangement

 of seats below the window beside the fireplace.

You can also see that the stairs will need 

to be shaped to go above the window.

I also filled most of the other window in the stairway...

 turning it into an "Arrow slot" window.

It was simply too large to keep it a regular window shape,

 and too close to the steps... 

anyone would be able to fall right out!

This way it gives light and serves a defensive purpose.

Once again... I used the very same piece

 that was originally cut out of this window!

 (Do not throw away those "scraps"! They are amazingly useful!)

Here you can see I am starting to shape the

 underside of the stairs to fit over the window.

It took a lot of gradual cutting... with my hand saw...!

I am thinking of adding another window on the other side of the fireplace....

And I am testing the spacing of those heavy columns along the wall...

The one in back is needed to close in the stairs...

and shouldn't there be some symmetry to the structure?

(I like my engineering to make some sense!)

Cutting the extra window required emptying all the parts

 and moving the Tower away from the wall...

because the saw wouldn't fit inside so the cutting

 had to be done from the back side.

And I was reminded that I had not yet glued the floor in!

It is the ceiling of the Lord's Council Chamber... 

which had only been completed last fall...

(and I needed to wait a while in case I had

 forgotten something important...!)

So I got out the glue.... and the heaviest Book I own.....

This is a Momentous Day!

And while I waited for the glue to dry... 

I started to cut the window frame sections...

Which you can see is carefully fitted to the odd shaped opening.

I cut two of these from thin plywood (1/8 inch thick),

 and once they are fitted to the opening,

 I cut the window hole out of the middle, 

and sandwich the glass pane between the plywood pieces.

None of the pieces are glued in until all the parts are fitted.

In this case, I need to get the back windows finished

 before I can attach the stairs.

Here you can see I have removed the ceiling.... 

(the floor of the Tower Battlements...)

in order to cut the opening for the stairs to access the Rooftop!

I have not been at all sure how this

 will be "covered" up on the Tower top.

 The weather would rain in if the stairs were just left open...

 so a roof over the stairs would be needed...?

And some sort of wall around the opening...?

But I started by cutting the hole as it would

 need to be for the stairs to land at the top...

And once I had cut the opening.... I had a brilliant idea!

Why not just make it a Trap door... with Hinges???!

(Oh, I do LOVE hinges!

Here you can see the opening from below... 

(the side of the stairs will be walled below the opening)

And the open door from the Battlement side!

And closer... so you an see the top of the stairs....

 (the very top step has not been fitted yet....).

There will be a door at the bottom

 of the stairs to keep the drafts out.

And I decided it would be easier to paint the "rocks"

before all the added pieces get in the way...

You have seen this before....

First I draw the courses.... 

then add the rough texturing...

By now it is late.... dark....

And I am too tired to add the grout!

Which Never ceases to Amaze me, Dear Readers,

how it transforms the painted surface into "rocks"!

One slow wall at a time!

Retro Fitting the Castle....

Again!

More Painting...

 

 

And Those Patient Saints...

You Might recall, Dear Readers, that I had recently added the paint to the opening doors for the Great Hall section of the Castle. But I had only done the base coats of primer and the pale gray. The arched wall of this side of the Castle had been painted a long time ago, so I thought I had better get the rest of the inside painting completed. This required that I remove the front wall (it has only been screwed in place for this reason) so that I could get the rocks on the two sides of the opening doors to be properly matched when seen from the inside. Not that anyone will be seeing it from the inside very often, as this requires that I get the camera inside through the interior doors to the Great Hall.... but I would hate to have it look wrong on those few occasions! 

The method is the same as that used for the other walls.

First I paint the "courses" of the rocks...

And then I determine the proper spacing of the verticals...

Trying to make them as they would need to be in a real wall...

"two over one and one over two" is the standard recipe.

This means the vertical edges are never supposed to be

 right over the previous row's vertical edges.

And then I added the rough "texturing" of the rocks.

This is meant to be very "sketchy" and not detailed.

And finally, the grout lines are added.

This is when they start to be convincing as "rocks"!

(It surprises me every time!)

But you might also remember, Dear Readers,

 that I have been trying to complete

 the Ceiling of the Great Hall for ages and ages.

And every time I start to work on it, 

I realize something else is needed first.

But I have decided that it would be great if

 I could just get those Patient Saints finished!

So while the front wall was removed,

 I also removed the ceiling and set it up on my "easel"

(really just a chair with the ceiling propped across the arms.)

I had even made a list long ago of all the tiny things

 that needed to be worked on.

Saint Elizabeth was easy... only the floor lacked details.

The grid was drawn for tiles... all I had to do was decorate them!

Of course I had started to paint them 

before I remembered to take a "before" picture!

So you can see the first ones have been given a pink color.

I added a red dot to the center of each pink tile.

That was all I need to do for Saint Elizabeth!

And I neglected to take "before" pictures from them on...

You will have to take my word for it that

 Saint Hedwig needed details added to her seat

 and Saint Marc needed extra layer "clean-up" around his halo.

Mary Magdalene needed only 

some touch-ups around the framework.

Saint John needed details in his hair,

 the eagle's talons, and the writing on his scroll.

And some framework touch-ups too.

The truth is that any number of other layers and trims and 

"clean-ups" could be added as well... 

but they are not "needed" to complete the image.

I did not get any work done on the other half of the ceiling...

But I turned it around so they are now ready to be completed too!

I am sure if you look carefully you will spot some of the missing pieces.

Meanwhile, I finished adding the grout lines.

And I reattached the front wall.

Here you can see the doors open...

(I do apologize for the dark pictures...

 It is so dark in the evenings now!)

And now you can see the Great Hall from the interior...

with the flash turned on... and the ceiling not in place...

Well... flash does reveal all the flaws!

But I think it is starting to look like I hoped it would!

 

So that's what I have been doing, Dear Readers,

 just a little more painting on the Walls,

 and those Patient Saints.