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Showing posts with label The Madness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Madness. Show all posts

Friday, September 26, 2025

One Year Later...

Hello My Friends! Long time no see! Speaking of long, you might want a beverage and some snacks for this post! 

It may seem as though I dropped off the face of the Earth, but in truth, real life's demands forced minis, and by association the blog, out of the picture. I have a lot of explaining to do, but let me assure everyone that I am super duper, still alive and certainly not sitting around on my thumbs.

First, Tasha and Brent finally had their wedding last fall. Covid, a college degree, a new job and a new house/farm really postponed their nuptials. But the delayed ceremony and celebration were totally worth the wait! It was all the things a wedding should be, absolutely beautiful and many dreams came true that day! While I missed all my goals on the trailer project, and all of you so much, getting to be part of the planning for Tasha's special day was well worth it!

Don't be alarmed!!! It was a costume wedding and
Tasha and Brent went as Mr. & Mrs. Frankenstein!

We also had several folks coming into town for the wedding, so we needed to improve our guest quarters. What was once a catch-all room for "stuff" is now a nice place to host loved ones who come to visit. We have two swanky guest rooms available now! You may also remember that we updated our master bed and bathrooms last summer (2024).

For a miniature enthusiast and dreamer, even upgrading a guest room is kind of dangerous. When we refreshed and improved the 2nd guest room, the rest of the house began to seem dated and shabby. What started out as a small project to reconfigure my kitchen pantry closet turned into a full kitchen and family room remodel. We took down walls, painted walls and cabinets, added a wall of pantry cabinets, reconfigured the island, completely changed the lighting, made faux beams for the ceiling, got new countertops and backsplash tile and even replaced our 17 year old appliances (only the new range is installed so far). And that was just the kitchen!

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After (so far)

Pantry Before. It stuck into the room about 33 inches.

Pantry wall/doorway gone and replaced with cabinets. 
Square footage of storage increased 4 times.

Stove before with microwave above. Very dangerous!

Slide in counter height range with hood. Much better!

New lighting fixtures and added can lights
 makes seeing much easier!

In the family room we removed the corner fireplace (it took up so much room and made furniture arranging very limited) and surrounding walls. We eliminated an odd, long, high up and skinny window that only looked North onto our neighbor's garage wall. We made built in custom shelving and a new fireplace across the entire North wall. We continued the ceiling beams, are installing tongue and groove (whitewashed by me) cedar ceiling planks and replacing the flooring. Eventually we'll get new furniture but it already looks like a completely new house!

Family room when we bought the house in 2008

New configuration

Shelf wall at night

Looking at the length of the rooms. Still so far to go!

And while we had that part of the house in shambles, it seemed smart to give the laundry, utility hall and powder rooms on the first floor an upgrade, too. We used one of the base cabinets that we removed from the island to create a much more functional sink and counter area in the laundry room. There used to be a freestanding laundry room sink in the back corner where the drywall is gone. It was cramped and hardly functional.

The cabinet was rescued from the island. The old color theme from 2008.
This linoleum will be replaced with LVP

Cabinets installed and painted, waiting for backsplash tile.

New shelf for the laundry products.

Backsplash tile finished. Recycled old kitchen sink is an upgrade!

In the powder room, we clad the walls in barn wood and the ceiling in tin to replicate an outhouse. I know - sounds crazy, but it's really rather adorable! The garage and powder room doors, if opened at the same time, hit one another. It was a poor design and has been so frustrating all the years we've lived here. To fix the issue, we'll be installing a sliding barn door on the powder room. That's a ways down the list - there is still so much to do on the kitchen and family rooms!

Walls clad in barn wood. Niches in wall for décor.

I made the sign to look like Old West signs.



I added x's to many of the cabinet doors with dollhouse basswood

Tin "outhouse" ceiling.

