Highcroft Castle - Week Thirteen

This week it was the Great Hall's turn to aquire some furniture. The original idea was that the Queen and other high ranking diners would be seated on a dias in the centre of the room with the less important guests on benches to the sides. The "high" table would be semi-circular allowing for a brazier to be placed in the middle to keep everyone warm. The furniture that I've made for the Hall (everything bar the brazier) is pretty much exactly as I planned from the start of the project. . . . . . Too bad it doesn't look right in the space. Tall backed chairs on a raised dias right in front of the arched doorways at the back make the arches look lower - too low. They are supposed to look grand and impressive, but now they just get lost. Those seated at the sides of the dias will be indanger of toppling off it. The "low" tables and seating might squeeze a total of six diners, but would be better if there were only four. A total of seven guests at a banquet? It seems like a small gathering for such a grand occasion.

So . . .

I'm thinking that I will change the layout of this room. I'll block off the arched doorway on the right and turn it into a stained glass window. (This was supposed to be the doorway to the right wing one day, but the wing may never be added anyway and if it is, I'll just have to put fake doors in the back and have it connect to the main building via imaginary, unseen passageways.) The dias will move in front of this window so that the diners sit with their backs to it, still on the semi-circular table with a brazier in the cut out middle. I will then add either one long table with benches down the middle of the room (running from the dias on the right to the left wall) or two or three separate tables running from the back wall to the front, probably the former but it depends how things fit when I get around to measuring. The only problem with this arrangement will be that the symetry of the room will be ruined. So if I decide I don't like the room a-symetrical, I'll change it again and just have one simple long table running the length of the room, no dias, no curves, but more space to play with.

But all this will be handled (maybe) this week - I'm supposed to be telling you about last week. In the Great Hall the furniture has been made, as usual, from balsa wood with a few embelishments of wooden beads and some laser cut fretwork. The fretwork used in the chair backs was purchased on ebay from  amd5758 .  This seller has some wonderful castle/medieval pub type items, both ready made and some bits to make your own like the fretwork. The chairs themsevles are very simply made from four pieces of balsa wood - the back, the seat and two sides. These pieces were draw on paper to make sure they looked right, then the paper became a pattern for the chairs. A hole was cut in the backs to insert the fretwork and I may add a bead as a finial at each side of the backs. The table is similarly simple. It is merely balsa wood cut to shape supported on legs made from beads "strung" on toothpicks. The tip of the toothpick protrudes a little from the top of the beads, allowing me to push them into the balsa wood table tops to ensure everything is locked together. The dias is just cardboard covered in grey carpet with some red and gold braid to trim the edges. Also in the Great Hall, I've placed some scrap wood look paper at the back of the minstrel galleries, confirming that they do look better with a darker colour behind them. Now I just find some deep coloued paper that will look good with the room to use as a permanent wall covering.

Not a lot happened in the sorcerer's study this week. The bookcase I started modifying last week was supposed to be painted with layers of successivly lighter paint, lightly sanded to reveal the layers, but the midnight blue looked so good just as it was i decided to leave it as it was. I simply added a little rub on paint in light blue over the raised designs on the plaster trim pieces to highlight them. I've been collecting books to put on this bookshelf for months. Whenever there was a % off sale at one of my favourite Dollshouse stores, a pack of blank books was included in my order. It never occured to me to measure the height of the shelves I wanted to put them on. Yes, you guessed right, the books are too tall to fit on the shelves. I'll either have to pile them on horizontally instead of vertially or make my own books the right height.

The drawer's I've raised on stilts looked to good in their orginal finish to repaint, so I thought I'd just paint the bottom and have a contrast. It didn't work - the unit doesn't look like it's meant to be one thing with the bottom painted blue. So this will be painted as close to the wood colour of the top as possible. If this doesn't work, I'll have to repain the whole thing. Lastly, I made a quick table for the room out of balsa wood and recycled newel posts which still needs painting.

The final item I've made this week is the knoll sofa for the solar. Do you believe it is made from cardboard? Four rectangles of corugated cardboard make up it's frame. The side pieces were cut half way through just above the height of the seat to enable them to fold down. The back and side were covered in thin foam and upholstered with some fabric left over from an earlier project. The cushions for the seat are two pieces of thicker foam. The sofa still needs some finials on the back corners so that the sides can be tied up. Months back there were some suitable finials listed by one of the Australian based online DH stores I frequent. Now I need some . . . . yes you guessed it again - they no longer have them! Now I either have to improvise or pay to get something similar shipped from the US.

Highcorft Castle - Week Twelve - Part Three

Aside from the major changes in the kitchen and treasury, there have been a few minor changes to other parts of the castle. The catacombes have continued to receive layers of paint in order to achieve the "right" colour. I think I'm about there, I just need to highlight some of the individual stones for a bit of variation and make things look a little bit grubby.

