Grosvenor Living room floor

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well. I would just like to say thank to everyone who has left me a lovely comment and to my new followers.
I finally finished my living room floor! It's taken about two weeks to finish but I think it's worth it. I decided that I wanted a parquet floor for my living room but in one colour. I had the wonderful task of cutting out hundreds of wood pieces, thank goodness for my mitre shears, they are perfect for cutting angles. I was originally going to position the pieces in straight rows but my husband suggested placing them at an angle. I was dubious at first but when I saw how it looked I absolutely loved it! I tried to draw a guide but it didn't really work so I ended up "winging it". All the pieces were glued down with RC modellers craft glue; which set quite quickly.

When I had finished glueing all the pieces it was time to sand it down but unfortunately my mini sander wasn't working so I had to do it all by hand! All I can say is ahhhhhhh!!!!! It took forever and I couldn't get it perfectly flat, I had to take a break for a bit otherwise it would have been thrown across the room. I finally managed to get it as flat as I could before starting to stain it. I wanted a lightish colour so that I could still see all my hard work. But me being me I didn't test the colour first and I stained all my floor dark oak which was way too dark. Oh fun, out comes the nitromors and the plastic gloves. After two coats of nitromors and sanding down in between I managed to get to almost the bare wood but there were still patches of dark colour. There was no way I could use a light colour now. In the end I ended up buying an antique pine stain; which I tested in a small place of my floor first.



















Because of the dark oak that I had previously stained the floor with there are a few dark patches in places. I was a little worried about this at first but when I put the flooring in the house it didn't look too bad. I haven't glued the flooring down yet as I wanted to do the walls first. Hopefully once the wallpaper and furniture are in the room the patchy floor won't matter too much. Considering it is the first wood flooring I have ever done I don't think I've done too bad. I did struggle a bit with this so goodness knows how I'm going to do on my dining room floor; seeing as I would love to have a Versailles floor. I think I'll probably purchase the iron on flooring from Bromley Craft Products, it might make things a little easier for me.
I'm trying to decide between either panelling my living room or wallpapering it. I have got a gorgeous wallpaper from Karen's Dolls house Decor which I think would go lovely with the flooring, but I could leave it for a bedroom maybe, who knows, maybe.
I have chosen the fireplace for my living room, I'm either going to paint it white and paint the details in gold or maybe even give it a marble effect.

Well that's all for today, I hope you like what I'm doing. Any ideas or tips/techniques would be very much appreciated.
Thank you again to the lovely people who left comments and to my new followers I feel truly honoured that you are enjoying my blog.

Take care and bye for now.

Grosvenor main hallway stairs

Hello everyone. I thought I would share with you today my progress on my main entrance hall. I began by wallpapering before I installed the sub floor landing. Because I wanted the entrance hall to be light and airy I chose the soft vert aqua toile wallpaper from Dolls House Emporium which has a lovely mint green colour to it. I noticed when I positioned my stairs that there would be a large gap underneath the stairs and the landing which I didn't like the look of. I took to the web looking for ideas to "dispose" of this empty space and I came across Marie Wendts Grosvenor Hall blog on DHE where she had made a false wall to hide this gap. 

Marie Wendts blog:  http://www.dollshousecollectors.com/marie-wendts-grosvenor-hall/the-foyer-and-under-the-staircase/

I really love this idea so I took some wood (baring my mind I am rubbish at woodwork) and I cut a piece that would fit in the gap and go around the corner. I only had small bits of wood so I did have to glue some together. 

Next I needed to create a support underneath the stairs, so before doing that I varnish my stairs with a mixture of mahogany and teak to create a lovely warm colour, taking time to sand in between each coat. When the varnish was completely dry I began thinking about how to support my stairs as I was quite nervous about trying to cut the piece out with wood. So again I took to the web and happened to stumble upon the genius that is Giac over at http://englishmanordollhouse.blogspot.co.uk/ who used illustration board to make his supporting structures! I thought wow I can actually do that lol. I went and bought a pack of illustration board and tried to cut the piece out as accurately as possible before giving it two coats of acrylic gesso on the front and back as described in Giac's blog. It fit perfectly! 

 I was undecided as to whether I would want to wallpaper under the stairs or not. So for inspiration I browsed through my Georgian House Style book and noticed that traditionally under the stairs would have been panelled. 

For my panelling I began by measuring the size and angles that I would need and using a thin mount board I cut the pieces out. After giving them all two coats of acrylic gesso I glued them into position. (I even cut a little piece out for the gap at the bottom of the stairs). I gave everything another coat of gesso to fill in any gaps and placed my stairs into my hall to see how they looked. I'm very happy so far with how it's turned out; mainly because there is no more gap under the stairs. 