We always thought the entry staircase could look much better, so we made plans and bought materials for a remodel there, too. As we took on various tasks for each space, ideas grew and so did the work load. When we start tearing out the old stair elements, we might as well paint the entry, which is a two story room. Yikes! Russ and I are really enjoying doing every stitch ourselves (and still have jobs), so we're at 10 months and counting. Ah well... It will be really lovely someday when we finish!

In mid August, Russ, at the pleading of one of his bosses, took on a side job to "help" his boss put up a metal building. At the same time, my dad came up from Arizona for a visit. For the last three weeks, all reno activities stopped. That meant between sharing my dad with my brother, I had an unexpected opportunity to work on a mini activity - making flowers and plants. I also converted an old Carlson's lantern kit into a mini greenhouse. It's not direct progress on the travel trailer project, but since the trailer project will eventually have a greenhouse, its progress adjacent. I've also gotten to work on making a potting table, plant stands and trellis prototypes with the Maker. Happy, happy, happy!!!





I did manage to sneak in a couple more "small" mini projects while at various standstills with the renos. I decided not to finish the Willowcrest so that in the future I can concentrate on smaller, more manageable projects. But I did want to keep the kitchen since I spent so much time on every detail. I carefully dismantled every aspect and recreated it in a set of hollowed out books. It will live on my cookbook shelf in the new kitchen.



Looking Inside

The story on the back pays homage to the original project.
Don't worry - the kit shell and components are being
rehomed along with all the custom door/window/arch frames
I designed and 3D printed.

Other "arty" things have kept my creativity satisfied this year, too. For Mother's Day I made plant stand "scales" for all of the special ladies in my life. They are made up of various pot and saucer components from the dollar store, hot glued then spray painted. I used outdoor thermometers rather than fake scale faces so they'd be useful and cute. In the background you may notice that I painted grandma's hutch... again, and gave a facelift to all of my old décor pieces so that I could recycle them into the new aesthetic.



For the family room I wanted to create a gallery wall, so embarked on a journey to create various nature themed art pieces using a wide variety of media. So far, I've made 56 different art pieces. It has been one of the most rewarding goals I've ever accomplished! Now when it comes time to hang everything, I may lament at the number of items to hang, but at least I'll know where every one of them is going thanks to the diagram I created as I went. All pieces are in scale with the background, which represents 18 ft x 8 ft of the family room wall. 


Well friends, as you can see I have plenty of excuses for my absence. I hope you will forgive me and come back again next time I share not only our beloved minis, but (hopefully) progress on life's other engrossing (and fun) projects. I pray it's much sooner than a year!

Hope all has been well with all of you!

xo xo,

Jodi




Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Sleeping Dreams Do Awaken...

Around five years ago I became obsessed with ideas for doing a beach house. If you've been doing minis for any length of time, I am sure a beach-y style house has made it onto your bucket list, too. At that time, I purchased the Real Good Toys Beachside Bungalow kit from Hobby Lobby, on sale, and then used the 40% off coupon. I began making elaborate plans. I made renderings in my design program, designed a complete kitchen and then ordered it in kit form from Elf Miniatures. I began collecting beach themed minis, designed and had my own fabrics and wallpaper printed from Spoonflower, and then like a lot of my "on fire" plans, it got circumvented by another idea. In 2019 I ended up using the Elf kitchen cabinet kits and appliances in the New Orleans kitchen. The Beachside Bungalow kit, still new in the box, sat on my shelf waiting for it's turn.

Kit photo, front.

I had no plans to begin on it any time soon. In fact, many times I wondered if I should just sell the kit to make room for newer dreams. And then, it happened. As I was reaching the end of Tasha's kitchen I began to get a little itchy. What was I going to do after that project? I have Pound Cake and the Storybook Cottage in process, but neither of those projects was speaking to me. Suddenly, I came across a photo of a completed Beachside Bungalow and my mind exploded with ideas. None of them involved the old fabrics, wallpaper, color scheme or layout that I had planned for the first time. In fact, my new ideas were a radical departure from any of those plans. As usually happens when I become obsessed with a new idea, I gave my craft rooms a deep clean, got Tasha's Kitchen tidied up and safely stowed, and then cracked open the Beachside Bungalow kit.