I have made the skeleton of the bed for the royal suite. Now all I need is some fabric to dress it. I've been to the only store in town that sells fabric and as usual, they have nothing that will work. It needs to be something suptuous, vibrant and that looks like it belongs in a castle. I guess I'll have to try and find something on the internet. I have taken the purple/gold fabric off the bedroom walls and replaced it with more of the white paper I used on the ceiling. This just improves the look of the room no end and is how I should have covered the walls to begin with. It also means that I can use any colour of fabric in the room, which makes it easier to find something suitable. I hope.

The final piece of work on the castle this week has been on some furniture destined for the "Sorcerer's Study" at the top of the tower. I started with a plain and ordinary bookshelf and chest of drawers. I pulled the doors off the bottom of the bookshelf and replaced them with arches cut from a thin sheet of balsa wood. Around the top of the shelves I added some inverted plaster freize from Sue Cook Miniatures which gives the shelves a very gothic look.

For the drawers I made a base out of more balsa wood and some lengths of twisted air-dry clay. I want to add some decorative trim to this, and to the desk I'm yet to make. I first ordered some of this from the US back in February. When it arrived in early March, everything else in the package was right, but they'd sent the wrong trim. So I sent an email and they credited the length of trim. I them placed another order for a few bits and pieces and some more trim. That was about two months ago and I have yet to receive the order. The first time something went wrong, the seller was very understanding and even credited the item even though I did recieve something, albeit the wrong something, and was willing to keep it (I'll find a use for it one day). Someone pulled the wrong thing off the shelf and these things happen. This time I keep sending emails saying it's gone missing and can we track it at all and I don't get a response. Basically, I'm not happy and getting less and less happy everyday.

Highcroft Castle - Week Twelve - Part Two

The Treasury (next door to the kitchen) was also given a few improvements durring the week.  The most important feature of the Treasury is the gate - after all what good is a Treasury if you can't lock the treasure in?  The gate was made from pieces of bamboo skewer cut to length held in place at the top, bottom and at two points part way up by strips of balsa wood.  Wooden beads were threaded on the skewers in an arrow head arrangement to add interest to the bars formed by the skewers.  The top of the gate is a pre-purchased piece of fretwork that fills in the arched doorway nicely.  Once assembled, all this was given a coat of charcoal black paint, followed by a metallic pewter to give the gate a shiny, metal like finish.  Eventually, the gate is going to be fixed in place, but for now it's just leaning in place so I can access the space behind it.

If you use a fair amount of imagination, the space behind the Treasury gate is part of the hallway that connects the kitchen and treasury to the rest of the castle.  In the hallway right outside the treasury two guards are on always duty (although not always the same two guards), guarding the castle's treasure.  As the peoples of Oronia are generally happy and well provided for, and because the treasury is deep within the castle and thus hard to get to, guarding the treasury is a fairly dull job.  So dull, in fact, that the guards are given a table and stools so they can sit and play checkers or dice games to pass the time.  I bought a lovely barrel table and two barrel stools on ebay.  They fit the space well and look fabulous, but in the dim space at the back of the treasury they're very hard to see.  I lined the ceiling and side walls of the hallway space behind the treasury with mirror paper to enhance the light, but it's still hard to see into this space once the gate is on the treasury.  So I painted the bands that hold the barrels together in a metallic copper paint to add some sparkle, which does make the table and stools stand out better, but I still think I might make a quick and plain table and stools and save the more expensive, more decorative barrel table and stools for the next project and for where they can actually be seen.

By the treasury gate, I added a pile of precious fabrics of brocade and velvet and anythings else I had that looked valuable enough to lock up.  The fabrics are just off cuts wraped around off cuts of balsa wood or cardboard to create mini bolts of fabric.  They are piled up rather haphazardly, refelcting the haste with with they were searched through when the new Queen of Oronia needed a new gown as soon as possible for her coronation.

At the front right of the treasury, a weapons rack has been made to fit against the wall.  Again, it's maily balsa wood with a little trim of bronze leather for decoration.  The lengths of bamboo currently housed in the rack will eventually be replaced with spears, pikes, halberds and other suitable weaponry.

Highcroft Castle - Week Twelve - Part One

Reading other peoples blogs is a dangerous thing. A couple of weeks ago Dangerous Mezzo of the Medieval/ Tudor/  etc blog posted about her recent purchases from Suramics Pottery on Etsy. The pots looked so good I just had to follow the link to Suramics shop and the prices there were so good I couldn't resist buying some for the castle's kitchen. It took just seven days for them to arrive from the US (it usually takes longer for that to get mail sent from within Australia, so I was impressed). Suramics pots and jugs are fabulous for the price (about $3.00US each) but they are solid and none of the lids come off. In the photo to the side you'll see the Suramics pots migled with pots bought from Barehaven Miniature Pottery (bought 2 years ago for my last castle). The Suramics items are the two large brown jugs and the pots/jars with the blue and brown glaze. The Barehaven pots are smaller and hollow with removable lids, but about four times the price. I've decided to spread the two 'brands' of pottery between the new and old castles for variety and to give the old castle a bit of a change.

