Merry Christmas

Moving Day for Marcus Oct. 2016

There is no better way for a Wizard to celebrate Halloween, than by by finally moving in to his restored mansion.  Earlier in October, I was able to install electric wall outlets for lamps in the upstairs bedroom....

...and in the living area. I also installed a fireplace.

Then the kitchen table arrived in pieces. When I called, the company said they would send a replacement out right away, but that was 3 weeks ago.

I finished the crown and floor moldings, and installed carpet in one of the bedrooms.

Painted furniture, and finished as many small things as I could. Things like creating a new inside window frames for the downstairs windows, finishing the wall paper, and flooring installations, etc.

Then

FINALLY!

Marcus and his family could move in!

The living area, with fire place, book shelves, and globe.

Kitchen with terribly repaired dining table, antique stove, and old fashioned sink.

Upstairs bedroom 1

Upstairs bedroom 2 with small book shelf, and grandma's sewing machine. 

Bathroom

Nursery with crib, rocking chair, toy chest, chest of drawers, and make up table. It even has the bulldog on the bed, because that's were bulldogs like to be. 

Happy Halloween!

The House that Marcus Built- September 2016

Through out the month of September, I continued to glue together the various bathroom pieces, and the old wooden cook stove.

I also continued with the second floor lighting, and decided to place the bathroom on the upper floor. The room on the right will be for the children.

I found a video tutorial on painting the grout in the plastic tile, to make it look more realistic. You start with a plastic tile sheet, and use acrylic paint to color into the grout lines.

I have mixed feelings about the results, but think it is ok for the old house motif we are using. I also pre-measured and cut pieces of tile for the kitchen, and wall paper for all of the rooms.

I continued with the lighting installation,

and began installing the wall paper. 

Nursery/children's room

Bathroom...notice the piece of balsa wood I cut to fit and glued into place to fill in the hole in the floor left from the staircase.

Then I glued the tile into place. 

Night view.

Wall paper in the second floor bedrooms.

Wall paper being installed in the kitchen.

Here the holes for the windows have been cut from the wall paper....note....I installed the wall paper first, then cut out the window/door holes after the  paper paste had dried. It was too hard to get the holes to line up evenly if they were cut before hand.  After the wall paper I installed the base boards and crown moldings.

It's coming along.....

The house that Marcus built August 25 to 30, 2016

The bathroom furniture I purchased arrived in the mail, but it was not exactly what I was expecting...

Fortunately, once I was able to purchase the right type of glue, the pieces went together nicely. I was able to use pain included in the kit to color the "wood" pieces brown. I also used a silver Sharpie to give my tub silver claw feet, and I also silver coated the radiator.

The next item of business was to paint the ceilings. I just used a  plain white, and a sponging technique to give it just a touch of texture. You will notice the big hole in the ceiling on the left. That is for the stair case, but since I wanted a fireplace in the living area, we eliminated the stair cases, so at some point I will need to find a way to cover or patch that hole. Besides, they are wizards, they don't need stairs, right? They can just apparate.

After the ceilings were painted, I experimented with installing the lighting in the attic.  I attached the ceiling fixture with it's little foam sticky and ran the wire into the corner where I taped it into place. I will cover it with wall paper later.  I was really uncertain on how to go aboaut doing this, and searched the interwebs for instructional videos etc. but didn't really find much helpful information. I just had to make it work the best I could.

I drilled a small hole in the floor of the attic/ceiling of the bedroom below and ran the fixture wire along the wall, taping it into place, and eventually to the outside of the house, where it plugs into the "fuse box". 

When I turned it on, it worked!!!!!

It seemed to be doing fine, so I covered the walls with the remaining wall paper. 

Then I prepared to light the next floor down. Using a small round file, I sanded holes for the wires into the room divider boards.

I drilled another hole for the wire to go to the outside of the house

I attached the front porch light by drilling a hole through the front, and running the wire into the living room, and up around the ceiling. 

It comes out of a hole on the side of the house, and into the fuse box.

FABULOUS!