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!