Nothing to do with miniatures - read at own risk!

I have had an awful 6 months, dealing with the loss of my little princess Tilly. It follows about 6 years of being bored and miserable in my employment. Also, I am really bad at sleeping. This morning I took a walk as soon as I woke up as a pamphlet about sleep habits says it's really useful for getting into good sleep patterns and reducing depression. I have known for years about blue light and orange light and patterns due to seeing a sleep specialist but I guess I just get lazy. I wonder "why bother?". Then today I said mean things about an overweight woman I saw with a respirator. I was sitting here, enjoying a Friday afternoon vodka (apple! Mmmm!) when I realised that part of the self-hate, misery thing is probably partially due to my judgement of others and myself. I know how hard it is to lose weight. I am not fat, but I have a higher body fat percentage than I'd like. I have made the new year's resolution for the last few years to not judge people, and I largely kept that up, but I didn't make a resolution this year. I think I need to commit to that again this year - to not judge others and also not judge myself. I don't know that lady's circumstances. I know life can be really hard. I know that bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. I don't even know what triggered this thought process. All I know is that I need to change my thoughts and be happier. Anyone got something they'd like to say? Any resolutions you'd like to try out, even though we're in February?

Blogger advice

Hi all. Thankyou to those lovely bloggers who responded with some advice. Karin found these instructions, fortunately: https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/99761?hl=en

Worked perfectly! The issue was, on my ipad, the pencil icon was hidden from view as the web page is wider than my ipad screen - it is on the far right. So if you are having problems too, try scrolling sideways in case your icons are hidden.

Also, there is an orange button at the bottom right of the page (the home page where you make all your changes, have your blog list etc) to provide feedback. I know it probably doesn't get read but do it anyway. I have. And they did change a lot of the annoying Pinterest features they introduced last year after receiving feedback, so maybe they do listen. Who knows???

Enjoy your day everyone!

Another tiresome Blogger question

Hi all. I am wondering how you add a new blog to your reading list. Does anyone know? There doesn't appear to be any way of doing this and a google search resulted in instructions for the old format. Of course. Sigh.

I am in a yahoo group and someone asked about whether people still read blogs and they seem to be less popular than they were. I answered that I think the constant updates and format changes frustrated people, given the changes often made things more difficult to operate. I am HATING the new blogger account page. Anyway, that's my 2c! Hope someone can shed some light for me!

Have a great day!

Mountfield update

Hi all. Happy Australia Day for those in Oz who celebrate it. I have been trying to get a little work done. The husband is sleeping. I got about as much tiling done as I could. Now I need to wait for some plain white tiles to arrive. I will tile this room much the same as the original bathroom, but I have made the tiles 1 tile shorter. In hindsight, this may not have been a good idea as the plain wallpaper (which I will paint over) may be too short, leaving a gap between it and tiles. We will see how we go. If all else fails, I can rip out the wallpaper and replace with some longer pieces. 

Not sure about my yellow base tile. I would've used dark green but you can't get matching ones. So I thought I'd try yellow.

Sorry for the dark and dull photos. Afternoon light.

Mountfield renovations continued

So I went ahead yesterday and stuck in walls for an enclosed shower and a little arch over the tub. Ignore the fact that the arch is very wonky. I will recut it later, after the tiles are glued in. The end wall of the shower is also not glued so I can tile inside the shower. Although now I don't think I'll have enough tiles. Anyway, I think I like it. As pointed out by Karin, there was a lack of height and focal points. I am a little worried that the shower/tub wall will overpower the left wall, but I think by the time the mirror is stuck to the wall with the shelf and other items, it will help balance it out. And Elizabeth's idea of a light in the tub enclosure is a good one too, especially as you'll get a view of it through the open doors from the front of the house (apologies to those who don't like their bathroom fixtures in full view of open doors!).

FYI I purchased the wicker laundry basket from Wicker Miniatures on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/WickerMiniature

Really awesome stuff! And as for the Coxwolds, I sliced through the wallpaper on the shop wall and pulled that warped wall out. My husband helped me cut and glue some thin MDF to it and we weighted it down, so now it's flat and stuck back in the shop! Fortunately, as the wallpaper has a busy stripe pattern, the (rough) cut through the paper won't be very noticable once it's properly glued back down.

Happy mini-ing! I am off to paint the real life house....

PS I think I'll be sad to see the wallpaper in this room disappear. Perhaps I will purchase some more for a future project.

Mountfield renovations

I decided finally to bite the bullet and start the Mountfield bathroom relocation. It has so far been pretty quick and painless, although whatever glue I used to stick the bathroom sink and toilet down with was dynamite to remove. I haven't removed the wallpaper in the new bathroom as most of it will have tile covering it and whatever isn't covered will just be painted or repapered.

I can't decide on layout as it is a large and sort of awkward shape. I want to build the bath into an alcove and have an enclosed shower, like this from a vintage apartment above a shop I visited a few years ago:

 So this layout would work best (shower at front right) but it makes the toilet/sink space a bit squishy:

These ones not so good:

What are your thoughts? Would like some opinions please.

No real progress on the Coxwolds as I am still waiting on an order for architrave and skirting which I placed in November....

I have made a wall cabinet for the shop, but my foamcore wall (wallpapered on the right) has warped, so I need to somehow straighten it. And that is all the wallpaper I have so can't replace the wall.

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Workshop prototype finished

I have been stressing quite a bit about this workshop prototype and workshop in general. I had to have it finished earlier than anticipated so didn't have time for a trial run with a group. I wanted a 1-day workshop, but there is too much to do, so 2-days it will have to be. I struggle with pricing so not sure where to go with that. A couple of small details got dropped off along the way due to running out of time. I think one or two details could be changed, but they are very minor and I will see about that later. It's not quite how I was picturing it, but I am pretty happy still - I anticipated it being more rustic, but it turned out a little fancy! Never mind. Hindsight is a wonderful thing....