The Fairfield: More Components Arrive

On Friday the latest of the building components I have ordered arrived. The stair kit, the other two interior doors, the two sets of French doors, the porch spindles and hand rail, roof finials and the black Victorian railing. I love the railing but I'm worried it's way too big for the scale. I guess we'll see.

I have still to order the porch posts, as I am wondering whether I should go with plaster columns instead of the traditional turned wooden posts? They are much more expensive to buy but would add more to the character of the house I think? Regardless, I haven't decided how I want to finish off the porch and railings yet, so I'll leave them for the time being.

So today it was time to stain the new doors, and then wax them with Black Antiquing Wax.  They turned out nicely - I love the warm patina that you can only get with wax. Plus, I think it might look more realistic on the house than a shiny lacquered finish.

While I was waiting between coats, I started fiddling around with the bedroom suite I mentioned a few posts ago.  The original finish on the suite - a four poster bed, armoire, dressing table and mirror, two bedside tables and another mirror - is lacquer over a pale timber. Very boring and conservative.

I experimented with staining and various methods of ageing on this armoire before I finally settled on just lightly sanding, painting them black and distressing them lightly with an emery board. When they are completely dry I will also wax them with the black antiquing wax.

I was hoping to achieve a more realistic finish than this but the difficulties of working with such tiny pieces which have already been finished got a bit beyond my current collection of tools! Never mind, I hope that once they are in the bedroom and surrounded with other peices they will blend in OK. I ended up distressing the armoire too much so I painted over it again and will make it a bit more chippy tomorrow before I wax it. I hope it comes up better than it looks at the moment!

The next challenge is the four poster bed. It has bedding and a fabric drape attached to it, but I think they are just glued on and I can carefully peel them off.  The floral fabric used on it is not to my taste at all, lol. Once I have painted and distressed the bed, I will experiment with either making new bedding or perhaps using fabric paint to upcycle the existing bedding and glue it back on.