You may also have noticed in the photo that the kitchen table has changed since my last post. I spent all day Saturday "in the kitchen" and all the furniture for the kitchen is now finished. To the table (which I made a few weeks ago) I added a cage beneath where live chickens and other fowl that find themselves on the menu are kept alive right up until the last moment to ensure their freshness. It's empty at the moment as the evening meal has already been served.

Not only has the meal been served, but the kitchen staff have started to wash up the dishes, making the next item made a necessity: a washtub. Technically I suppose the washing up would have been done in a separate area (like a scullery) or even outside in the nearest stream, but I don't have room to add these to my castle, so I settled for a big tub in the corner of the kitchen. It was made from balsa wood in random widths cut to 4.5cm long. These were lined up and stuck on a length of duct tape. This created a single, flexible strip which was wrapped around a flat, round piece of wood (with the duct tape on the inside) to create the tub. Wooden beads were glued on the bottom to make feet. Eventually, the tub will be filled with washing up water and dirty pots. To reduce the amount of "water" needed to do this, I used an old paint tub lid turned upside down to make a tray that fits in the top of the tub.

The last piece of furniture to be made for the kitchen was a small trestle table that stands next to the wash tub. It will either be piled with dirty dishes waiting to be washed or clean ones waiting to be dried and put away. It consists of two trestles, each made from three balsa wood legs pinned to a top bar. The table top sits on these two bars. The hardest part of making this table was getting the right angle on the legs, not to mention the same angle on all the legs. It was a lot of fiddling to get a stable table of the right height, but I did succeed . . . Eventually.

With everything made, all the furniture for the kitchen (including the dresser and shelves I made previously) were stained with watered down brown paint to look like wood. When dry, I had fun pulling out my collection of bowls, plates, jugs, pots, baskets and other kitchenware and seeing how it looked in the kitchen. I was amazed how much I had amassed since first starting the castle only a few months ago. Of course, not everything I've collected is going to be used in Highcroft's kitchen - some is for the kitchen of my next project (unless I change my mind about what I'm doing next between now and when Highcroft is finished).

Between fiddling with furniture, I made a start on the fireplace. I made some whatchemacallits (things that support the spit for roasting meat) out of scraps of foamboard covered in scraps of cardboard with stencilled stone left over from the front of the tower. The front edge of these was covered in black card and hooks made from clay painted black were added at (almost) level increments. Some pieces of bamboo skewer were cut down to size and painted black for the spits. Soot was added to the fireplace, chimney and much of the kitchen. This was done using antiquing gel sponged on rather unsubtley. I still need to add another layer of soot with chalk paints for a softer, more graduated finish. Looking a the photo of the result, I realise that I've forgotten to mention the small stool for the spit boy to sit on while turning the spit to ensure the meat is evenly cooked. This is again just balsa wood cut to the right size and shape and glued toegther.

As I'm a little pressed for time at the moment, I'm splitting this week's update into two parts. I should add part two which covers the rest of the week's progress in a couple of days.

Highcroft Castle - Week Eleven

This was another week of working furiously to finish the exterior and major construction jobs of the castle. The good news is that I've finally finished it! Almost. In all honesty there are a few things that still need doing to the outside, but these are either small tasks or things I haven't decided for certain to do yet. So officially I'm calling the outside finished and turning the main focus of my attention to the inside of the castle. Of course, first I should tell you about the past week's work on the outside . . .

The small tower windows were shaped from air drying clay last week. Once thoroughly dried they were painted cream and then given a coat of 'stone' to match the exterior of the castle. Like the other windows, these were glazed with fine black mesh and mirror paper cut to size. Four of the windows were then glued onto the outside front of the tower while the remaining four will be added to the inside walls after I've decided where they look best (which will depend on the size and position of the as yet unmade furniture).

The tower front was made by curving a piece of board over arched 'ribs' of balsa wood. But the course of a week proved that the front board tended to pop off the ribs and no amount of glue or pins was going to hold it securely. So I decided to "sew" it together. I used a kitchen skewer to punch holes through the board on the inside and threaded twine through the holes in much the same way as you might lace up an old fashioned corset. This pulled both sides of the curved front together and holds them securely on the ribs. All the front needs now is possibly some vines/plants growing up it and maybe the wooden bay windows painting a cream stoney colour to match the rest of the stonework.

Originally, I had intended for the side of the tower closest to the main building to have no wall - the main building's outside wall would be the tower section's wall. This would have worked marvellously . . . if the tower was shorter than the main building. As the tower is taller, there is a jolly big gap between the roofline of the main building and the top of the tower. If I put a solid wall floor to ceiling here, it would block the doorway from the main building. After passing on several ideas I cut a piece of foamboard the width of the wall that covers the entire space between the top of the tower and the main building roofline, then tapers toward the back of the building. It's basically a rectangle sitting on top of a triangle. This makes it look like a full, solid wall from the outside but doesn't interfere with the doorway inside. The exterior was "stoned" with paste and a stencil to match the rest of the outside. On the inside side I had a problem. It should have been covered with stone paper to match the paper on the wall behind the steps, but I didn't have enough left. So I covered the side with a thin layer of polyfilla and carved a stone pattern into it. Many layers of paint later and the resulting stone effect is really quite passable . . . too bad it doesn't even come close to matching the paper. It needs yet more paint to make it yellower if it is going to match the paper, but I honestly don't think even that will look right and I suspect I will soon be ordering more stone paper to cover this section.

