Finished! . . . . Well, Almost

Thirty-One weeks, or about seven months, after starting work on the castle it's finally finished.  Well . . . almost finished anyway.  It's at the point where it's close enough to "done" that I need to ignore it for a couple of weeks then come back and look at it with fresh eyes so that all the flaws still needing to be fixed stand out.  So for the moment it's "done" even though it still needs work.

The one area that still needed the most attention at the start of the week was the exterior.  All that grey had to get broken up, so I added some "Wacky Wisteria" vines to the two side front panels.  Why is it Wacky?  Look closely and you'll notice that it has holly leaves instead of wisteria-type leaves and that the blooms are composed of three different colours, none of them the lavender purple wisteria is meant to be.  It was a case of making do with what I had on hand rather than wait weeks for the right supplies to arrive in the mail.  I figure it is a fantasy castle, so some fantasy wisteria is in order anyway.  The leaves were made from paper using a paper punch while the flowers are three shades of flowersoft mixed in together.  A piece of green wire dipped in extra tacky glue was rolled in this to create the flower.

The centre front panel has no wisteria on it, but I think I need to add some around the bay window and perhaps at the top as well.  Above the front door and under the bay window some decorative brackets were glued on to add some interest. 

The other task of the week was to finish off and arrange the dolls in the castle and here are the results:

I told you Artie would prefer Ana once she grew some hair!  They've snuck off to the Dining Room for a quiet chat.

Theron and Chester exchange stories of their adventures while Garnett listens politely, not believing a word of it.

With a castle full of hungry people, the kitchen staff are working flat out.

Katie shows young Cailin her treasured magical sphere in the bedroom.

May convinced Arianne to move out of my first (and soon to be renovated) castle to come and help her make music in Starcaster.

Almos is still asleep in the Library and a little dragon has decided to curl up on his lap.  Like Arianne, Glennis has decided she prefers Starcaster to the old castle and has moved in to help organise the library.  Her first decision was to relocate the library desk to the Dragon Study room upstairs.  Little Omyr the book-wyrm dragon refused to leave the library so jumped off the desk and settled on the top of the library steps instead.

Glennis' decision to move the desk upstairs meant that the cupboard had to get the boot.  I have to admit I like this room better without the cupboard but the catch is that the desk leaves only the narrowest space between itself and the top of the stairs meaning a person needs to be very skinny and agile to make it into the room.  Perhaps I should cut the desk down a little, but you can't actually see anything is wrong from the front so why risk ruining the desk?

As you can see, the castle is a very busy place.  If you'd like so see more photos of the (almost) finished castle, you'll find all them from the very start here in my Flickr.