The Fairfield: Windows & Electrical Plan

I have yet to pop out any of the pieces of the frame for the windows because I haven't been able to make up my mind about using the Gothic windows. I mulled it over a lot last night whilst I  couldn't sleep, and (I think) I finally made a decision when I realised that I could probably cut the Victorian windows I have in half and use them for the secret room windows. Or I could cut down the Gothic windows too for that matter.  I have always disliked the round windows that come with the kit, but regular windows are all too tall for that room, and you can't buy half size Victorian Houseworks windows in 1:24 scale.  I think if I cut the bottom mantle off, shorten the sides and glue the mantle back on, they will look OK?

So for the moment, my layout looks like this:

Bottom Floor: Three double sash windows.

First floor: Two sets of French Doors, off bedroom and library. Two Gothic windows in tower.

Secret Room: Two cut down Gothic windows.

Attic: Two cut down Victorian windows on the front gable (above bedroom) and the rear gable above the study.  I wasn't going to put a window above the French doors in the library, but I will have one spare to put there if I decide to.

Experimenting with the Gothic windows

I hope I can manage to cut down the windows without butchering them! I'm a bit nervous.

Later:

I cut down one of the Gothic windows and it turned out OK, but the bad news is that it looks odd with the two bigger windows below it.  I will use them on the Attic windows now, but that means I still have to find windows for the secret room, as I think the cut down Victorian windows would also look odd. I may end up ordering two round Grandt Line windows which I didn't want to do. Anyway, I will think more on that when I get to that point.


Also at this point, before I begin wallpapering I need to work out where any electrical wires will go for lamps and light that aren't ceiling mounted.  They are - at this stage - the coach lamp at the front door; the wall-mounted single light in the foyer; the Tiffany lamp in the lounge room, the gas table lamp in the library; the single candle stick on the bedroom mantle; the single candlestick in the potion room;  the wall mounted single light in the upstairs hall; the 2 x double wall mounted lights in the study.

Current Lighting Schedule (subject to change):

Entry: Coach lamp on wall beside door. Run channel on wall inside.
Foyer: Chandelier
Lounge room:  Hanging Double light & flickering grate
Work Room:  Hanging gas lamp & single candle stick on mantle
Kitchen: Single candle stick, flickering coals. Run channels to ceiling.
Bedroom: Tiffany light & Tiffany lamp. Run channel to ceiling.
Study: Wall double lights x 2. Run channels across to chimney.
Library: Chandelier and gas table lamp
Hallway: Single wall lights x 2. Run channels to ceiling.
Attic: Bare bulb (a second one would be nice).

Obviously I am going to have to decide fairly early on where the table lamps and the kitchen candle stick are going to go permanently so I can run the wiring channels, but I'm not really going to be able to do that until I have the furniture for those rooms and have decided where they are going to be located. I can probably run them straight into the floor I guess, and across the ceiling underneath, which wouldn't interfere with wallpapering. Hmn.

The Fairfield: Staircase Part 3, Undercoating & Prep

I originally bought white paint to use for undercoating all the walls and floors, but since I want to put dark wallpaper over much of the interior, it seemed odd to use white paint underneath so I have left it until now.

I want to start wall papering the centre wall and foyer soon, so I had to do something, so I mixed up some Black and Burnt Sienna (about 1:2 ratio) into a very dark brown, and used it to undercoat all the interior walls, except the kitchen (which I will probably finish with white stucco), which I painted white.

I can't decide what colour to undercoat the exterior, but it will probably end being black, since I may use crackle glaze and paint white over the top of that, depending on how my trials go.

Undercoating on the central wall panel

I also did another coat of stain on the steps, and when it dried I sanded some areas and took the wire brush to them as well, to make them look a little worn, which will hopefully show through in some areas when I "wear through" the carpet runner.

Stairs, stained and sanded

I couldn't decide whether to use tacky glue or Mod Podge to apply the Jacquard ribbon I an using to replicate a stair runner. In the end I went with Mod Podge, but in hindsight, tacky glue would have been easier, with Mod Podge over the top to seal it.  Because the MP doesn't grab as quickly, the ribbon kept lifting on the tread underneath the one I was working on, when I pushed the ribbon into the crease (I used a paintbrush).

I hope that the sealing doesn't permanently darken the ribbon too much. You can see the end bit I haven't trimmed off yet in the photo and it's a pretty burgundy and gold. I would have darkened it a little to age it, but I don't want it so dark you can't see it!