While I had the polyfilla out I added some to the pillars and arches for the catacombes in a thin layer and marked out stone patterns with a toothpick. Once dry and given a base coat of cream, the pillars and arches were glued in place in the catacombes. Although I experimented with several pillars (of balsa wood dowel), in the end I decided to use just two as this was enough to give a subterranean 'dungeony' feel without clogging the space and making it look like a hypostyle hall out of an Egyptian temple. Again, successive and numerous coats of paints later and the catacombes are starting to look like they're made of stone . . . too bad the stone is too brown to match the rest of the castle. So here too, I need more paint before I call the task complete.

The last major exterior task was to cut and paint a front piece for the catacombes. This was cut from foamboard and stenciled to match the rest of the exterior. This used the last of my stone paste, so I hope there is nothing else in this castle that needs to look like the same stone as the outside! This piece now just needs attaching with hinges and a catch adding to hold it in place. This I'm leaving until I'm happier with the paint work in the catacombes to avoid the risk of getting paint where it doesn't belong.

This week I'll (hopefully) be working on the Kitchen and Treasury (these two rooms seem to be a good place to start work on the inside given the fact I've cheated and already done some work on them previously). In the kitchen I need to sort out the fireplace, adding such things as a spit, and I need to figure out how to make a big wash tub. The kitchen staff are going to be in the process of clearing up after the banquet going on upstairs, so a big tub of water to wash all those pots will be essential.

Highcroft Castle - Week Ten

I'm trying to get the exterior and all the 'construction' work finished on this castle before moving on to adding furniture and accessories.  At the start of the week there was still plenty of work to do on the outside, so naturally I started making furniture for the kitchen.  I know, it doesn't make sense, but if you've been following this blog for a while, you should know that very little in my world ever does.  It was a simple matter of not having the time to start on one of the messy and time consuming jobs left to finish the exterior, so I worked on something quicker and less messy instead.  Rather than make a one piece dresser (or hutch) for storage I decided on a bench style dresser with separate shelves that hang off the wall above.  I chose a square table for my main preparation/cooking table because it fills the space better than a narrower rectangular one, plus rectangular kitchen tables are extremely common in dollshouses and I felt like being different.  Both items still need finishing off and staining, but they have already transformed the kitchen and made it look like, well, a kitchen.

The distraction of the kitchen furniture put aside, I went back to finishing the exterior of the tower.  I had already made the front for the tower out of presenation board, the next step was to give it a stone finish to match the front of the main building.  Just as with the main building I used stone paste and a stencil, the difference being this time I stenciled on a piece of cardboard.  When the stone paste was dry, I wrapped the cardboard over the tower front and glued it in place.  Rather than go to the trouble of stencilling the back of the tower, I simply covered it with a solid coat of stone paste.  It is the back after all, no one is ever going to actually see it.  At the same time I covered the very pink air clay crenellations I added to the tower last week with more stone paste and they now look much more at home atop the tower.

Next job were the windows.  There were three groups of windows that needed making: the dormers for the main building roof, a multistorey bay type window for the tower section front (infront of the stairs) and small windows to scatter around the walls of the tower.  All of them are fake windows glazed with a fine metal mesh (painted black) in front of a piece of mirror paper (the same as the windows in the main building front).  The mirror reflects light, giving the impression light is actually shining out the windows while the mesh breaks up the reflected image so you don't really notice that you're looking at yourself in a mirror.  For the dormer windows I used the basic window that was on the original house.  I took out the original window frame and removed the roof.  I made a new, larger window frame from air-dry clay and extended the height and altered the shape of the dormer with more clay.  Once dry, painted and glazed, I was prepared to attach the new windows to the roof when I realised that the windows had no roof, just a big hole on top.  So I used cardboard to create a curved roof for the windows.  These just need painting and the dormers can be attached to the roof.

For the bay window I used a single piece of balsa wood for the front with two strips for the sides.  After creating a pattern out of graph paper I cut the window openings out of the front piece.  I stained the whole window section to look like wood, glazed the windows and attached the piece to the front of the tower.  I chose to give the windows a wood effect for a bit of difference and interest.  Seeing it in place on the wall, I'm not sure that the wood look really works and I may paint it in the paler stone colour sometime later.

For the smaller tower windows I again made use of air-dry clay.  I made a template for a simple, somewhat gothic window on graph paper and used this as a guide to cut about eight windows from a sheet of rolled out clay about half a centimetre thick.  These still need painting and glazing, but will soon adorn to tower's front fascade and also the inside walls to give the impression that the rooms actually have a view.

