The Sunset Garden

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while will know that the original plan was to add a garden wing to Highcroft Castle that was eventually canned due to lack of space. I knew what the garden was going to look like, so I've decided to go ahead and do the garden as a stand alone roombox (or should that be gardenbox?)

The garden is being built in a roombox bought and decorated many, many years ago. The room I originally put in the box was very dull and because it was decorated a long, long time ago it is very ameteurish. So I stripped out the room, leaving the basic box with solid MDF base, back and sides and clear perspex front and top. The outside of the box came painted in a creamy yellow gloss - not inspiring but sufficient given the back and sides won't be very visible when the finished garden is squeezed in place between other roomboxes.

The upper two and a half inches of the inside walls were painted in a very pale sky blue acrylic. This served as a base for successive layers of watercolour paints in an attempt to create a sunset sky. A large redish circle was painted on to create a setting sun. Painting things like pictures or scenery is not a strong point for me, but I'm quite proud of my sky, even though I wasn't brave enough to try adding clouds.

Next up came the garden walls. These are a couple of inches shorter than the actually roombox, allowing the sunset to be seen over them. The walls were made from foamboard which was covered with a layer of air-drying clay on which a random stone pattern was pressed using a toothpick (just like the catacombes in Highcroft). Once the clay has had a chance to dry properly, they'll get some coats of paint.

The finished garden will have the fantasy theme it was going to when it was going to be Highcroft's garden with faeries, dragons and other mythical creatures in residence. There will be a fountain and a pond full of fish spanned by a small bridge.