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Susan mailed me the burgundy succulents to finish the roof.  She has been making books for her own mini library (two stories, with a spiral staircase, I'm jealous) and said she was putting some in the box.   Some?!?  Holy cow. 

I want a combination of old and new books in my little library.  I think I'm set now on the old ones.  Wow.  I have the bestest bestie.  :D 

The succulents she sent filled in quite a bit of space on the roof and the color is great.  I'll have to fuss with the edges when I trim the roof, but I'm done with the bulk of the planting now.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

The Chantilly has been sitting on my bookcase, close to done, since 2011.  I was talking to another miniaturist last week, also working on a Chantilly, about how I need to finish it.  I took it off the shelf to clean the dust out of it, in preparation for Susan's visit, then.....

Pottery by April Wright (will let you know when her Etsy shop opens this fall), suede backpack and leather handbag by Joann Shaw, sketchbook with original watercolor drawing by Nancy Enge.

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The empty cup return outside a local coffee shop...

The little plastic succulents (fake baby's breath) didn't give as much coverage as I expected.  The only color of them I can find in the store now is white, so I tried an experiment.

Awww, look what came crawling out of the flowers.  Good thing she made an appearance before she got thrown in the pot.

The dye worked great, but the green turned out pretty blue and the gray kind of greenish.

A quick look at them in place proved the "green" ones too unrealistic...

...so I boiled another batch of gray dye and colored them again.  Much better.

I spent the rest of the evening grooming the roof.  I pulled off the white plants because I didn't like them, and stroked all the other succulents, removing any that weren't glued down sufficiently.  Then I picked glue boogers, except in a couple of spots where they looked like old spider webs.

It's looking good! 

Susan found some of the larger size plants in a deep burgundy when she was shopping yesterday.  She picked some up for me, so until those arrive the roof is on hiatus.  She's coming to visit in a couple of weeks (I'm so excited!), I imagine she'll pop them in her suitcase.

In the meantime, I'll see how much of the exterior walls I can finish before she gets here.

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Thank goodness for Amazon Prime's free two-day shipping; more will arrive tomorrow.

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Freddy's got a sore back.  I've got booger fingers.

I enjoyed my bonus day off waiting for the cable technician who never came.  I cleaned my studio, then messed it up again.

The niche shelves were repainted and glued into place, then I cut trim to edge it, painted the pieces, and set them on my gray cutting mat to dry.  While they were drying I sorted through my scrap wood bin, which was overflowing enough that it didn't fit into its spot on a closet shelf.

Keepers on the right, tossers on the left.  You know where my trim pieces went, don't you.  Yup, in the trash bin.

While the second set of trim pieces dried I sanded the door opening to fit the now painted door.  It fit so snuggly when it finally slid into place that I couldn't get it back out to put glue on it.  I had to glue the door handles on in place, but that went okay.

After the shelf trim was safely glued in place I installed the sconces.  One was broken and I probably should have returned it, but I want to get this corner of the build done so that I can pound in the flat roof and get started on the exterior, so I used it anyway.  One sconce will forever have a burned out bulb.

I glued the faucet in and put some coat hooks up.  I mangled one side of the coat rack, hence the hat.  I've got a fire extinguisher that needed repair which I am fashioning a bracket for.  Once that is hung on the wall I think I'm ready for the flat section of roof to go in.

It seems so little done for an entire day in my studio.  Sigh.

Oh, I think I've fixed my clock problem.  The reason I like it in that particular spot is because it distributes that wood tone evenly around the room.  Moving it on top of the shorter cabinet, which is the same color, doesn't work for me.

I only need it to be a scoosh shorter and further forward, so I carefully pried off the bottom layer of the three layer base.

It works better now.  I may need to take off one more layer, we'll see.  I also dry brushed the bookcase a bit more; it looks better too.

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After putting everything back in the room and placing books on the shelves I decided not to change the color of the bookshelves.  I don't love it, and I'm disappointed the color doesn't exactly match the wallpaper, but I don't hate it anymore, and can't think of anything better.  I did dry brush a darker color on to accentuate the detail, but see now I need to do a bit more.

I love this clock in the room, but the shelf isn't tall enough to show it off well.  I wonder if I can remove the top shelf in the center section without making a huge mess.

I can't live with the paint color on the coffee bar shelves, though, I'm going to repaint them.

I know this picture is sideways but I can't fix it right now.  I am blogging on my phone because my internet was shut off.  Apparently there is a "cable tv leak" somewhere in my neighborhood, so the cable company has reduced service levels and is going door-to-door to locate it.  I have to stay home to wait for a technician today.  It's a perfect opportunity to do a bit of clean up in my studio.

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