Finally, inbetween doing these various bits and pieces I made a start on painting the catacombes.  First with a coat of cream to kill the ghastly pink of the clay and then with a wash made of various stoney coloured acrylics and some of the stone paste used on the outside of the castle.  Already the faux stones look quite good and not at all like clay, egg cartons and polyfilla (there are stones in this room made of all three).  I will add the pillars and roof arches before adding further paint layers so that all the stone in the room can be finished at once from the same mix of paint.  If I finished the walls before adding the pillars (etc) I can guarentee that the pillars would end up a different colour to the walls.

So that leaves me with ten windows to finish off, the main section roof to install in such a way that it can actually open, a 'front' panel to make for the catacombes and a few other little touches here and there and the outside will finally be finished!

The Tudor/Medieval/Jacobean/Queen Anne Dollhouse Project Giveaway

The Dangerous Mezzo, writer of the The Tudor/Medieval/Jacobean/Queen Anne Dollhouse Project blog is currently offering to giveaway a miniature book to one of her followers if they leave a comment on her blog post before 18th Arpil 2010.  Her books are just lovely and if you haven't already found her blog, I strongly recommend taking a look and becoming a follower (and that's before considering the chance to get a freebie!).

The giveaway can be found here:  http://tudordollhouse.blogspot.com/2010/04/giveaway-woo-hoo.html#comments

Or her full blog is here:  http://tudordollhouse.blogspot.com

Highcroft Castle - Week Nine

 At the start of the week I thought perhaps I could finish the construction phase of the castle by the end of the week. Naturally, I was wrong and now estimate it will take at least two more weeks. The one big job left to do is the tower exterior which will need to be stenciled to match the exterior of the main section. I could cheat and use the stone look paper I used inside the tower, but I think it would just look wrong against the stenciled stone of the main tower, plus it won't take being used as a scratching post by cats nearly as well as the hardwearing 'paste' used for the stencilling. The main ingredient of the paste is intended to create stone effects outdoors, so it pretty durrable. I have made the front for the tower section, so really have no excuse not to go ahead and finish off the exteriors. I just wish that the process of stenciling wasn't so dull and repetitive.

Anyway . . .

My first task of the week was wrestling a flat piece of board to form a curve to create the tower's front. The plastic board was actually easy to make curve, just really hard to make it stay curved and then go straight (for the front of the stairs) at the right angle. The curve was created using "ribs" of balsa wood on the inside for support and pins and lots of glue to hold them in place. The bit where it has to change direction to run accross the front of the stair section was harder, but was eventually managed using wedges of scrap balsa wood and anything else close to hand that looked useful. In retrospect, I should have cut this piece off from the curved bit and just glued it back on at the correct angle. Because the plastic board doesn't take paint well, the whole front will be covered with a thin cardboard - as soon as I get it painted and stenciled. Lastly, I need to add some mock windows and of course, figure out how to secure the front cover so it only comes off when you want it to.

With the cover underway, I turned my attention to the other part of the tower exterior still needing attention: the roof. Using a mix of part air-drying clay, part paper clay I made the crenellations as one long, flat oblong of clay with 'notches' cut out to make the crenels and wrapped this around the top edge of the tower. After first experimenting with the mix of clays last week I have found that it does indeed dry as hard as normal air-drying clay, but shrinks and cracks less much like paper clay. It is also more like paper clay to work with when wet which is another advantage.

While I had the clay out, I decided I should at least make a start on the last untouched room in the castle - the catacombes. The catacombes are located under the tower in the 'subterrainean' level of the castle. In keeping to the 'mix-n-match' styles of stonework already in the castle, I knew that I wanted to try using clay to create the stone effect in the catacombes. I started by adding the angled side walls (so there would be something to cover with the clay). I wanted the inside walls to be set in from the external walls so I could create 'niches' in the walls. I angled them so that it is easier to look in and see what is in those niches. With the walls in place, I rolled out large sheets of clay about half a centimetre thick, used PVA glue to stick them to the walls while wet and then used a toothpick to press a random stone like pattern into the clay. At this point I was running decidedly short on clay, so used cardboard eggcartons, again cut in a random stone pattern, to create the floor. I am going to add some columns to the space to give it a more underground/enclosed/catacombey feel to the room.

At some point (but don't ask me exactly when) I started to give the Treasury room some personality, adding shelves to the wall and putting some bling in (or should that be out?) the storage chest. Beyond the arch at the back of the treasury room is a barrel table and chairs where the Treasury guards play dice to pass the time. Eventually there will be a gate in the arch so that the Treasury can be securely locked. There will also be bolts of precious fabrics, perhaps a few racks of weapons and lots of shiny, valuable looking objects.

Going back to my quest to complete the exterior, I painted the roof of the main building. The first coat was a terracotta colour, followed by a couple of washes of watered down brown to give it a random, weathered look. The original dormer windows are still being made over. So far they have been given extra height and a curved top with more air dry clay and had new window frames made for the windows. Some paint should see them ready to be installed on the roof.

