Sugarplum Cottage to Monarch Cottage 07

 Work on the porch and benches continues.

The timbers have been glued in place. The porch with its attached benches is also glued in place. 

I like using Aileen's Tacky Glue for this as the tackiness helps hold the bits in place while permitting some adjustments. Clamps or masking tape hold the pieces together while the glue dries. 

Sometimes it's hard to wait while the glue dries. It helps to remember that good things come to those who wait.

Here is a detail that shows some blemishes that need to be addressed. The slots and the gap where the back and side did not quite come together will be filled with Spackle to fill them. The same will be done on the other bench and anywhere else on the house where the tabs & slots are visible. 

I have the kind of Spackle that goes on pink and turns white when it dries. A flexible palette knife works well for this step. Once the Spackle is dry, a few dabs of matching paint will complete the cover up.

The pieces from this kit are coming out of the sheet with fairly smooth edges. If a piece of wood is dry or has started to delaminate beyond what sanding can accomplish, rubbing Spackled along the edges can make them nice and smooth.

When the touch-up paint dries, the benches will be aged with some brownish-to-dark greenish-to-blackish watercolor overlay. I like the green, but it is too bright, too new looking to blend with the aging cottage.

Sugarplum Cottage to Monarch Cottage 06

 More work on the exterior.

All of the plaster on the front and both sides of the cottage have been painted. 

The front timbers will have to be glued into place before the benches can be built on the front porch. The little benches are very tight-lipped; they have not told me what color they want to be.

The remaining parts of the benches have been undercoated with gesso. They are resting on a few pieces of spaghetti so the air can circulate beneath them and both sides can dry.  The tabs on the two seats and the slots are not painted; they will be glued.

Time to peruse the paint locker for inspiration. Colors needed for the benches and porch. 

Sugarplum Cottage to Monarch Cottage 05

 The chimney is made of stones torn from paper egg cartons. 

 The first step was to paint the chimney with a medium gray craft paint, just a bit darker than the gray of the egg carton. This will serve as grout between the stones.

The "stones" glued on in a random pattern to mimic fieldstones. The "grout" looks more like background than a substance holding the stone in place. A little more magic is needed.

To reach this stage, some of the "grout" gray was brushed over the stones. Not a solid layer, but enough to cover any printing and add some highlights to the stones. 

The next step was to add a darker gray in spots to define some shadows, which enhanced the surface texture.

The last step was to add a third gray color, the darkest gray, which further enhanced the texture of the stones and did a bit of aging.

Click on the photo to see the detail in a larger view.

Notice that the stones stop beneath the slots where the roof pieces will attach. The upper part of the chimney will be finished after the roof is installed and the chimney top is built out. Some of the pieces will have to wrap around the corners of the chimney to mimic real stones.

The timber pieces are taped in place. The chimney needs to be smoothed where a few "stones" stick over the edge. A sharp knife or razor blade will do the job. After that, the timbers can be glued in place.

I found photos of several cottages online that looked like this one, with no bricks at the bottom. I am now thinking that this cottage does not need bricks. By the time the landscaping and butterflies are added, it is going to busy enough.

Time to dig out the instructions and go on to the next step.

 

Sugarplum Cottage to Monarch Cottage 04

 Working on the chimney wall with its timbering and plaster walls and stone chimney. 

(FYI--click on the photo to see a larger picture.)

The chimney wall has been painted with gesso, an acrylic primer that is used to prepare a substrate for painting in oils or acrylics. It dries to a matte finish and helps to seal the wood so the naturally occurring oils will not leach out to stain the surface treatment.

The timber templates have been traced and removed. The areas between the timbers will be painted to resemble the normal discoloration of aging.

Watercolors work well on the gesso base. All of the openings have been aged, although the bottom row may still be rendered in brick instead of plaster. 

The next step will be to dig out the cardboard egg cartons and start creating the field stones for the chimney. 

The timbers are still in dry fit. They can be easily removed to add in the bricks or if it is necessary to touch up the background. 

Sugarplum Cottage to Monarch Cottage 03

 The timbers are looking much better with the covering of contact paper.

They have more substance. 

The white cardboard has a brown backing. This view shows the front timbers stuck to the contact paper, which has a white backing. The utility knife is used to cut away the excess Contact paper.

This view shows all of the timbers plus the front door covered with the weathered wood Contact paper, and the main roof pieces are in place. The timbers are held in place by masking tape, another dry fit step. The instructions say to glue them in place, but they need to be removed so the walls behind them can be decorated.

This is the outer chimney wall. The timbering will be removed so the area behind can be painted with gesso to resemble plaster. The bottom row may be treated with Spackle and etched to resemble bricks. The chimney itself is asking to be fieldstone. Time to dig out the egg cartons!

