Madame Bellerose's - Week Four

Sometimes things go right and all the pieces just fall into place. Then there is the house of Madame Bellerose. It is one of those projects that just refuses to co-operate and come together. First there is the kitchen, which just looks plain horrible at the moment. It is being brought down by two things, the floor and the doorframes. The floor should look better after furniture and people are added to the room as this will make the floor less visible. The real problem is the doorframes as the only way to take them down will probably involve ripping the wallpaper, which will lead to the need to re-paper the walls and possibly redo the panelling as well. For the time being I am ignoring the kitchen while waiting for a brainwave on how to make it look better to strike. Then there are the staircases. The pair of curved stairs joining the bottom floor to the middle are acutally progressing quite well. They have been cut out, glued together, filled, roughly sanded and painted with a watery mix of paint and pva glue. They only need the be filled again, re-sanded and then painted/stained and varnished. (Then they need banisters and rails, but that is another problem for another time). It is the much simpler straight stairs joining the middle to the top floor that is the problem. I used some recycled premade straight stairs to create two sections of stair separated by a landing. Under the lower section of stair I built a bookcase with two gothic arches. As the stairs came with a railing built into the wrong side, I had to remove the exisiting railing and fill the holes. I stained the whole lot and added a 'carpet runner' up the middle of the stairs. Finished, I glued the stair assembly into place. This took all day. Then I looked at what I had done and realised that for a 12th scale person to walk up the stairs, they would have to bend double at the landing as it was only about 2 1/2" from the ceiling! So after bashing my head against the table a few times I had to carefully pry the staircase out (which I did manage with only minimal damage to the wall and floor papers already installed) and come up with a new staircase design. This new design should work, it may even be an improvement, but I'll judge that after I have made it work! Once I have the stairs finished, they will need rails/banisters. I have plenty of the mass produced ready made spindles and newel posts in my supply box, but I really want something more 'gothic' to add to the character of the house. I have no ideas at the moment what I will use for the railings but I can guarentee I will want to throw the curved ones through the nearest window at least once before they are done to an acceptible standard! Not only do I need to figure out how to make them curved, I need to make them with the same curve as the stairs.

Madame Bellerose's - Week Two

Now that the exterior of Madame Bellerose's home is finished (at least until I change my mind about it) I have started on the interior decor. Normally I start from the ceiling of a room and work down (ceiling, walls, floor). This means that I don't have to worry about splashing the walls as I paint the ceiling, plus once the ceilings are finished, I generally don't need to turn the whole house upsidedown again. For M.B.'s I decided not to paint the ceilings, but to make a feature of the ceilings with embossed paper with balsa wood panelling. With that in mind I papered the ceilings, then the walls, then added the panelling to the ceilings as the paneling helps to hold both the roof and wall papers in place. The exception to this process is the ground floor where the kitchen has a plain ceiling and the 'hall' is completely covered in the embossed paper without any paneling. From the top floor down, the rooms have the following colour schemes: Bedroom: Has an oversided fler-de-lys pattern in lavender on purple. This 'wallpaper' is really a quilting fabric. The floor will be of wood-effect paper. Lounge/Study: Has dark forest green walls with a pattern of paler green vines. This room is papered with scrapbooking paper. Seance Room: Has floral patterned walls in burgundy on pink. Another fabric. Kitchen/Scullery: The scullery at the rear has plain white walls. The kitchen has a white ceiling, blue floral on cream upper walls while the bottom of the walls will have some gothic-influenced panelling. This is the only room with made to purpose mini wallpaper! The floor of both areas is already down, made from pieces of vinyl 'stone look' floor tiles cut into 'slabs', the gaps between slabs has been grouted. Entrance Hall: The walls are papered with cream scrapbook paper with a pattern of beige motifs. The floor is covered with made to purpose miniature victorian floor tile paper.