Highcroft Castle - Week Eight

I started the week by continuing on from last week and finishing the door surrounds made from part air dry clay, part paper clay. The doors left to be surrounded were the three in the tower. As there wasn't the room around the tower doors for the same arch surrounds that I used for the doorways either side of the Great Hall, I decided to make the tower arches more simple, just a strip of clay about 1cm wide arched to fit over the opening of the doorway. These were glued in position when 'wet' so they could be shaped to the exact shape of the doorway. The same clay was also used to fill the gap between the stairs. Once the clay was dry, the tower doorways and those in the Great Hall were all given several coats of stone look paint.

While working with the clay I also made a fake door to lead out of the back of the bottom of the tower to give the impression that the castle continues on behind. The door was simple to make. After rolling the clay flat, it was cut into an arch shape using the same template as for the other arches. A blunt toothpick was used to press the curved line of the inner arch into the flat clay to create a 'door' surrounded by a frame. The edge of a ruler was pressed into the door part to create the effect of planks. It was left to dry pressed against the wall of the tower so it would have the same curve as the round wall. When the clay was dry, the frame part was painted with stone look paint, while the door part was painted with brown acrylic to give a wood effect. The final step was to add the hinges and studs which were painted directly onto the door with faux leadlighting outliner. Using the faux leading is one of those ideas you have to hit yourself in the head and wonder why you didn't think of it years ago - it is three dimensional, so looks like something solid on the door rather than something painted on and it can be used to create any size and style of hinge you want. The particular outliner I used has a shine, but others are matt and it comes in all sorts of different colours and metallic effects.

In the Great Hall, I finally made the decision to open up the walls to create a pair of galleries in the back wall. Galleries were part of my original plan for the castle, but I had changed my mind, deciding there wan't quite enough height, nor enough width to position the galleries so they weren't directly over the fireplaces (where would the chimneys be?). I have opened up the galleries just off line with the fireplaces, so the chimneys can carry on beside them. The 'stone' railing was made with air dryed clay copies a some Sue Cook frieze made by making a mould of the originals with sculpy mould maker. I placed some stone paper behind the openings, but this was a mistake as I now think the back walls will be better in a colour that contrasts the Great Halls upper walls. Perhaps more wood panelling?

Having finally made a start to the top floor bedroom or 'Royal Suite' last week, I continued the work this week by adding the wall and floor coverings. This room spans the entire top floor of the main building (kit house) of the castle, but is separated into two parts, the 'bedroom' and the 'bathing area'. The bedroom walls are covered in a cotton fabric with mottled gold, red and purple which looks very regal. At the moment it looks a little overpowering, but by the time the room has a door, a tester or four poster bed, other furniture and tapestries (etc) the walls will be much less visible. The floor and the bathing area are covered with vinyl floor tile, the floor with a wood look tile and the bathing area with black marble. Again the black marble is a little overwhelming at the moment, but will eventually be broken up by other furnishings. It will also (hopefully) look less masculine as the room is supposed to be currently occupied by the Queen of Oronia rather than a King. The main feature of the bathing area is a triganular bath tub made by covering a cardboard frame in vinyl tile. The internal section of the tub is less than a centimetre deep - a fact which will eventually be concealed when the tub is filled with a luxurious buble bath ready for the Queen to relax in.

The other piece of progress for the week was to start work on the 'front cover' for the tower. Once this and the tower roof are finished, the 'construction' part of the castle will basically be finished (until I decide to go ahead and create a right wing). Finally, I feel like I am actually getting closer to actually making progress instead of just making a mess.

Knight Time

For weeks everytime I've walked past the local newsagent I've stopped to look in their front window.  They have a magnificent knight in armour on horseback that is just about right for 1/12th scale.  The only reason it's still in their window (rather than in mine) is that he's $70.00.  He's also on horseback, meaning I would have to extend Highcroft to include an outdoor 'field' for him to ride about in.  Today, I went past and found that they had some new knights on display, also right for 1/12th scale and much more reasonable at only $15 each.  I figured I could spare $30 and buy a couple for the castle, but when it came down to it, I just couldn't choose between the three different styles, so I bought one of each.

I can imagine the two holding halberds (?) as guards flanking a doorway somewhere.

New Look

I've been playing with blogger draft's new template designer to give my blog a make-over. Overall, the template designer is easy to use and the results are quite good. My only complaint is that there doesn't seem that there is a way to use your own picture as a backdrop, you have to choose from one of bloggers images. I guess this is just as well really, I doubt I have any photos as spectacular and impressive as the ones on offer anyhow. I've also added a new page to this blog. It's called Links and you can access it by simply clicking on the Links tab at the top of the page. It contains a complete list of online dollshouse stores based in Australia as well as some international stores and other places of note.

