Light and Dark

Now that I've finally installed all the lights in the castle, I thought I ought to give them a test.  First I discovered that I was short one three recepticle extension, therefore the light in the Crypt, Grotto and one at the rear of the armoury have no where to connect (thus can't be turned on) until a new extension arrives in the mail.  Of the lights that I could turn on, many needed the bulbs twisting in their sockets before they worked, but with a little fiddling work they all did except for the candle sconce mounted in the centre of the shelves in the Magician's Cave.  No amount of twisting, fiddling or re-wiring the plug would make this come on.  Not even the Sorceress had a spell to light it up.  I have this bad feeling I'll need to pull it out and start again.

I waited until after dark to turn the lights on again to take photos.   Not only was the Cave Shelf light still not cooperating, the wall sconce by the door in the cave had now stopped working.  This too refused to turn back on when the bulbs were adjusted.  Next I noticed that teh bulb in the fireplace of the Hall was out too.  Both these and the Cave Shelf light are all connected to one three recepticle extension.  Could it be that the fault in the Cave Shelf light caused the whole extension to blow?  I don't know yet, but I have a feeling I'll be swapping some very unsavoury words with the lights, wires and extensions before I get all the lights working properly.

In the Gallery, the railing has been painted, sanded, painted, sanded, painted . . . I'm still not particularly happy with the finish, it still looks rough, but at least it's now the right white to match the Hall below.

 I forgot to take a picture of the new pelment in the Solar, but you can see some of it in this view of the lights.  It's just a strip of card covered in the curtain fabric.  Glued behind this so it extends below the card is a length of fancy wood trim painted blue to match the walls.

While working with fabric, I made the last bedcurtain for the foot end of the side of the bed.  I was right; the bed looks much better with this in place.  I didn't have enough fabric left to make the curtain the right way around, buy luckily, the pleating conceals the fact that the pattern on this curtain is running sideways.

Rather than try to conceal the rather noticable patch in the roof of the castle where the courtyard had previously been open to the sky, I covered it up with a pediment.  The pediment was made from a single piece of thick balsa wood and carefully carved into shape.  It makes an open fronted box look a little more like a proper castle.

 The rest of the time this week has been spent in the Armoury.  Aside from the ceiling which needs the big bugle taking out of it, this room is now almost finished.  The sword stand bought on ebay occupies the centre of the floor while a variety of pole weapons (spears) taken out of the castle prior to the renovation process have returned to line the right wall.  

Swords from the original pre-renovation sword stand are now in a wall mounted rack on the left.  Shields made by Nickycc adorn the walls on both sides.  The suit of armour came out of the pre-renovation castle.

 After all these years, poor young Alwyn is still stuck in the armoury sat on the bottom step polisning the same sword.