iseecerulean

I want special dining room furniture. 

I don't want run of the mill, ordinary, inexpensive dollhouse set chairs, I want something less common (but hopefully still inexpensive).  I also want a round table, not an oval or rectangular table...but that I was never worried about, it's not hard to make a table.  It is hard, though, to make four chairs that match perfectly that are more decorative than I can build myself with simple tools.

The first chair that I saw and liked was a metal kit chair.  I wasn't sure about a chair made of metal, so I only bought one, to see what it looked like.  After I decided I liked it I couldn't find three more anywhere, every store I could find that carries them was sold out...now I can't even find a store that lists them anymore.

My second attempt at purchasing dining room furniture was a fiasco.  I ordered kits for a round table and four matching chairs.  After two months of disputing with a crappy seller I was sent the table, but got refunded for the matching chairs, which were out of stock, and no longer being produced. 

My third purchase turned out to be 3/4 scale, not 1/2 scale.

I made attempt number four last week.  I got a very nice note, from someone who seems to be a conscientious shop owner, that the chairs are in the process of being re-stocked and will be delayed by at least a month.  The delay is not a big deal, I'm not in a rush, but, based solely on my past experience with dining room chairs, I'm worried that they won't re-stock.  Hopefully everything will be okay, since I'm buying four desk chairs instead of dining room chairs...because I'm sneaky that way.

Yesterday I found a new 1/2 scale store, which has a lot of stuff and is really cool...it is, of course, in the UK, because all good 1/2 scale stores are in the UK.  It's a good thing I buy miniatures instead of life size stuff, because the shipping would kill me.  Anyway...they have this chair.  The style of chair is just like the run of the mill dollhouse set chairs that I don't like, but they're bare wood, so can be altered and then finished to suit me.

So, my dilemma...do I order more chairs from the new store in case the ones I've already got on order don't ship, or do I wait for the ones I've got on order?  ...and what if I wait for the ones I've got on order but they don't ship and then the new store is sold out of the bare wood chairs? ...then what do I do? ...plus, you know that if I order chairs from the new shop that I'm going to buy a bunch of stuff I probably don't need, since I'm paying for overseas shipping anyway.

Sigh...

My wetting/weighting/drying trick worked on the kitchen cabinets...thank goodness.

I'm thinking about Anna's comment yesterday about adding a door to the bookcase between the living and dining rooms.  Perhaps if I remove the shelves, make a door inset into the opening, then put in new shelves that are less deep, I could pull it off.  It certainly would make that space look a lot more finished if I did.  I'll have to think about it.

While the kitchen cupboards were drying I played with the outside of the house.  I switched the blue and green on the bay windows (here's a picture of how it looked before)...I like it a lot better this way. Once I give the bay windows another coat of paint I'll trim them out with maroon colored trim.

I also switched the brass finial with one I painted copper.  I'm not sure whether I like brass or copper better...maybe I'll paint another one pewter colored to see how that looks.

The gap at the very top is where the crown molding will go, so just ignore that.

Now that I'm looking at the picture I can see that the doorknobs are too high, I may lower them...and I should have put in more shelves than four...I may add some later, when I see what it looks like with stuff in the cabinet.

My next project is to get the upper cupboards to close all the way.  I'm going to try dampening the fabric hinge, then weighting the doors down so they're shut and letting the hinge dry....hopefully that will fix the problem.

First I woke up in the middle of the night when Kate came home from prom.  She let Wakefield in with her, and since he sleeps all day and carouses all night, he woke me up a little later because he wanted back out.  Then I was woken at 5:00 by an annoying, insistent, cough-like barking...it was unfamiliar, and sounded close, so I got up to check it out...there was a large fox in my front yard, about 15 feet or so from my front door, barking at Wakefield, who was on the front porch.  I let Wakefield in, then watched the fox run away...I wish there had been enough daylight to take a picture, he was gorgeous.  Wakefield ate breakfast, then wanted right back out.  I told him no, but couldn't get him to sit still or be quiet, so eventually let him back out to take his chances.  It had been twenty minutes since the fox ran off, so I'm sure he'll be fine, but I'm keeping my ears tuned for barking, just in case.

I'm going to need a nap this afternoon, when I get home from visiting my mom.

The kitchen cabinet front didn't work out, I couldn't keep it from falling apart, so I had to start over.  I'm building it better and stronger this time, making it twice as deep as it was by using two layers of wood and overlapping the seams on the layers...like how you build with legos.

I didn't like how the upper cabinet doors were offset from the main cabinet doors on the first one, so this time I'm building a roll-up thingamajig above the main doors...like a roll-top desk.  My other big change is that I'm not hinging the door, I'm going to make it loose, so that I can pop it in and out of the frame...I can use sticky-max to hold it in place once I've got the contents arranged on the shelves.

I started to build the door forgetting the center pieces, so that it would like like two skinny doors.  I'm not sure if I'm going to rebuild my rebuild to have it look like two doors, or just leave it as is.  As one door, it's 2/3 the width of the door to the room, so it would look fine as one door...but I like the look of two doors.  Sigh...I'll have to think about it.

Did any of that make sense?  I haven't had enough sleep, or finished my first cup of coffee, so I'm not sure I'm lucid.

I think I'm going to paint it another color, then paint white over that, then distress it just a bit.

When this freedom stains my coat
With the winter in my throat
When I'm lost I dig the dirt
When I fall I drive the hearse

And silence is another way
Of saying what I wanna say
And lying is another way
Of hoping it will go away
And you were always my mistake...

Given time I fix the roof
Given cash I speak the truth

And silence is another way
Of saying what I wanna say
And lying is another way
Of hoping it will go away
And you were always my mistake...

When I'm down I drive the hearse

When this boredom wears me out
Then the sky begins to cloud
Sleeping with my ball and chain
When she cries I take the blame

And pride is just another way
Of trying to live with my mistakes
Denial is a better way
Of getting through another day
And silence is another way
Of saying what I wanna say
And lying is another way
Of hoping it will go away
And you were always my mistake...

When I'm down I drive the hearse

I'm working on turning the empty space under the stairs into a built in cabinet.  It's not going very well so far, but I had an idea in the middle of the night last night that should make it work.

I bought Kate's graduation present yesterday...we gave it to her early because I don't have the willpower to hang on to it for a month.

Greenleaf has just release a bunch of new half scale dollhouses...they're laser cut, instead of die cut, so are supposed to go together much easier and cleaner.

     

I'm nuts for even looking at them before I have the Fairfield done. 

You know what else is nuts?  All the gardens I've planted over the years.  I spent the whole day yesterday raking leaves out of them and putting mulch down.  I'm sore and tired this morning...don't know if I'll do any work on the house today or not.