Happy Australia Day!

Hello everyone from a sunny down under! We have had a lovely and productive Australia Day in the garden as well as cleaning out some hoarded stuff in order to shuffle some other stuff around. But we did have a barbecue lunch of course with snags and home-made tomato sauce, so it was pretty good! Now I am enjoying a particularly nice wine from an Australian winery, McHenry Hoehnen - check it out if you ever get the chance! 

Now, the real reason I am posting. A little update on my French chateau (which still needs a name - I am thinking of le petite monstre!). I am slowly getting the panels for the salon painted, but the paint needs multiple coats on the carved details, so it is slow going.

Here is the back wall with all the panels joined together and undercoated:

Here is the left side wall with the window openings:

The walls will be a couple of centimetres thick to allow for curtains and panels in the window cavities. Also, I want to give the impression of shutters tucked in behind the panels - in some rooms, I hope to have them actually fold out.

Here is the back wall panel painted in the cream topcoat before all the carving is painted:

I will add a thin moulding to match that already on the top of some of the panels (as can be seen in the above photo in the middle) and then add the cornice when the panels have been installed, and maybe a carved ceiling. Soon I will have some gatorfoam to construct other interior walls. Also, my darling husband bought me a belated anniversary present of a laser cutter, so if we can get it working, I will cut out some windows and parquet flooring and this room will really get moving. The rest of the structure has been designed around this room, so I won't be getting anything else done on the house until this room is installed. I suppose I could get going on the exterior, but that hinges on windows being installed. All in good time!

Hope you've all had a great weekend!