I'm unsure as to the best way to weather the runner, without destroying the ribbon or making it look (too) amateurish. I am hoping that the MP will seal it enough to allow me to sand it lightly with fine grit sandpaper without it fraying (which would leave large, out-of-scale threads showing).

Stairs with ribbon glued on and drying before trimming and aging

The Fairfield: Staircase Part 2

Ermagherd, the staircase!  I spent hours fiddling and trying to work out the best way to put in a set of stairs that would fit the requirements I had for the space, but sadly my brain functions better than my hands, and the actual building part is beyond my experience.

So, in the end the staircase is going almost where it was originally meant to go, up the middle of the house.  I have modified it slightly in that I've pushed it back further so that the first step is in line with the lounge room doorway, not in front of it.  The hand rail protruding into the doorway annoyed me, plus as an added bonus, I now don't have to fiddle around with one at the bottom at all. I will run a handrail up one of the walls (I'll just glue it to the wall), but I haven't decided right or left yet.

View from the bottom of the stairs

From the lounge room

From the kitchen. I will add a "basement" door here and close in the wall above it.

Moving the stairs forwards means they arrive right at the door of the library/study, but I can live with that

I've trimmed up the wall piece in the kitchen and made a new hole at the top of the stairs, which I will tidy up in the near future.  I'm not totally satisfied with the outcome but I am happy to have finally decided what I am doing here so that I can move on to the next thing.

Now that I am definitely using the kit stairs, I've started staining them, and the rail etc. I have previously bought a red jacquard ribbon which will be used as a stair runner, so I don't need to do a prefect job on the staining.  Once the staining is done, I will glue on the ribbon and then add some wear along the treads, like this:

When I install the stairs, I must remember to add a small strip of basswood along the edges too, like you can see in the photo, just for a bit of authenticity.  I can't decide whether to add stair rails? Since you can't see many of the stairs it's probably not worth the effort.

The Fairfield Step Four: Dry Fit

My first dry fit of the Fairfield!  It's exciting to see the actual house and start playing with components rather than just trying to imagine it.

I spent a loooong time thinking about the staircase, sitting it this way and that, fiddling with walls etc. I decided in the end to go with what I really want to see, which is the stairs with a doorway next to them on the right, because if I don't it won't be exactly what I want and I'll regret it.  This means a really steep, narrow staircase just inside the front door, but you won't be able to see much of it once the house is completed, so I think I'll be able to construct it using my very basic skills.

The stairs are steep! The doorway will be trimmed to take the original railing off. I may add a door under the stairs.

The next decision I have to make about the layout is whether to keep the "bathroom" wall or not. I was never going to put a bathroom in the house, just because they are boring to look at as far as I am concerned, so I was going to leave that wall off and make that area a large sitting area at the top of the stairs, with lots of books, maybe a suit of armor and probably the spiral staircase to the attic.

Now I can't decide if I should close it off to make a more atmospheric "potion" store room with the secret staircase at the back of it.

Or should I turn the library into a big potion room and make this area an open area library? Take out this section of the attic floor and build double height bookshelves? With a gallery area?

Or, since I don't have an actual basement, close the room off and make it a panic room with devil's trap and lead lining?  A cot bed and manacles. No window.

Wall in, separate room

Wall out, open room

Wall added in the attic, and floor would be removed on rhs

Wall in attic. Floor above open area removed, spiral staircase leading to doorway in attic.

Although this wall is very easy to add or remove, whatever I decide on, it will affect whether or not there will still be a French Door in this area onto the balcony, not to mention lighting. I also need to make a decision about which windows to use - the Gothic or Victorian? Hmn.

Construction Step Three: The Staircase

The next step after constructing the base and chimney is to build the internal staircase. I decided before I even received that Fairfield that I would use a standard Houseworks stair kit instead of the kit that comes with the house, as I'd seen the difficulty many builders have had with it.  The problem with the Houseworks stairs is that they are wider than the kit stairs. So, I either have to cut down the Houseworks stairs, or move the stair case wall over.

Also, I decided early on that I wouldn't use the staircase hand rails that come with the house - they really aren't very attractive!  So that means I will have to trim those sections off the walls surrounding the staircase.

