Orchid Cottage

Orchid Cottage is now finished.  Well, finished-ish.  There are a few things I'd still like to do such as find a trim to add to the bottom of the two small dormers as there is actually a gap between the front of the dormers and the roof tiles below.  Sadly nothing I've tried looks quite right, so for the time being they will remain as they are.

Each of the two levels inside consists of a single large room.  The kit is designed to have two rooms per floor and an internal staircase occupying part of the rooms.  I found that I kept running out of space working without the dividing walls and moving the stairs into an annex on the side.

 Despite the lack of internal walls, each floor has two separate areas.  Upstairs has a sitting area and a sleeping area in the bedroom.  The sitting end of the room consists of a cosy chair by the fire beside which is an embroidery table.  The wash stand also inhabits this area.

The other end of the room holds the bed with little space left for anything else.

Downstairs the two areas are the kitchen and the living area.  These two areas are squeezed in quite tightly.  Each has exactly fifty percent of the floor area but each really needs at least sixty percent before they could have a really pleasing layout.  The living area in particular does not please me but there is simply no better way to fit everything in (and you'd better believe I have tried every single possible way).

I might have done better to make or buy furniture specifically for the house instead of using so many items from my stash, but you see the whole point of buying the house was to use up some of the furniture from my stash and get it out of the cupboard.  This, and the fact I doubt I'd have had any more success with custom made furniture, is why I stuck with what I had.

 Ethel, the lady of the house is a cheap porcelain doll re-dressed in a plum coloured cotton dress.

My Orchid Cottage looks quite close to the basic Orchid kit despite all the changes I made.  The kit is supposed to be open at the back, mine opens at the front.  I blocked off all the side windows as they just messed up any possible interior layout.  The other major change I made was to add the staircase annex on the left side of the building.