April Shower

Though I should be outside working in the garden, the weather has not been cooperating. You know the saying, "April showers bring May flowers; well, while it wasn't raining today, the weather was miserable, so I spent the day working on a new shower for the Bellingham Farmhouse. I had already built a shower, but after discovering Emily's blog, The Den of Slack I decided to remake the shower. Compared to her shower, mine looked pretty amateurish. So I set out to improve my shower. She used plastic for really cool, modern looking shower door, so while I was having my car serviced, I visited the glass shop across the street and asked if they would cut plexiglass for a dollhouse shower. The young lady was so nice and said that they would be happy to, she and recommended other materials, including glass. I have decided to use glass, but today I built prototype shower doors using a piece of thin acrylic from my stash that I had once tried to cut out an octagon window with scissors.  It didn't go well.

Today I used a utility knife successfully to score the doors and then cut the straight lines by running the blade over the cut several times.

I used my iPhone to take the photos, but I have been having trouble with the quality of the photos on the blog and have decided that I need to upload them with a higher quality, which may make them load more slowly 😩. Sorry about that.

Before we get to the shower, here's more on using caulking to seal the gaps that sometimes occur when the crown molding doesn't fit snuggly against the ceiling. Purchased at Ace Hardware, this product works so well to seal that unsightly gap. I kept a wet sponge handy to dampen my finger as I smoothed the caulk along the seam and to clean my fingers when I had too much caulking.  The before and after photos show how a clean seam between ceiling and crown molding can be achieved.

This piece of crown molding was particularly troublesome as I struggled to get it cut right to fit in place; I will have to do some touchup painting to make the corners look a little neater. My fingernails are too long, so I had a hard a time working the caulking into the corners.

I needed to use the damp sponge to clean up where my finger got too try to smooth the caulking, and again I was working in a very tight space.

 I installed the stairs today, too. Wow. That was a big commitment. The stairs gave me so much trouble. I even rebuilt them because the stairs that I built from the original kit were really bad. So I bought pre-built stairs at Hobby Lobby and had to cut one step off because they were too long. I also struggled with where to put the bedroom and living room walls. According to the house plans these walls are supposed to blush with the front edge of the house so that the openings to the rooms are at the back of the wall or at the front of the house. I installed them so that there were flush with the front exterior wall.

For the bathroom I even had my husband cut a new wall that extended the full width of the house so that I install a door and make it look more like an old farmhouse.

The floors are all installed now. In the rooms that have tape wiring on the floors, I used wide double sided carpet tape to adhere the floors so that if there is electrical problems I have access to the wiring. The kitchen floor and the downstairs hallway floors are glued in place.

So the crown molding is finished and the floors are installed. 

Now for the redesigned shower.

I really do like this shower, but as I said, it looks just too amateurish. I started rethinking it because I wanted to add glass doors. I never did quite figure out how to make a shower curtain--what sort of material to use--, so I dug out that sheet acrylic plastic and  cut the shower doors. Then I made an new shower stall:

The shower base for the first shower has three pieces, including two angled sides. As I was trying to figure out how to cut the new base, I discovered that the angles were not equal, so I decided to make the base square. I also want the door to open. Emily had used porch railing to set her doors inside, but I have decided to install the doors on top of the shower base, much like a really shower might be built.

I think the new shower will look pretty nice. I have to order another sheet of the black and white tile so it will be a few days before i have it finished. My car needs more work, so next week while the little SUV is getting a wheel alignment, I'll be across the street at the glass shop having them help me build my shower. I am hoping that they can help me figure out some sort of hinging so that that the door will open. Right now I have the two sides of the acrylic held together with silver wasabi type tape.

And that is my April Shower

Thanks for stopping by. Let me know what you think. 

Mind the Gap

I have not worked on the Bellingham Farmhouse since before Christmas. I original stopped working because of the holidays then I began sewing little dresses for the my 18 inch Madame Alexander dolls. There was another reason, a more serious reason, why I couldn't make myself get back to work on the house. The electrical system had failed and I couldn't figure out why.  When I wore out that obsession, I decided to get back to work on the house with the intent of finishing it. 

The lights are on again, but what a chore. The photo below shows how I had to add more tape wire to bypass where the failure was--I think the connection that is covered up under the green wallpaper had failed, so I rerouted the wiring. Not a pleasant chore.

I thought--and I still do think--that the humidity in the basement has altered the manufactured wood that the house is made of. We have two 110 gallon aquariums in the basement that emit a lot of humidity so we bought a dehumidifier again affecting the porous wood. I don't know. I am just really frustrated with the tape wire electrical system. I may not use it again.

So you can see where the original line came up through the stairway from the second floor and over to a line to light the first floor ceiling. It was that line that failed. I don't know why it took me so long to figure out the easy fix--to run a new line from the bedroom. 

So the lights are on now. 

Next I began working on the bathroom. I assembled the bathroom wall before I installed it. Don't know if I will do that again either. I have tightly cropped the photo as the wall lays flat on the work table. The wall paper is craft paper. Now I see that Its Bitsy wallpaper has this print now. I wanted a beach or mermaid theme and found the picture on the the web. The frame is actually part of the original windows pieces from the kit that I didn't use but it made a perfect picture frame. 

I am sorry that my iPhone photos are so blurry. In the photo app they are clear. I thought it was my camera's fault, but when I compare my photo is iPhoto it is crisp and clear, the phone photos use quality in Blogger. 

I decided to make towel bars and hit upon the idea to use the paper clip that on the table.  I dug ? through my beading stash and found these little findings and they are perfect. What was I going to use  for the towel ring. I bought three different types of rings. One that was a solid ring but then how would I attach it to the finding? I found a tutorial and that builder used a ring that could be opened so then I bought a very small key ring that had the double ring--shown here. 

The result was okay but not quite the look that I wanted. Then I found these rings at Hobby Lobby that can be separated and closer to the size, about half an inch.

    

I love the result. I also bought new finding beads that would fit on the ring.

Love it.

 The towel bar was easy. I opened out the paper clip and cut off the rest of it just a little into the curve and then using jewelry pliers bent the ends and cut them the size that I wanted.

And glued everything in place. 

I need to work on the towels now.

 If you have traveled to London and ridden the Underground train (The Tube), you will see signs warning travelers to "Mind the Cap". There is a gap between the floor of the station platform and the floor of the train car, so one must be mindful to step over the gap to avoid an awful accident of getting the foot caught in that gap. I have my own gaps that I mind very much! The next project is installing the crown molding in the bathroom--and other rooms. Because the floors and walls don't exactly fit, there are gaps between the molding and the ceiling. I had seen in someone's blog how to close that gap: caulking.

So I glued in the crown molding then ran a thin bead of caulk alone the gap when the glue had set.  I wet my finger and smoothed out the bead of caulk. You get a very smooth seam.

The bedroom ceiling was really awful. I should have taken a before photo, but you will see in the next bathroom photo the type of gaps that I need to hide.

So, I am back in business. I hope to keep the blog up as I try to add the finishing touches. I will continue install crown molding then I will install the flooring. Keep in touch and watch me work. 

Thanks for visiting.