The Next Level

I have to confess . . .   When I figured out the number of steps in the castle a couple of weeks ago I said 25 steps by 5 floors, that's 100 steps.  I hope it doesn't take you as long as it did me to realise how very terribly wrong that little bit of simple mathematics is.  There are, of course, actually 125 steps.  At least I can be certain when I tell you the castle now has double the floors it had last week.

At least I seem to have managed to get the measurements right in building the castle, at least so far as the next floor sits on the basement and matches up with level of the door opening on the stair tower.

One mistake I did make was to put an arched ceiling in the basement dungeon.  I used toothpicks to make bars to secure the dungeon, but continuing the bars up to a curved ceiling and having them fit properly is not easy.  So at the moment anyone wanting to escape the dungeon only has to climb over the top of the bars.  In future I will have another go at sealing off this escape route either with bars or a solid piece of wall.

Above the dungeons are the castle kitchens.  The floors are tiled with pieces of orange EVA foam cut into squares and glued in place.  This was given a wash of brown paint to create a more terracotta tone and 'grouted' with a mix of pollyfiller, water and grey paint.  Under the arch on the left side of the room is an area separate to the kitchen that will probably a scullery or buttery.  The right side of the kitchen is where the kitchen proper will be.  The opening in the back wall is for the ovens.

On the opposite side of the castle I used a door kit from Petite Properties to add a door to the wall dividing the well room from the alchemists lair.  The door itself is quite effective but when you see it against one of the doorway arches I cut you'll notice it looks very short.  It looks even worse against a 48th sized person.

Working to scale, a 48th (1/4") person the equivalent of 6' tall should be about 1 1/2" tall, therefore a doorway should logically be at least that high too, preferably a little higher.  Yet the professionally made to scale door is no more than 1 1/4" high.  Set against my admittedly generous arches, this door really looks wrong.  Worse, I have five more of these doors to use higher up in the castle and they're all going to look silly too.  Up until now I've loved everything I've bought from Petite Properties but it seems items they sell as 48th scale aren't all quite 48th scale.

Above this dwarf door is a pretty swanky room with a smart red and black tiled floor and linenfold panelling look walls.  Like the kitchen, the floor tiles are cut from EVA foam, but this time laid closely enough not to need grout in a smart diamond pattern.  The panelling is just printed paper as is the fire surround and brick backing.  The wall on the right of the room is where the castle's front door will be located, making this room the castle's entry hall.  It will also be the armoury with displays of weaponry and seating for newly arrived guests waiting to be shown further into the castle.