Highcroft Castle - Week Seven

I haven't had much time to work on Highcroft this week, so haven't much to blog about. I did start to adapt the top floor dormer windows into something more castle-like, got as far as pulling the original windows apart and then had to go and do something else and never got back to them. Instead I made a start on the arch surrounds at long, long last. The surround for the triple arches in the Great Hall was made from air-drying clay using a template of the arches I made before installing the back wall in the castle. The clay should now be dry - I just need the time and courage to put the surround against the arches to see if they are the right size and shape or not. For the arched doorways at either side of the Great Hall, I used regular air-drying clay mixed with paper clay. The reason for this is that normal air-drying clay tends to crack as it dries, paper clay doesn't. Normal clay dries hard, paper clay dries sort of soft and spongey. By mixing the two, I hope to get a non-cracking, hard-drying clay. So far it seems to have worked resonably well, at least there hasn't been a disasterous chemical reaction from mixing the two types of clay. I made the arch surrounds using a cardboard template to get the appropriate size and shape and then glued the clay to the wall before it was dry so it could be 'moulded' to the walls for an exact fit. a lion's head adorns the top of each arch (made from a mould made from a lion ornament). Still waiting attention are the doorways in the tower, which will need a different template drawing up as the one I used in the Hall is too big/tall for the space available in the tower. Once they are done, all the arches will need painting. The question is; what colour? Probably 'stone' to match the other stonework in the castle. I made a start on the top floor 'royal bedchamber'. I had been using this a convienent shelf for tools, bottles of glue and general junk I had been using in other areas of the castle, so started by cleaning it out and discovered it was so neglected it had a spider living in it. Urk. That tended to, I covered the ceiling with some pearly white wallpaper (for a full sized house) I pinched off my mum. The problem now is what to do with the walls. Given their state (having been decorated once already and stripped) it will be best to paper them to cover the imperfections, but what paper to use? I think there is enough of the paper I used on the ceiling left to cover the walls. This has the advantage of being neutral and hardwearing. I also have some cream paper with gold 'swirls' which is also quite neutral and subtle, but is only very thin, so will need some backing and will probably be hard to fix in position without marking the paper. I haven't had a chance to go through my collection of fabrics, but I suspect, like most of my papers, they will be too 'patterned' and look too much like Victorian wallpaper to work in a Castle setting. Another possiblity is to 'panel' the walls in wood or in clay scuplted to look like wood. At the moment it's a case of too many choices but none of them are quite right.

Highcroft Castle - Week Six

The weekend was a pretty busy time down here in Tasmania. There was the state election, the annual Duck Race and of course the annual Doll, Bear and Miniature fair in support of the Eskleigh home. Now in it's fifth year, it was billed as bigger and better than ever, but frankly I was a little disapointed. The miniatures side of the fair was always in the minority, but of the thirty-five stalls, there were only five selling miniatures of any kind. For the most part the miniatures they had on offer were full price rather than the usual sorts of stock clearance discounts found at earlier fairs. In fact I could buy some of the items on offer a lot cheaper from stores online and that includes the cost of postage. All this is just as well really because disapointing or not, I still spent more than enough money! This mostly went on small but expensive items like cats and some toby jugs. As usual there was little to be found that was designed for a pre-victorian era setting. Inbetween browsing the fair and trying to decide which politicians would mess things up the least, I did get some work done on Highcroft. I set the main goal for the week to be getting the tower and stairs permanently fixed to the top of the 'basement box'. This seems an easy enough task, until I tell you that before I did this I wanted to tile the floor in the 'passage' that connects the stairs, tower and main building and before I do this, I need to build the steps from the main building to the tower unit and before doing this I thought it best to paint the outside of the basement box. Largely, all this means is that I spent a lot of time waiting for stuff to dry: the glue holding the stairs together, the paint on the box, the clay for the tiles. The tiles were made from air-drying clay in terracotta in the same way as the tiles for the floor of the lowest level of the tower. While waiting things to dry, I worked on the main building exterior and the fireplaces in the main hall and kitchen. There is now a front door instead of a gaping hole and stained glass in the lower windows. For the fireplaces I added 'hoods' to all three and generally finished them off (except for adding fires to them). This means that the great hall construction/decoration is almost finished, I just need to add 'frames' around all the arched doorways, lights and a little trim here and there and the room will be ready to have furniture added! The tower rooms, kitchen and treasury are similarly well advanced, needing between them a strong door, arch 'frames', steps and a little touch up paint. I haven't decided yet, but my next goal will either be to make all the arch 'frames' for the many doorways or to finish the exterior of the tower.

Highcroft Castle - Week Five

This week I've been focusing on the tower and stair structures. The staircase (which was made last week) has now been filled, sanded and painted with a 'stone' paint. The back wall of the stair tower is simply a piece of stiff cardboard wrapped around the back half of the stairs. Before it was attached to the stairs, it was decorated with stone look and suede papers. The stone paper is not as effective as the stencil-and-paste stone effect used on the main building of the castle, but is quicker, easier and cheaper and by the time a few windows and wall hangings have been added you won't see that much of it anyway. The tower had been assembled in a dry build held together with tape. This week it was dis-assembled so that the walls, floors and ceilings could be decorated before it was permanently glued together. The walls of the upper two floors were covered with the same stone paper as used in the stairwell, while the lower floor was half covered in the same suede paper as the lower part of the stairs. (If you're wondering why it's only half covered, it's because I ran a little short. Hopefully the store still has some more of the same. The two pieces will join as the back of the room, where a fake door will be placed, covering up most of the join). Some brackets made of air drying clay were glued into position around the walls to help support the ceilings/floors of the tower. Then the round floors were glued in place as the walls were wrapped around them. The whole lot was held tightly together with more tape while the glue dried. The exterior of both structures is still untouched. I think perhaps I might add a layer of paper machie on the outside before adding the final decoration for extra strength. I should finish the outside with the same paste and stencil stonework as I used for the main building, but I don't have anywhere near enough of the paste left and the stencil has been so well used it has buckled, parts of it no longer being flat which makes it hard to use without stone paste bleeding under it.

