not so thoroughly modern mini

and we're staining... again.

i decided to overcome my natural inertia and put on a second coat of stain. i sanded, then stained a second time, and then sanded again. i'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. the hardest part of installing the flooring was cutting tiny pieces to go along the edges. total pain in the @ss, but worth it! i also stained the stairs today. i wasn't sure that i was going to do that, but i wasn't crazy about the contrast between the dark floors and the light stairs. next up, baseboards and interior window trim. however, i won't be able to completely finish the baseboards until i install interior doors and i haven't bought any yet! there's plenty to do in the meantime. i received my Elf order today and i am so excited! i kind of want to wait until i'm well on my way to finishing a room before i post pics of new furniture, but i don't know if i'll be able to wait that long! i'll probaby finish the bathroom first. i need to start thinking about accesories that i can make myself. if you have a minis blog, please leave it in the comments! i'd love to see what you're working on!

 

 

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adventures in flooring

my wood flooring arrived all the way from China. you would think it was something super rare and special to have to order it from all the way around the world, but alas, and sadly, like many things it was much cheaper to purchase it there. now that i'm typing this i do feel a slight bit of guilt about my purchase. however, in this case saving about 70% off the cost wins out. it was pretty easy to cut with scissors. much easier than i thought it would be (though i may be needing new scissors soon). it may be a bit challenging where i have to add small pieces to fill in. i'm not quite looking forward to that. staining the floors  was an awful mess. i decided to use minwax express color, a water based stain, so as to avoid handling heavy chemicals. i was torn between using a super light and a very dark stain and i went with the latter. i'm not sure how i feel about the color i chose, but what's done is done. i think this color is probably more appropriate for a colonial style house anyway. as i've mentioned before, i'm looking at this as sort of a practice house. mistakes will be made. at any rate, i'll make it work! i have a feeling that i might regret not using a varnish, but a) i didn't buy any and b) i really don't want to do it! so messy and smelly and ugh.  i'm toying with the idea of putting on a second coat of stain, i'm curious to see what it might look like. maybe i'll test it out on a spare piece of flooring. i keep hearing from people that they're following my progress here, but no one ever comments! please feel free to leave a sentence or two! it's way too quiet around here!

 

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bathroom done!

i hadn't intended to finish the bathroom first, but it's a small room with easy components, so i was able to breeze through. i used a cardboard template of the room to cut the tile flooring and then i glued the floooring in. initially, i hadn't planned on using baseboards on  he top floor because i thought the angles would be too difficult to cut. after suffering through learning how to properly cut the moulding, this was easy! i cut it, primed it, painted it, and glued it in. voila! the bathroom is ready for furnishings. i am a little bummed that the wallpaper is puckering, but in a real house wallpaper would pucker if it was placed above a steamy bathtub, so... speaking of bathtubs, i ordered a couple of things from Elf Miniatures. they have the best and most modern bathroom fixtures that i've seen! now it's going to get interesting, as there are a couple of pieces that i want to make for this room. i bought a tiny ceiling globe that i'd like to make some sort of frame around and place above the bathroom sink. i also bought a pretty boring white, wooden cabinet that the that sink will sit on. i want to try sanding it, repainting, and making it a bit shabby. we'll see how that goes. my wooden flooring arrived today. i bought it for super cheap from an ebay seller in china and it looks fantastic! now if i can only decide what color stain to buy. that could take a while.

 

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more moulding

this room will be the kitchen/dining area with a room divider separating the two. i'm a bit concerned with how small the rooms will become with the divider in between. mistake #1, after putting in wallpaper and ceiling paper and i'm having a hard time even getting the room divider into the room. mistake #2, when i installed the moulding in the back of the room, i didn't account for the angles in my measurements, thus making the back room slightly larger than the front room. sigh. perhaps i'll put the kitchen in the front rather than the back? i'll have to give this some thought.

 

 

 

moulding done!

it took me forever to get up the nerve to work on the moulding. initially, i bought a tiny saw and miter box, but i thought the potential to screw that up was too great, so i took it back and exchanged it for an ez-cutter. i have a very difficult time wrapping my brain around how pieces are supposed to fit together. i think i have some sort of spatial dyslexia. seriously. it takes me 10x as long as the normal person to figure out these sorts of tasks and it only happens after i've created some crazy system to make it work. i'm mostly pleased with the results. the tiny pieces, which you can't see because they're hidden behind the stairs, were the hardest to work with. i've ordered flooring from an ebay seller in china. who knows how long that will take to arrive, but floors are up next!

 

 

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the last of the interior paint + paper

i've finally finished up all of the interior paint and paper! the room with the floral, mural-type wallpaper will be the bathroom. the room with the striped paper will be a study/library. i need to touch up a bit of the paint. even though i turned the house on its side, it was harder to get the wallpaper to stick on these slanted walls. i was almost out of gesso when i primed these walls, so i wonder if the primer was too thin? at any rate, i'm not going to worry too much about it. i paid almost nothing for this kit. i'm using this as my "practice house". i can further perfect my technique on the next house that i build. for my first build, i'm fairly pleased with how this ids going. i'm trying to decide whether to tackle moulding or floors next. i have the moulding and an ez-cutter, but i think i'd rather put down flooring first. only then will it look like a real house! in the interest of saving money, i thought i'd go the skinny sticks and stain route, but now i'm not sure. i'm leaning more toward the wood sheet flooring. i'm not sure what to do. any opinions, suggestions, or advice?

 

 

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more paint + paper

the kitchen and dining area are painted and papered. the back wall is chartreuse and the right wall is spring green. both colors are from Ellen Kennon Full Spectrum Paints. there will be a divider in this room. i'm not sure how i feel about that, as it will make both rooms awfully small. perhaps i'll be able to move the dining table to the livingroom? we'll see how it goes.

 

 

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painted + papered!

2 rooms painted and papered! the blue room is the master bedroom. the coral room is the livingroom. it looks quite bright in the photo, but it's actuallly more of a muted dark coral. i wish i had reversed the color schemes. i'm not quite sure about the coral in the livingroom, but what's done is done. now i'm getting really curious to see what the finished rooms will look like! i'm undecided about the flooring. i'm not sure if i will use a sheet or strips. i guess i'll have to make a desicion soon.

 

 

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finally something easy and fun!

putting the ceiling paper in was a piece of cake! it was the quickest and easiset job thus far. i'm really glad i ordered the paper rather than painting the ceiling. i'm really pleased with the way it looks. let's just hope that i don't screw up cutting out the opening for the stairs. next up, i'll wallpaper this room and then paint and paper the rest of the house. finally, the fun has begun!

 

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paint and paper

accidents will happen... i went out and bought scrapbook paper to use as wallpaper, got home and realized that i forgot about ceiling paper! i was really eager to get started, so i decided to paint the ceiling the same color as the walls. i hate it when the walls and celings are the same color, so why i suddenly thought this would be a good idea is beyond me. i painted the ceiling wedgwood blue and i knew immediately that it was a mistake. painted over it with white and that didn't work either. i woke up this morning and ordered some lovely, textured ceiling paper on ebay. i'll wait to put the ceiling paper in before i hang the wallpaper. on one of the forums someone suggested putting masking tape over the tapewire before painting. it made sense to me, as i'm sure you wouldn't want paint getting into the brads. unfortunately, it doesn't look so hot. i'll figure out a way to deal with that later. here's a preview;