The Bunker: Beginning the Crow's Nest

Now that the facade is done for the moment, I can start working on the interiors.  Might as well start with the first room inside the front door!  This room is going to be base heavily on the "Crow's Nest" or "War Room" of the Men of Letters Bunker in the TV series Supernatural.  Photo stills from the show can be seen on my Mood Board post.

Firstly I've been playing around with the flooring.  On the set, the flooring (I think) is generic grey vinyl tiles, in keeping with the 1940's feel of the Bunker.  I've printed out two different versions to try - the first is a large linoleum tile pattern, expanded to fit the size of the room.  I did this because you can't see any joints between the tiles on the set, so I figured if I scored them on it might look more realistic.

The second print out is the same tile but shrunk to a ½" square and tiled across the page.  Although the first option would look better scored, I am leaning towards the second one, just because the grout lightens to room?  It's less accurate but there is a LOT of black and grey in this room, with only the upper half of the walls in white subway tile to add variation.

Next I think I will start on the stairs so that I can get a better idea of the layout of the room.

Shapeways order

My order from the 3D printing service Shapeways, has arrived.  I chose the delayed delivery option to save some money because I knew I wouldn't be needing them for a while.  All the items were from the store, Pretty Small Things.

The wing chairs will go with an Art Deco side table with a chess set on it and the electric chair belongs in the Dungeon - obviously!  The filing cabinet will go in the War Room and the stove in the kitchen (of course).

Two Victorian wing chairs

Electric chair!

Vintage stove and oven

Filing cabinet on castors

Obviously all of the items require painting; I'll have to do some research on the best way to prepare the surface and which paints to use.

The Bunker: Facade finished? For now perhaps...

I fiddled around some more with the facade, trying to age it.  I tried adding some dirt, moss and rust to the windows.  I'm not completely happy with it, but it can wait now until I get the rest of the build together!

The Bunker: More painting and aging on the facade

I added a random black wash to the bricks this morning, which improved them slightly, but I still wasn't happy with their colour at all.  I tried dry brushing on a mixture of 1 part Semco Tuscan Red with 3 parts Jo Sonja Gold Oxide and it made a difference in lightening and reddening the dark brown.

I'm still not happy with the depth of the colour though, the facade still seems very one-dimensional.  I don't have any chalk pastels, but I found some watercolour paints so I tried lightly brushing on black, dark green and brown (and various combinations) in places to simulate aging and moss.  I also added some orange and dark orange to a few areas on the windows to look like rust.

It's hard to tell from the photos, but it is getting better.  I have a ways to go yet - I'm still not happy with it - but I will think on it further (and look at some more pictures) before I do too much more.

The Bunker: Brick Painting

I've started painting the facade exterior.  I ended up going with a mixture of 1 part Burnt Sienna to 2 parts Earth brown, because I didn't have very much Burnt Sienna left, although in hind sight I should have used straight Burnt Sienna.  I put the first coat on last night and when I looked at it this morning it was much too dark for what I wanted.  First I sponged on some more straight Burnt Sienna, and when it dried I dry brushed the bricks with Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey and then Vallejo Bonewhite, to tone down the dark brown.

At that point my husband thought that the concrete should be lighter (he actually wanted me to paint  all the trim cream and make it pretty!) so I also dry brushed it with more Antique White.  It's hard to see that in these photos, it still looks very dark...

My husband was working at the same table as me, so I got distracted talking to him and forgot to seal the bricks before I started grouting, oops. Luckily I had only spread the grout on two side sections before I realised I was having a lot of trouble wiping the grout off and it was starting to lift the cardboard bricks!!

Once I had sealed the bricks with matte Mod Podge and it had dried, I applied grout which I tinted with a few drops of Cold Grey paint.

Now the grout really stands out in the photos but it is still wet, so hopefully when it dries properly tomorrow it will look a little better.  Then I will age it with a few grey and black washes anyway, although I'd still like to try and make the bricks a little more red, to contrast with the concrete trim...

The Bunker: Facade bricking finished!

I finally had some time this morning to get the rest of the egg carton bricks glued onto the facade, and fix up the edges etc. I'm glad it's done and I'm doubly glad that I am going to age it substantially because it seems I cannot for the life of me, glue in a straight line!

I ended up using slightly less than 1500 egg carton bricks I think.  Now I need to touch up the areas I spackled on the trim, and start painting the bricks. If only I could decide what colour to paint them!

The Bunker: 1000 Bricks...

... And back to the cutting board because I have run out.

I still have a bit to go on the front of the facade, and I haven't started on the side yet, let alone the sides of the shell, so I guess I will use at least another 1000 bricks?  Better get to work!

The Bunker: More trimming and bricking

This is what I had gotten up to by this morning: around 500 bricks on the facade and half the trim.

Around 500 bricks "laid".

This morning I started by painting the remaining trim, which I had applied texture paste to yesterday. When the paint had dried, I glued the trim to the facade and weighted it down to dry.  Unfortunately I had forgotten to paint a couple of the small pieces, so I will do that when I fix up the trim along the roofline to cover up the spackle.