Kit photo, inside.

There are so many finished Beachside Bungalows - I think it must be one of the most popular dollhouses among miniaturists at all skill levels. It is so much fun to look at photos and see the wildly diverse visions people have had for the kit. And it seemed like a huge (and fun) challenge to come up with ways to make it singularly unique. That is what I have set out to do - incorporate innovative ideas while keeping to the original footprint of the kit and while trying to use all it's components in creative ways. I am also going to try to use the majority of supplies, furnishings and accessories from my own stash. It could get very funky! I'm going to chronicle the progress here, but in keeping with my usual weird order of operations, will deviate from the instructions here and there. I'm not trying to be a rebel, I am just always thinking of how to make things easier on myself!

Original kitchen cabinet design.

Enough with the long winded justifications. Let me tell you where I started...

I cracked open the kit, read the instructions, checked off all the components, and then kind of stuck to the instructions for the first couple pages. That involved gluing the foundation, assembling the porch posts and attaching the porch floor to the foundation. 





I scribed boards into the porch floor using my poor metal file set. Did you know that metal files were meant only to be used to file in one direction? Me neither. Until I wondered why mine were so dull. Then I did a Google search of how long cheap metal files are supposed to last. The answer was a long time, apparently, as long as you use them correctly. Which I have neglected to do, resulting in them being pretty dull. So this old Harbor Freight set is now dedicated to tasks where they will be abused. The new set will be saved for metal and will be used properly. I swear!

I taped a 1/2" board to the porch floor to use as my scribing guide. Once I had a pretty good line scribed in with a pointy file, I removed the board and then deepened/widened the gouge with a triangular and rounded file. The I cleaned it up further with sandpaper. The ending depth is about 1/16". I followed this procedure all the way across the board. Then I added in the vertical lines every 6".








Then I primed, sanded, painted light blue (a couple coats) and sanded again.



Speaking of colors, here are the color chips I think I have settled on for the project. They compliment the scrapbook stack I'd like to use for wallpaper and patterns in the project.



For the porch posts, I thought it would be fun to try making stack stone with cork. I've seen some great examples of this method - in fact, Kristine from Paper Doll Miniatures has a great tutorial. Below was my inspiration photo, and here is the cork I purchased. It is about 1/8" thick and worked really nicely. I cut 1/4" strips, using a piece of basswood as a guide. Then, I just cut the lengths and gouged and roughed the individual stones up as I applied them. I attached with hot glue because I did not want to wait for glue to dry. Or babysit to make sure the stone stayed where I put it while the glue dried. I think hot glue gets a bad rap but I love it in the right circumstance!






Here I have painted the stones. At this stage they look a little cartoon-y and one dimensional.


Here, the first wash has been added to the post on the left. It tones down the paint, adds dimension and begins to look more like real stone.


Here are the colors and glazing medium I used. I wet a sponge with water, squeeze most of the water out, dip in a couple light paint colors on various spots on the sponge, then pick up some of the glazing medium on the sponge. Then I just pounce it on the stones until I like the look. I kept going with this process a few times until they looked "finished".


Here they are on the porch foundation. Not attached yet. Just in place so that I could get the lattice and trim attached. The lattice was something I had originally planned for the first time I planned for this project. This time I decided to stain it rather than paint. I am seriously rethinking the blue porch floor, though. Maybe a light gray would be a more cohesive look with the stone? I'll live with it while I get the walls in dry fit, and then decide.





Anyway, I hope this will be an interesting project for you to follow along with. I may post some progress over on Instagram and Facebook, too. It'll be weird after Tasha's Kitchen to not keep my project secret this time!

xo xo,

Jodi

P.S. Our final Pfizer shots went well, so far. A little tired, a sore arm and a bit of a headache but nothing too serious. Good times, here we come! :O)