Finishing up Halloween and Preparing for Christmas

So, it is less than three weeks until Thanksgiving . . . and my dining room table (as usual) is covered in miniature projects.  In my defense, not all the miniature projects are for me!  I have a customer's house sitting there, waiting for me to rewire it and wallpaper it.  There are 2 in-progress miniature projects which will be Christmas gifts for my 2 best friends.  And my daughter has some of her sewing project stuff on the table (but, yes, hers are easy to pick up and put away as opposed to the dollhouses which are harder to find space to put them).

The largest thing on the table is mine (Leaky Cauldron/Diagon Alley structure) and I have bits and pieces for another small project (a beach stall) I am working on when Leaky Cauldron frustrates me.  I know my husband will begin to make comments about how we need our dining room table back for Thanksgiving dinner, so within the next week or two I have to remove the larger structures at least.  The smaller things I can tuck away in various nooks and crannies in the living room and kitchen.

I do not want to put Leaky Cauldron away -- I procrastinated for almost 10 years in removing the old stone floor.  Now that it is finally all out, I don't want to delay another 10 years in finishing it.  And I worry that if it goes back to the dimly lit, scary, spider hotel (aka basement) it will be years before I work on it again.  So I want to get at least the floor done to try and maintain my motivation for working on it.  I had to restain the baseboard area as the plaster stone floor had discolored the previously stained wood:

New stain is a bit darker, but in the long run I think it'll be fine.

I planned on making a template at first to work on the flooring outside of the structure.  But the opening is so small the template wouldn't have fit thru the opening!  So I have to glue down the individual pieces of strip wood one at a time inside the structure.  Then I had the stumbling block of trying to fit flooring in places I couldn't see very well:

Gluing down the first few strips.

The narrow wall to the left in the picture above and the doorway wall on the right create a smaller opening for viewing the room.  My head and hands don't fit in the opening very well so I can't really see right behind these areas while I'm working on them.  So I am gluing down the strips and then returning to fill in the bare spots afterwards:

The threshold of the door needed a piece of wood.

Not the best fit (lots of gaps) but who's gonna see?

The only way to see back here is to stick in a camera and click a picture so I don't think anyone will ever really see the gaps, but yes, they do bug me.  I'm hoping that once I sand and rough up the floor (it's Leaky Cauldron pub - it's been around a while so the floors will not be all nice) that the gaps will look more appropriate -- if anyone ever really sees them!

Behind the narrow wall . . .

Needs a small sliver of strip wood . . .

This side finished off better than behind the door!

I still have a way to go, but the floor is slowly coming along (I warned you I work slow, sloth slow!).

Making progress but still have about half the floor to do.

I had wanted Leaky Cauldron to be finished by Halloween and (no surprise to me) that didn't happen.  I work best with deadlines though, otherwise I'd never get anything done, so I am giving myself this week to finish gluing down the wood strips, rough them up, age them, and then seal them.  Then it will return to it's resting place (the dimly lit, scary, spider hotel) until maybe next summer when I will try to get husband to help carry it back up the stairs so I can officially finish it by Halloween - of 2015.

At work I have been distracted by this little fun project in preparation of Christmas:

A red lantern that I thought needed an elf's desk!

This elf office was so much fun to put together!  The desk is the "Lilanna Youth Desk" by Bespaq.  I added some gold accent to the trim and began decorating it with some things an elf would have/need.  Being a youth's desk it is the perfect size for an elf!  It is still a work in progress (as are all my things, hence the name of this blog!) so the elf desk is still a bit bare and the chair is still on my work table (aka dining room table) waiting for its gold accent trim, but I wanted to share it with you partially finished . . .

My elf has an Elf on the Shelf!  And a gingerbread house kit he'll get to make someday (like me and my dollhouses!).

I love my little Santa snow globe!  It's the little things that make me stupid happy.

I have always admired these wreaths that I have for sale in the store; Finally have an excuse to own one!

Take down the Halloween decorations, prepare for Thanksgiving (and family birthdays in my house), and brace yourselves for the holiday season: 2014 is wrapping up quickly!

My Happy Helpers

One common complaint of motherhood is that you are never left alone: can't even use the bathroom without a kid knocking on the door needing something.  So my hobby is no different!  I started to chip out the Leaky Cauldron pub floor and it attracted the attention of my girls. 

Luckily two of my girls are old enough now to actually help!  I was not surprised by my eldest offering to help me; she likes to help with everything I do, from laundry to miniatures.

It was appropriate that my middle daughter also wanted to help; I was pregnant with her 10 years ago when I took the class and first made the structure.  How appropriate then that she help me finish it up!  She is not into miniatures, but she is a Harry Potter fan so she was eager to assist.  Plus, she is great at deconstruction!

So, slowly but surely, the old plaster floor is getting chipped out!

Getting Personal . . .

I was so certain that I would struggle on a customer's dollhouse recently and when I encountered no difficulties with the job, I felt empowered and ready to tackle the world. Well, my tiny corner of it anyway.
 I know that I should be working on my Mansion.  It sits right here behind me as I type; a figurative elephant in the room. (Okay, it's not really as big as an elephant but to hear my spouse complain about it still sitting in our family room corner you'd think it was larger than a pachyderm).  Yet I went and brought a different project up out of the basement . . . .


My unfinished but still respectable structure



A local lady is trying to coordinate a Bill Lankford class here in Loudoun County.  It's his Leaky Cauldron/Diagon Alley class. On the pamphlet I made and posted at work, I used a photo of my own (unfinished but still presentable) Leaky Cauldron/Diagon Alley that I made in a Bill Lankford class 10 years ago. I never completed this project for a very stupid reason: The pub floor.



My Leaky Cauldron Pub Floor



I had never used wall spackle to create flooring so I wanted to make sure I had completed this part in class that way Mr. Lankford was right there if I ran into problems.  Unfortunately we were rushing at the end of class and I hastily created this stone floor in the last 1/2 hour before leaving.  And I hate it.  And I know I need to destroy it, chip it out, sand it, do whatever it takes to remove it!  Because I really want a wood floor in there.  So for 10 years I have avoided completing this project because I know I have a messy and labor intensive job ahead of me to undo my poorly done floor.

There are some minor other issues, but they are either quick fixes or decorating issues.  A window needs to be repaired and installed:

This window needed to be installed . . .

. . . but it broke before I got to install it.  So I have to fix it first.

Stones under the moving part of the structure need to be glued down with a special formula of soap and water (a special formula that is written on a tiny scrap of paper that may never be found in the "safe spot" I put it somewhere in my basement):

This collection of aquarium pebbles need to be glued down -- it's
amazing I haven't lost any of them over the years
as they just rattle around down there under the pub.

And, the part I am really looking forward to: various shop windows in Diagon Alley need to be filled.

I have cauldrons and owls for these two shops, but the shop just out of frame on the right
is a robe shop.  Not too thrilled about filling that shop, and am debating about changing it to a different shop all together.

There is also an exterior shop window that needs to be filled with some merchandise.  It is a muggle shop.  There is already one other exterior shop window that has Harry Potter books in it for sale.  Any ideas of what should be for sale in the other muggle shop's window?