I've seen a few cases of builders turning the staircase around and removing the left hand side staircase wall completely, leaving the kitchen open to the hallway. The problem I have is that I have the stone fireplace to fit into the kitchen, and it will only fit along the back wall with no kitchen door, and the staircase in the original position.  I say "the original position" because I would actually prefer the staircase to run up the left wall of the foyer, to a) avoid the double rail at the bottom, and b) the stair rail obscuring some of the doorway into the living room.

The problem with running it up the left is that the kitchen ends up small, and odd-shaped.

I'm intrigued as to why there are two doors so close to each other here?

I could possibly do it like this, extending the back wall of the dining room and making it bigger.  I am already thinking of making the dining room into a study anyway. Or, I have seen several people swap the kitchen the the dining room around - I could make that room an eat-in kitchen and turn the old, smaller kitchen into a creepy store room and entrance to the "basement"? Then again I would have two fireplaces in the same room which would be silly.

Later:

I've been fiddling around with dry-fitting the walls and the stone Braxton Payne fireplace I bought will only fit in the kitchen along the back wall. I tried fitting the staircase over the top of the fireplace, but it won't fit unless the stairs start practically at the front door (the fireplace is quite tall).  I am wondering then, if I could do something like the above, where the beginning of the staircase is set off to the side - which in my case, would be opposite the entrance to the living room.

Alternately, I've been in several Victorian houses which had staircases so steep I could barely walk up them, so building one steep enough to fit wouldn't be out of character with the era. Makes it a bit more creepy too - although I would have to build it myself, and I don't know if I am that clever.

Later again:

I've done a very basic frame for a (very) steep staircase which will fit in the vestibule. It has very narrow treads, just wide enough to fit a spindle, and I don't know if I'll be able to make it myself with any degree of success. But really, what says "creepy" more than a dark, rickety, narrow staircase?

Construction Step Two: The Chimney Sub-Assembly

OK so I gave the foundations a final coat of Mod Podge this morning to seal them, and that's all I'm going to do on them for a while! I was pretty happy with the colour of the grout after it dried overnight so I hope sealing it doesn't make it any darker.

Anyway, the next step of assembly is the Chimney unit, so I popped out the appropriate pieces and got them all sanded nicely. Luckily I dry-fitted everything first because it took me a while to get my head around which way the pieces were supposed to face, i.e. good side facing in or out. Plus one of the tabs required some sanding to make everything fit, but now I have it all glued and clamped.

Chimney Sub-Assembly

The next step is to assemble the staircase but I am not using the pieces that came with the house, so I will be leaving that until after a do a complete house dry fit.

Which comes to the next step: the floors and outside walls!  I have them all labelled and popped out of their respective sheets now, ready to be sanded.  I can see that there will be a lot of sanding to do before I dare to start taping walls together!

I did do a little bit of fiddling of components and things just to see how they will look. I noticed that one of the most significant things is the the Houseworks door I have for the front door, is smaller than the space for it which is annoying.  Also it looks as though the Gothic windows won't fit in the tower room - which is what I suspected - or possibly even in the second floor of the tower. Hmn.

The Base Day Seven

After drying over night I did another dirty wash this morning, followed by dry brushing on some mixes of various green paints - Emerald Green, Sap Green and Pthalocyanine Green, plus a little Black in the last mix. After it had all dried, I brushed on one last wash of Burnt Umber. I don't know that the moss effect I was trying to achieve worked at all, but at this point I am reluctant to fluff about with the base too much more for fear of ruining what I've done so far!   I think I will seal it all with Mod Podge before going any further anyway, so that it's not knocked about during construction.

Finished except for sealing... I think!

In between washes I sealed the interior doors with matte Mod Podge, and did another coat of stain on the double sash windows, plus the first coat on the window surrounds, which I forgot to do last time.  I think the interior side of the windows is looking sufficiently mottled and worn to leave as-is after this coat dries, except for some touch-ups around the sliding window parts.  The exterior will, at this stage, be painted with crackle medium and then painted a dirty white.

I also sanded back the black paint from the interior of the single windows and the french doors and did two coats of stain wash. They won't exactly match the double window interiors, but I don't think it's going to worry me too much (plus I'm bored with fiddling with them).  I'm still trying to decide whether to use the tall arched Gothic windows on the tower or not. As they are styrene, not timber, they can't be stained. I will only use them if I end up doing stones on the tower, so I guess I can paint them black, or leave them grey. Although I found this house with arched windows and cladding. Hmn.

Tomorrow I will have no excuses to put off starting on the actual house :-)