Highcroft Castle - Week Four

I set a goal for this week - finish the front facade. Needless to say I didn't quite make it, but did come close. Having already 'stoned' the front, all that remained was to add the windows, door, a handrail to finish off the stairs and some vines to climb the walls. I covered the front of the castle with cling wrap and made the upper windows and door surround in situ from air drying clay. Once they had started to dry, the cling wrap made it easy to lift them out to dry thoroughly and paint before glueing them in position. The theory was that by making the windows in the window openings, they would be a perfect fit. Unfortunately I was forced to use a different, cheaper brand of clay than I have used before as that is all my local craft store is keeping nowadays and the awful stuff shrank something shocking! The windows and door surround ended up too short for their openings, but oddly are still the right width. Oh well, at least they didn't crack. My plan is to add a strip of wood (or card) that has been painted with my stone paint in the gap so that it will (hopefully) blend in with the wall and be unnoticable. The windows were glazed with some metal mesh painted black (to simulate leading) infront of mirror paper. I chose the mirror paper as opposed to a clear plastic for a couple of reasons. First, I am currently a little short on acetate sheet or other suitable window material. Secondly, the interior will be set in the evening so you would expect light (from the chandeliers etc) to shine out through the window. By using mirror to reflect light, you get much the same effect. Lastly, using mirror enables me to cover over the window entirely from the inside. As I have re-jigged the front to lift off rather than swing open, the inside of it will never really be seen and will need to be hardwearing so as not to be damaged by whatever it is lent against while not in position on the castle. Thus simply covering over the back of the windows is the easiest path and will help them not to be accidentally knocked out from behind at some point in the future. The lower windows are the original bay windows from the house, they have simply been turned upside down and had some 'trim' cut to look like creneallations added to what is now the top. The idea for using the original windows came from looking at pictures of 'Cumberland Castle' from the Dollshouse Emporium. The large, bay type window that comes with the kit reminded me of an upside down bay window . . . as I had a couple of bay windows . . . well, it was worth a try! I think they look quite effective, but have yet to decide whether to use clear 'glass', 'leading', mirror or leadlighting to glaze them with. The only snag is that with the stairs turned around as they are, anyone walking up them will need to bend over to avoid knocking their head on the bottom of the windows! The last thing done to the front was the addition of 'vines' of plastic pondweed (for fishtanks). This helps cover the gaps where the windows shrunk, the placed where the stone bled under the stencil and all the other flaws. As I said I still haven't quite finished the front and still need to do the following: add a door, add a handrail to the steps, glaze the lower windows and maybe add some flowers to the vines. When not working on the front facade this week, I have been starting to work on the 'tower' section of the castle. It's base is a pre-bought storage cube (the same as I used for the basement of the 'Bakery'). As this was too tall for purposes, I cut the sides down by about two inches, but must have measured something very poorly as when assembled, the cube was still too high! I then cut a notch out the side where it will meet the doorway from the main building into which steps will be 'sunk' to create access from one part of the castle to the other. On top of this base will be two conjoined structures; the main tower itself and a smaller tower housing the spiral staircase that gives access to the higher reaches of the tower. Both will be round. I decided to make the staircase as one unit first so that I could then make the tower and match the floor heights to the heights of the landings on the stairs. After calculating the height the stairs were supposed to be, how large a diameter they could have (etc) I came up with a step template to cut thirty-two steps from. Each step is actually two pieces of balsa wood sandwiched together to achieve the right height, so that meant cutting out sixty-four pieces of balsa wood! Unlike the first time I tried to cut out a spiral staricase, this time I managed to cut out all the steps without trying to cut my finger off in the process! Once all the steps were cut out and the two pieces of each step glued together, the staircase was assembled by glueing and pinning each step in position around a 'column' of one inch diameter balsa wood dowel. Despite my careful calcualtions, the landings that give access to the tower did end up at slightly different heights to those I had intended - this is exactly what I had expected and why I made the stairs first. I had found some 5mm thick MDF circles in the craft store and planned to use these as the floors/ceilings in the tower, the problem was how to make a curved wall to wrap around them. I solved this problem by using something called 'presentation board'. Close inspection reveals this is the stuff real estate For Sale signs are made of. It is made of two thin sheets of rigid plastic held apart by plastic struts that run the length of the board. By carefully cutting the solid sheet on one side along every 'channel' made by the truts, but not the struts or far side I created a strong board that curved. I then wrapped the board around the circular MDF pieces, temporarily holding them in place with sticky tape to create a round tower. The front of the tower is still open, but this will be finished off with another section of board that will be removeable to provide access to the tower.