iseecerulean

Because my husband turns forty today.

I finished the dollhouse of a dollhouse kit, but I'm not sure I'm done yet.  I don't like the way the open side of the house looks...I think I might add a U shaped roof piece.

I had a hard time convincing Wakefield to leave me alone long enough to take pictures...I've pet him so much this morning I'm surprised I haven't rubbed the fur off his head. 

The temperature has been dropping down in to the single digits at night, which means I've been hearing a pitiful knocking and mewing at the door about 2:00 a.m...I've let him in to sleep with me, the poor, cold little guy.

At first I thought I screwed up the roof, but the pieces don't fit together right.  I put the roof on flush with the peaks of the side walls, like the instructions said, but it doesn't lie against the slope like it should because the top of the front wall sticks up too far.

I should be able to stick some more glue in the gap and put a rubberband around it to hold the roof snug to the slope while the glue dries...that should fix the top part of the gap anyway.

The house really isn't bright white inside...I just had to accentuate the photo a bit so you could see the gap.

When I bought another light for the attic I also bought a dollhouse of a dollhouse for the attic.  It's 1:144 scale, which would make it 1:6 scale (play scale) inside my 1:24 dollhouse.  I didn't want do try to put together anything smaller than 1:144...not yet anyway, maybe later. 

I'm going to work on it this week, and save the big dollhouse for the weekend...I need a little change of pace.

I couldn't seem to concentrate on anything over the weekend...which meant lots of puttering around, but not much accomplishment. 

My goal for the weekend was to get the roof on...all I did was get the main roof pieces cut...not the tower, porch or bay window roofs, and nothing is attached to the house yet.

I went down to the hobby stop Saturday morning after my hair appointment to talk to Pete about adhesives...I wasn't sure what to use to put the styrene roofing on the wooden dollhouse.  Pete sent me down to the hardware store for Dap acrylic adhesive...I'd have never thought of that.  I bought a handful of miniature magazines (magazine about miniatures, not teeny magazines) while I was there, because I'd feel bad if I accepted their support without giving them some business.  I scanned through those one at a time over the weekend, as I got bored.

I ground down the top of the tower roof then had my sweetie husband make it so that I could screw a finial onto it (I picked #2)....I did some more sanding and painting on the bay windows....took the boxed up Christmas decorations out of the laundry room and put them under the house...swept and mopped the kitchen floor...put a new light in the attic...finished tucking the wiring on the outside of the house into grooves...cleaned my studio...dyed my hair a new shade of blue...

I went to the antique store on Sunday...the middle aged man working on the first floor asked me if I needed help with anything a few too many times as an excuse to talk with me...told me he thinks my hair is fantastic...probably would have asked me out if he hadn't been wearing a wedding ring.  The little old lady on the second floor followed me around...closely followed...and watched me like I was going to fill my pockets.  Every time I'd glance back at her she'd look down into a display case and pretend like she was shopping...which might have fooled someone if she hadn't been drinking a cup of coffee and wearing an ID badge so big she could only pull her cardigan over half of it.  I kept doubling back to reexamine things, and handled more things than I normally would have, just to be contrary.   When I was ready to move up to the third floor I was tempted to ask her if she wanted to frisk me before I got on the elevator, but I didn't. Apparently blue hair means 'hot chick' to some people, and 'thieving deviant' to others.

I should have taken a picture so I can show you guys this new shade of blue, it's called Huckleberry, it's pretty cute.

Kate and I have to go to a meeting tonight about our Paris trip, so I may not post anything tomorrow, since I'm not going to have time to work on the house.

All the old Victorians I've seen with a tower have a spire on top.  I'd kept my eyes open for almost a year, but hadn't found anything...all the wooden finials I've seen are too big, and I can't find dollhouse spires online in the right scale.

It occurred to me the other day...lamp finials.

I went to the hardware store on my lunch hour Friday and played around in the lamp parts trying to pick one out...screwing parts together, then unscrewing them to screw together others...I couldn't make a decision without seeing the different combinations on the house, so I bought them all.

I still can't make up my mind...other than I think the tallest ones are too tall.

What do you guys think?

I'm a big chicken.

I figured out that if I do a little bit of piecework I can get all the roof pieces out of two sheets of the octagon shingle stuff...but there will be no room for error.

That's good news, because I won't have to buy more (that stuff is $9 a sheet!), plus I'll have a whole piece left over to use on the side of the house, like I was hoping.  It also means, of course, that I'm too nervous/scared/anxious to make the first cut.  I know that if I try to do it with my stomach all knotted up I'll botch the job...experience has told me that. 

I'll think I'll wait until tomorrow, so I can get half loaded on Kahlua first.

The Mouse Mansion

This is how I was going to leave it...

But then Melinda made that wonderful comment yesterday...

Here's a better close-up...

It looks incredible!  Plus, I haven't been using a dropcloth when I work on the walls, so the floors got delightfully grungy in spots.

The walls have a sheen when the light catches them right, so I think I'm going to go over them with a matte varnish...and I need to add some rafters...then, I think, perfection.