Mountfield and French chateau progress

Well, here in Oz, another weekend is almost over. Where does it go?? I spent a good part of this afternoon scraping off the wall tiles in the old Mountfield bathroom which wasn't a huge drama, but one of those jobs I am just too lazy to bother with! In case you were wondering how I did it, I just tore off what I could of the tiles (paper with a shiny plastic coated surface), using a craft knife to get under the edges, then wiping a damp cloth over the paper residue. When it got damp enough, it just kind of rubbed off (using the cloth and finger nails). The floor tiles were another matter. They stayed where they were and I put the floor boards over the top. Problem 1: the floor boards were a different colour to the original ones in the other rooms (but I stained them all anyway, but even with the stain, the new boards are a slightly different colour); and 2) I stupidly put the floor boards running in the opposite direction to the rest of the house. Never mind. With a rug, I am not sure it is something you will notice.

This room doesn't really have a use yet. I am not much into kids' rooms but I do have a few little boys toys that I could've used here had I thought to put a boys wallpaper in there, rather than flowers. I have a little cot from my very first dollhouse, made from a kit, and it is white and blue, hence could've put that in there. So I am thinking either a child's room with the cot repainted, or a sewing/other room, similar to my music room I had at the back where the new bathroom was relocated to. (And yes the ceiling has scabby marks I need to fill and paint)

I have also been doing some work on the French chateau, mainly the salon, entry and courtyard which are all on the ground floor, and some exterior work. Here you can see the entry with stairs my husband helped build. This room will have a door on the right side, leading to the salon and I was going to have a matching door at the back leading under the stairs. My thoughts were that this would be visually very busy, as the two doors would be very close together and ornate. So I could put a niche on the stair wall (but they're not entirely my thing) or a smaller, plainer door (utilitarian). If I do a door, it could open and reveal a secret passage, or even a secret world! It's only a small space though - about 12cm wide and 10cm deep. What are your thoughts? Any crazy, whacky ideas??

Hope your weekend has been a good one. Xx

Mountfield bathroom update

Hi all. Happy Sunday! I did get some done on this project a couple of weeks ago but have not progressed since then. You may recall I was waiting on white tiles. When they arrived, I realised I needed cream tiles. Sigh. Fortunately I had *just* enough in my leftovers (from the kitchen) to finish the borders same as the original bathroom. Some of the fittings and accessories are glued in now, and a new hole drilled for the light. Still a few things to be done as you can see. I was going to use a different top edging tile. There was one with the set that had a scalloped edge, but it had white on the negative side of the scallop. Given the patterned border tile is cream not white, I thought this was odd. And disappointing. I wasn't going to attempt to cut the white bits off the scalloped tile, so just went with the thin one instead.

It may not have been wise, but I carried the tile across the front of the bath. I think I will add a border to fill in the gap along the top egde of the bath so it doesn't look so odd. But I am tired and today I have run out of steam!

Although it is harder to fit in all the things I want to fit in, I like the bathroom here better than at front of the house.

And before I leave you be, I want to thank everyone who left a kind comment to my previous post. It is nice to have the support and words of advice, and to know that I am not alone is reassuring. It is hard to find the right words sometimes! Take care everyone!

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.