Painting and winding

Today I had fun jumping from one thing to another. This photo of the stained ceiling paper is a good example of what happens when wallpaper is applied to raw plywood. The chemicals in the wood bleed through. The white on white paper turned to brown on beige. The bathroom ceiling fared even worse. All of the ceiling paper seemed to be very well adhered, so I took a chance and put a coat of gesso over it rather than pulling it off. It appears the gamble paid off, as the ceilings are now sealed with a coat of gesso and the paper held fast. :)

I'd thought to leave the paper in the bathroom as is, but when I pulled a corner out to peek, I discovered bare wood underneath. I may as well take the time to strip it and seal these walls, too.

One of my orders from miniatures.com (Hobby Builders Supply) arrived today. In it were a couple of interior doors to go on the bathroom. Of course the opening is about a quarter inch too small, but it shouldn't be too difficult to enlarge them.

I spent a couple of days scraping wallpaper but just couldn't get myself to begin taking the paper down in the kitchen. When I realized how well the gesso covered the ceiling paper, I decided to experiment by painting over the kitchen paper. You can see a bit of the pattern peeking out. It will get another coat of gesso and then paint. I can reach in there with a paintbrush a lot more easily than I can repaper that area. I think Dad must have papered it before he put the walls together. Part of the fun today was auditioning furniture. This is a Michael's hutch that may or may not make the cut.

The goody box also brought in the sales counter. Haven't decided yet whether it will go this way or turned around. I think the shelves are supposed to go where the clerk stands, but this unit will double as a cutting table and display, so there may be yarns and other goodies on the shelves where the customers can reach them. Can you say fat quarters? The piece of linoleum is being auditioned for the ground floor. I was going to paint it a commercial battleship gray, but the base is made of two boards put together and held with corrugated staples that would show through the paint. The linoleum is left over from our real kitchen. I can cut a piece to fit the room precisely, so it would not have to be glued down and could be removed if someone wants to redo the house as a residence.

I rummaged around in a box of miscellaneous furniture and found a pyramid shelf unit that could go in this awkward corner by the stairs. The jury is still out. I also found a wonderful baker's rack that would make a great display unit for yarns and threads, and more fat quarters.

The goody box also brought a rug for the proprietor's studio apartment. It has a sort of quilt-like design. Notice the flooring beneath the rug. I was going to sand the upstairs floor and stain it, but on closer inspection, it has a lot of stains. Lloyd convinced me that the entire upstairs needs to have wooden flooring and baseboards added. Of course he thinks it's a good idea. He doesn't have to do it! But I have to agree with him ... it will be much nicer with plank flooring. It will be stained.

Paintning on the gesso and moving furniture and building supplies was fun, but I wanted something repetitious and relatively mindless to do, so I tackled some accessory kits sent to me by a lovely lady on the Greenleaf Dollhouse Forum. Her mini group did a quilt shop a while ago and she has some great ideas. She sent materials for balls of crochet cotton, skeins of yarn, and spools of thread. She even sent some silk thread for the spools. I pulled threads from some of my fat quarters for additional colors. There are two sizes of spools on one delicate wood turning. Now that the thread is wound on, I'll cut them apart very carefully by rolling them under a supersharp X-acto knife blade. Her samples are at the top of the photo. At the bottom are various books made from printies.Here is a close-up of the items. They're going to add a lot to the shop and I'm most grateful for Barbara's generosity!