Sugarplum Cottage to Monarch Cottage 02

 The main body of the cottage has been glued, and a bay window and chimney have been added to either end. 

The chimney is just a flat piece of wood added to one end. The two little slots near the top are where parts of the main roof will attach.

The bay window is on the other end piece. The base of the bay is glued. The roof is fitted but not glued. Another step has to happen before it is attached.

The kit comes with white cardboard "timbers". I had in mind to paint them a dark brown and fill the background with brick and/or stucco made from Spackle. I got to thinking that the paint may cause warping and would look tacky without a lot of detailing, so I went with Plan B.

I ordered a roll of weathered wood Contact paper from Amazon. Not only will it give the illusion of vintage timbers, but it will also strengthen the cardboard cutouts. 

These are the "timbers". They are punched out and ready to be laminated with the Contact Paper.

This is a sample of the distressed wood Contact Paper. 

While I wait for the Contact Paper to arrive, I will think about how to fill in the spaces between the timbers. Some near the top may be plain stucco painted white, while some near the middle may be brick, and the foundation area may be stone made from cardboard egg cartons. 

(Yes, I brought a stash of empty egg cartons with me when I moved. One never knows what one may need when a new project is launched.)

Using all three finishes may be a bit fussy for this tiny cottage. One advantage of working small is that the design can be modified or scrapped completely without a lot of effort.

I am also thinking about the roof. What do the kit and the butterflies want -- the shingles that came with the kit? Simply paint it or maybe use some sage green felt that came with me as packing material to resemble the green roof of an Irish cottage? Or work out some kind of thatching? This is the point where I hope the cottage will talk to me. I need to know what it wants.

Sugarplum Cottage will become Monarch Butterfly Cottage

 I recently moved from near Atlanta to a retirement community in the western suburbs of Chicago called Monarch Landing. Several of the dollhouses recorded in this blog were sold in an auction, but a few came with me. The quilt shop and pottery shop have pride of place in the new apartment. The Beacon Hill and Pierce (Bohemian Inn), both under construction, are in a storage cage down the hall. Tools and craft supplies are in boxes and tubs in a large closet as well as a couple smaller Greenleaf kits, the Sugarplum Cottage and the Buttercup. 

There is a dedicated worktable in the apartment, but rather than continue working on one of the larger houses while still sorting and organizing the tools and supplies, I've decided to put together the Sugarplum Cottage. It tells me it would like to become a Monarch Butterfly Cottage in honor of our new home, and so it shall! 

I found some lovely paper Monarch butterflies online. They are 1-1/2" wide, a nice visual size for this scale. What does that mean? Scale is important in miniatures. The cottage is one-inch scale. That means that one inch in the cottage is the same as 12 inches (one foot) in a real house. For example, an 8-foot ceiling in a real house would become an 8-inch ceiling in the cottage. 

Yes, I realize the butterflies at 1-1/2" wide would be 18" wide in real life, but keep in mind that the cottage is a fantasy build. Once the roof is covered in butterflies, imagination will override the need for accuracy. It will look just fine.

I also searched out a picture of a Monarch caterpillar, in case I decide to add some to the build. 

[My imagination -- or was it the kit talking to me? -- just suggested that while there may be a cluster of butterflies on the roof, inside the house there may be a nursery for caterpillars and pupae.]

The kit includes shingles and some furniture. All of the pieces are die-stamped into 1/8" plywood. I did not take pictures of the organizing process, but I numbered the sheets of plywood (6 of them), filed them back into the box in order, and began to punch out the sections called for in the instructions. There are also some sheets of white cardboard trim, also die-stamped, an acetate sheet with diamond-patterned windowpanes, and a piece of sandpaper. The kit includes a set of schematics to help locate individual pieces. 

The first three instructions called for punching out the floor, front, and two sides of the cottage, The pieces are designed with tabs and slots to aid in assembling. Sometimes the tabs need to be shaved a bit to fit snugly, or the slots need to be enlarged. This is easy enough to do with the sandpaper or a utility knife with a new, sharp blade. At this point the walls are held in place with blue painter's tape. This is called "dry fit". Nothing is glued. Experience has taught that if any of the pieces do not fit perfectly at the beginning, there will be trouble fitting the pieces to be added later.

What will the finished cottage look like?  I have only a vague idea. I find that as I work with a kit, it will begin to talk to me, as it did regarding the "nursery" mentioned above. A friend of mine tells of a build that she wanted to make into Miss Marple's cottage; the kit fought her until she finally gave in to its demands and turned it into a delightful English pub! 

Come along for the ride. See where a kaleidoscope of butterflies takes us! (Yes, that's real. A group of butterflies is also known as a flutter, flight, or wing.)

Check back in a day or so to see how this build progresses.

If you would like to see some other houses, click on the list of links to the left of this page.