Excuse the terrible photos, it is overcast and dark today.

Now to finish off the brickwork.  I can see that I did a terrible job of keeping straight lines just above the entrance, but I am hoping to make a feature of that, and if that doesn't work, I might cover it with an ivy vine!

The Bunker: Brickwork Beginnings

I finally got a chance to start on the brickwork on the facade this week.  I still haven't glued all the trim on yet as I needed a trip to the hardware store for materials to make a bending jig, but I got impatient and started anyway.

Half the trim glued on and the brickwork started

I also dashed into Bunnings yesterday and grabbed an inexpensive piece of balsa wood to make my bending jig, so I have the first two pieces of trim in it drying out.  I simply soaked the balsa sticks in water and then heated them (still in the water) in the microwave for a couple of minutes to make them pliable (although I still managed to crack one of them slightly while I was bending it).

Once dry I will treat them the same as the other trim pieces: First a coat of Jo Sonja texture paste stippled on, then sponging on black acrylic paint followed immediately with antique white, to form various shades of grey. When it was dry, I dry brushed the pieces with antique white.  I will age them further when I am finished painting the brickwork.

The front entrance surround

Bits and bobs

I finally made it to the post office today to pick up some parcels.  One was a book I ordered on eBay by Jean Nisbett: Doll's House Inspiration.  I ordered it because I plan to build a Dutch dollhouse at some point in the future, although a contemporary one, and this book has a couple of examples of a Dutch Canal House in it. I fell in love with the canal houses when we visited Amsterdam, although we stayed for a month with relatives in the countryside and my experience is more with the traditional urban homes - huge picture windows facing the street with their spectacularly neat living rooms on display. Divine.

The second package was my LED light kits from the US.  I've never used LEDs before, so that should be exciting... and challenging!

And finally, I received a little box full of 1:24 scale kits for accessories for the Art Deco build.  A filing cabinet, sink kit, rotary phones, a trunk, shovels (of course!) and many others.  They are going to keep me busy gluing and painting for a while.  I have no confidence in my miniature painting abilities, so I could very well wreck them, so I have all my fingers and toes crossed I don't do too badly, lol.  If worse come to worst, I might have to resort to asking my Mother, who is a much better painter than me, and has experience with tiny brushes!

The Bunker: Playing with the Entrance

I've been fiddling around with designing an entrance door surround for my building, and so far I have this fairly plain surround, which will be painted to resemble concrete.

I can't decide if it needs to be more prominent or not - I have cut a second piece of 3mm basswood to go behind the front to give the entrance more depth, but I'm not sure if I like it?

Anyway, I stippled the entrance and the pieces of basswood which will form the window sills and pediments with the Jo Sonja Texture mix to see how much texture it would add.  I started by diluting the mix slightly with water but it didn't need it. I used an old, rough paint brush to dab the paste on.  I can see from the photo below that I need to sand the top section and have another go as it still looks quite rough.

When I get the chance I will dab on some grey paint mixes and see how they look.  So far I am optimistic that with some additional weathering on the exterior, that it will look OK.

The Bunker: Shell glued together

It's been a lovely lazy, overcast day here and so I pottered along with my Art Deco building.

I finished cutting the dividing wall between the kitchen and the store room and glued it in place, then glued the second floor on.  It was only when I went to glue the third floor wall and the roof on, that I noticed the huge mistake I've made!  Can you see it?  Yep, the two dividing wall on the first and second floors are in the wrong spot! Argh!

I measured the locations of these walls so carefully, and double checked that it was all OK - and I thought I had it marked which side of the line I was to glue the wall on... but OBVIOUSLY when I glued the bottom floor wall in place, I glued it on the wrong side of the pencil line.  I'm so cranky with myself.

It's not a lot out of alignment, and you can't see it from the outside of the house, but it hits me in the face every time I look at it. I couldn't move the top wall over to match because otherwise it wouldn't line up with the facade.  I tried gently removing the walls with out destroying them so I could glue them in again, but they weren't going to give without a fight!

Man! So annoying! And such a rookie mistake too. Ah well, chalk it up to experience.

Anyway, then I got to work on the facade again, and made up the extensions to go along the roof lines.  I have no idea what the technical name of these things are... Parapets?  I think the curved piece above the main tower is a pediment? Or are pediments only above windows? LOL.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out, it really adds to the character of the building.

The "lip" of the roof will be concrete, with bricks below and a railing around the outside.   Next I need to add the sills to the windows and the concrete feature strip (lintels?) above the windows.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to decide if I will leave the windows antique white, or paint them black (or steel grey).  I think the off-white looks a little too "pretty" lol.

The Bunker: Thoughts on lighting

I've been thinking a lot about whether I want to electrify this house. It has quite deep rooms - with no windows once the facade is taken off - and it would be quite dark I think, without lights.  However, I found the 1:24 scale lights I used for my last build to be very fiddly and frustrating! They are easy enough to install, but putting the plugs back on the ends of the tiny, brittle wires drove me insane, and as a result, they are still sitting unfinished.

