Let the electrification begin!

So, the Beacon Hill has been on a slight hiatus while the ceiling rosettes went missing. No point in starting the electrical work until they are in place, as two chandeliers must be installed in conjunction with them. Turned out they were hiding under a pile of lights. When I dug down, there they were.

Before they were glued in place, each had a hole drilled in the center to accommodate the wires, and they were painted to match the ceiling. This was done while the house was still on its head. It will be turned right side up while the tape wire is installed.

The dining room rosette is slightly smaller, a better scale in this room.

The living room rosette is a bit larger, as befitting the grandeur of the room in which most guests are entertained.

This is a very short entry, just enough to let you know I'm still working. The next post will have photos of the tape wire and lighting in progress.

Lights! Camera! Action!

Well, lights and camera, anyway. Today I happened into Big Lots in search of a new shower curtain. They didn't have one I liked, but in wandering through the seasonal aisle I spotted a string of 20 LED lights in the shape of cheerful little ghosts. They were too cute to pass up, and since I hadn't figured out any kind of lighting system for the Haunted House, I bought a string.

The little perishers are rather awkward to work with, as they are bound by plastic coated triple wires that don't take kindly to holding a bend. I'd hoped to have the ghosts floating around inside, but without doing some major cutting to move the string from room to room, it just wasn't possible.

So, the ghosts have formed a greeting committee outside. Is it a warning-off committee or welcoming committee? I think the latter; they do babble on a lot in a friendly way. The photos show the string taped in place. The porch roof will mask the wires on the ground floor, and the Washington 2.0 has a nice overhang on the upper floor where the wires can be tucked away. Tomorrow I have to figure out how the string will be fastened. I'm thinking a series of two small holes drilled in the porch roof and the attic floor where it overhangs, then a thin wire around the light wires and twist to fasten. The twisted bit won't be seen in the attic, and the twisted wire on the porch roof can probably be hidden under a shingle or masked with moss or a spider or something.

I may have a better idea by tomorrow. (Suggestions welcome!)

I pulled out all of the autumn/Hallowe'en decorations I could find. Once the lights are fixed in place, I can start filling window boxes and adding shrubbery and vines to the house, along with a whole herd of spiders and bats and ...

If you ignore the camera glare, the lights shine a nice spooky blue. It looks really good in real life.

I have a couple of battery operated tea lights in the accessories box. Somehow they'll find a place inside. Don't want too much light on the subject. Might frighten the skeletons!

Back to the Quilt Shop!

I can't believe how long it has been since I posted about the quilt shop. Real life in the guise of gardening and travel took precedence, and the craft area got pretty cluttered from inattention. I did spend time making bits and bobs and filling in the shelf units. This is the shelf unit in progress.
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All of the accessories in the shop will be glued in place. I want to be able to take out the entire shelf unit and not have to worry about dropping skeins of yarn or books. Ditto fabric bolts and everything else. The shop will eventually be put on display at the quilt show, so it needs to be easy to set up and take down. All of the furniture units will be removable. When the quilt show is over, everything can come out so the house can revert to a residence.
The next photo shows the shelf unit finished and against the right wall. What tickles me about this shot is the lighting -- it is lighted with two battery-powered LED lights from Walmart. They turn on and off with a touch of a finger. No wires! The light is very bright and wouldn't do for a residence, but in this commercial setting, it works very well. You can see some of the details I've been working on: bolts of fabric glued in place, center shelving nearly finished (note empty spot behind the jelly rolls. I'm sure I'll think of something to put there).

I wish I could take credit for the lighting idea, but it was the brain child of Deb Roberts of Deb's Minis. I was lucky enough to meet her and see some of her remarkable houses in person last fall. I've been carrying this lighting idea around ever since, waiting for a place to use it. I love that the LEDs will last for thousands of hours, but mostly I love the idea of no wires and no need to hide battery packs in the furniture! The sleek white plastic of the lights look like commercial lighting.

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Two of the most fiddly bits to make were the button and embroidery floss racks. In the photo above, they're sitting on the sales counter. The button cards are printed on glossy photo paper. A dab of 3-D gloss give depth to the buttons. It looks better from a distance!

Did you figure out the floss rack? I cut a wooden spool in half crosswise and glued in a piece of plastic the same size as the top bit, which is the stopper from a dairy product box with its pull ring cut off. The sign is stuck into a slit in the stopper.

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We'll be traveling again August 18-25. My goal is to get this project finished before we leave. With more excessive heat indexes predicted for the next week or so, I should get in a goodly amount of mini time while keeping cool. I bought fabric to make a quilt skirt to hide the taboret that serves as the base for the shop. That could be a challenge!