I won't glue my stairs into position until I have completed the spindles and bannister; which I will probably leave until I have finished the rest of the decorating. I have noticed looking at various photos of Georgian interiors that in that time period there were often two to three spindles per step which I really like the look of. Also in the "Magnificent Miniatures" book there is a Colonial house with a similar stairway to what I would like to create.

I really like the look of the stairs and the banister being the same colour and the spindles being white. Unfortunately with the Grosvenor hall kit you are only supplied with enough spindles to do one per step however by chance I managed to find ones that look very similar on eBay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/170156750515?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

so I will probably buy a few packs of these and see how I go, but that probably won't be for a little while.

Next task the living room floor! I will probably do a parquet pattern; which I have heard can be difficult! I will let you know how I get on.


P.S Thank you for looking at my blog and for your lovely comments; they make me smile.

Grosvenor Hall Kitchen

Hello again, I'm back with another update. I thought I would post some photos of my almost finished kitchen. The wallpaper I decided to use was a blue delft tile embossed card; which has a similar effect to real tiles. I was originally going to use real tiles but I didn't want to lose too much of the size of the room and I felt that real tiles would make the walls too bulk; so the embossed card was a good substitute. 
The kitchen range is made by Hearth and Home Miniatures (Item KRB3F). I bought It a few years ago for £72; which is a lot of money but I really love the look of it, I installed a red bulb into the fire grate so when I finally wire everything up it should hopefully have a lovely warm glow. My husband bought the light recently for me because the light I originally intended to install didn't suit the final look of the kitchen.























As you can see in the photos the chimney breast was painted white but I wanted to add more life to it. I purchased gault coloured brick slips and grout from the Richard Stacey range and set to work creating a surround for my kitchen range. I measured my coving and my skirting board and left a space at the top and bottom of the surround so I can fit these at a later date. I left a small gap around the fireplace so I can remove it to access the wire for the light. I used a mixture of acrylic paints to slightly darken the bricks and the edge around the fireplace to give it a "used" look. When everything was completed I fixed the chimney breast to the wall with tacky wax so that it can be removed as well.
I love the look of my kitchen now it's almost finished, all that's left to decorate is to fit the skirting board and coving; which I will probably leave until I have completed the other rooms.

Grosvenor Hall Kitchen

Hello everyone. As you can see from the photos below I started on the flooring for my dollshouse. In the entrance hall I decided to use a Victorian black and white diamond laminate sheet because I thought it wouldn't be too overpowering. I really liked the idea of having a real stone floor for my kitchen, so I bought random square flagstones in Marl stone from Richard Stacey Miniatures. I cannot remember if I used four or five packs but it did take a while to arrange them in a pattern that would cover the entire floor. I cut a piece of cardboard the same shape as my fireplace so that when I grout the flooring it would go up against the edge of my fireplace. I also placed a piece of cardboard in the edge against the wall between the fireplace and the back of the house so I can run the electrical wire for the light along the grove and then hide it with the skirting board fixed in place with tacky wax.
























Next the messy bit of grouting. Once I had finished the grouting I positioned my fireplace into position and it fit perfectly! I really like the realistic look of the flooring now that I can see it finished.. I will probably leave the skirting board and coving until I have finished more rooms. I think the wall with the fireplace on looks too bare so I will probably do something with it; maybe purchase some brick slips to make it look as if it has a brick surround.

Grosvenor Hall doll house

In 2011 my wonderful husband bought me the Grosvenor Hall dolls house kit from eBay for my birthday. Since then I have completed a few things on it but unfortunately not as much as I would like to have completed.

In my opinion Grosvenor Hall is one of the most impressive doll houses that you can buy for not a lot of money. I've posted the link below that takes you to the Dolls House Emporium website, which includes information and photos of this gorgeous house.

http://www.dollshouse.com/dhe/product-dolls-house.aspx?house=grosvenor#features

When I finally opened my three boxes that contained the house the first thing I did was to prime everything with a 50/50 mixture of water and PVA glue to seal the wood. Then I painted all the walls and floors with white emulsion and started putting the house together. (sorry for the poor quality of the photos)

I knew from the moment I opened the box that this project was going to be time and money consuming, but so far I have enjoyed building this house. As soon as I have sort all my photos out I will be posting photos of my entrance hall and kitchen that are nearly completed. Bye for now! 

Pinterest

Hello everyone! I'm sorry I haven't posted since last month, I've been relly busy but I do hope to write more regular posts. Today's just a quick post to talk about Pinterest. I love pinterest a lot, I happened to stumble upon it a few months ago and now I have 39 boards and nearly 5,000 pins and counting. My boards range from costumes, doll outfits to dressmaking, doll houses and various DIY and crafts. I hope you will take a look and maybe even follow me and I will probably follow you too. I would love to know your opinions about pinterest; whether you love or hate it, (and to find out if you like my pinterest). Thanks.

My pinterest is: http://pinterest.com/dolphingazer86/