Besides which, there are very few commercially available lights in Art Deco style, and none that I liked in half scale.  So that leaves the option of making my own.  Small LED lights are relatively inexpensive and can be plugged into a small 3V battery pack which would be convenient as I wouldn't need a transformer and a power point nearby.  Also, the wires are much thinner and smaller and can be more easily hidden behind the false walls I plan to install.

Chip LED light kit for 3v battery

The problem is of course, that I have never made anything even remotely like a miniature light before, and I worry that my imagination outstrips my actual ability!  I guess it worst comes to worst, then I can leave them as "down lights".

I have very few pictures of the lights from the Supernatural set. There are Art Deco style pendant lights on the ceiling in the library, plus two different types of wall sconces, table lamps and downlights inside the top of the built-in bookcases.

One of the wall sconces in the library

The other rooms seem to be a combination of task lighting (desk and floor lamps) and wall sconces.  Anyway, I have ordered a few 1.8mm LEDs and a few LED chips from the US and I will see how I go!

Facade assembled

So the facade is all glued together and ready for bricking and decorating.  First I need to add the extensions at the the roof line, so I have started cutting them from 5mm basswood.

Meanwhile I have also glued the first few walls of the shell together.  I have the first floor in, the partition wall between the war room and the library, and the two side walls together.  I enclosed the partition wall a little with 5mm basswood, so as to make a large doorway, rather than the existing arch.

I now need to decide a) if I am going to electrify this model (and if so, where will the lights go), and b) where the partition wall will go between the kitchen and store room. In this area, the wall would need to extend into the facade (the inside of the waterfall wall), which makes it a little trickier, and I need to take the windows into consideration.

I've been looking for some way of replicating the texture of concrete for the facade but haven't had too much luck finding something that would be acceptable in 1:24 scale. I finally settled on trialing some Jo Sonja Texture Paste which I bought at Spotlight. It is fairly thick so I will try thinning it with a little water and colouring it with grey paint when I mix it up, then stipple it on gently with a small sponge?  Otherwise, I have seen a couple of techniques using talcum powder and acrylic paint mixed together.

Painting and gluing

After undercoating the exterior shell prices with grey acrylic, I decided to paint the windows with Semco Antique White craft paint. It's an off white with a hint of grey, and I plan to add some rust when I weather the exterior, as many of the industrial windows were steel frames.

Today I started gluing the exterior together.  I started with the "waterfall" rounded wall, and then glued the two right hand walls to the front base board. Then I moved onto gluing the first floor section to the inside of the waterfall wall, and then glued it, and the roof to the base board. I'll let that set up overnight and when I glue the front wall on as well, the facade will be together, yay.

I'm using Helmar's Tiger Grip, but I'm worried that perhaps I should have used Selley's Aquadhere, my general woodworking PVA glue?  I'm also concerned that the MDF will need a few tack nails to add enough stability to the joints so that they don't fall apart while I am handling the shell.  I don't have a vice so I have no idea how I will manage to do that without breaking the shell apart while I am hammering!  I guess I will wait and see how robust the joint is after 24 hours of setting.  As a newbie, it's hard to know which glue to go with, especially as the majority of dollhouse miniatures blogs I peruse are based in the US, and we don't have their usual brands here in Australia.

While waiting for the glue to set, I've been looking for some artworks for the Bunker library. I actually managed to find the map of the US used on the Supernatural set (the large, lighted one in the Crow's Nest) which I will use.

Many of the other photos and prints used on the set are difficult to discern from the photos I have seen, so I will use some random vintage photos I think.  I found a lovely old vintage map of Newcastle, where I live, which I will print out to scale and frame.  I also have some old black and white family photos I scanned years ago, I might find something suitable among those too.

Port of Newcastle

Teeny tiny bricks...

And so it begins....

Cutting lots and lots of egg carton bricks, each 10mm x 5mm, for the sake of convenience, although not exactly to scale.  This is what approximately 500 bricks looks like:

Not very impressive is it?! Given I am going to be bricking most of the facade, and all of the sides (!), I am going to need a LOT more bricks.

I've also been trying to sketch a mock up for the facade, but my drawing skills are sadly lacking.  I converted a photo of the Art Deco dollhouse kit to a pencil sketch in a photo-editing program and printed it out, then scribbled a rough idea of what I want on it.

Something like this:

I can't decide if I want bricks or stucco between the windows, to make the facade a little more interesting?  I will do the concrete sills (from balsa wood sticks) and the concrete strips above the windows first, and then see what it looks like.  I think the Men of Letters would have a very understated building, so as to not draw attention to themselves, so I feel that too much decoration would not be in character.

To take a break from brick-making, I undercoated the front and side pieces. I used craft paint, Jo Sonja's Nimbus Grey, as I want to use grey grout for the bricks.

I still can't decide whether to paint the windows off-white or black?  I have seen black on Art Deco buildings, although a creamy yellow is much more common, even on industrial buildings.