Victorian House Renovation Continues

The Victorian house renovation work is overwhelming at times. I feel it will never be finished.

I was able to take bits outside this summer and do the dusty, sanding work, so now, all the window frames have been painted and reglazed.

All the interior walls have been lined with paper and painted.

I'd previously scored floorboards for the Victorians on the ground and third floors so I have painted these white. I have to think what to do with the others yet.

Meantime I have worked on the ground floor Customer Toilet. As this will be enclosed I had to put everything in the corner first because I will not get my hand inside the doorway once the walls are fixed. 

I started with the floor covering, I made up some tiling and printed it to size then sprayed it with a satin finish inkjet fixer. 

I spent a day outside, beneath the sunshade cleaning the Victorian bathroom tiles of all the old glue and paper. 

I find the best way to tile a wall is to glue the tiles onto a piece of graph paper. This allows you to line them up well and once finished it is easier to place the tiles as a pre-made sheet. I also glued the skirting to the paper below the tiles before putting on the wall. 

Next, I put in the toilet, then placed the skirting on the side wall.

The basin was added next, with mirror above. I added some soaps and box of tissues, followed by the toilet roll holder and a paper towel dispenser. I was happy to reuse all the old fixtures and only needed to replace the toilet paper.

All of this will only be seen through the open doorway so I resisted the idea of making a waste bin and of putting up a hook for customers to hang their coat or bag!

Currently, I'm putting a light into a false ceiling which will be installed with the walls. I spent a couple of hours yesterday testing all the lights and wiring that I have for best effect. 

More soon, I hope,

Interior Design Shop Front

Going back a few years - to 1992 - I made this shop as a club project. We built our room boxes from wood and then decorated and filled them. There was a huge assortment of shops; toys, grocers, china store, sweet shops and even an undertaker's! Mine has battery powered lights with the battery holder behind the front door in the fake entrance.

It was fun to make furnishing fabrics and rolls of wallpaper, matching roller blind and my first frilled cushion.

 This photo has a little glare on the glass but you can just see my little rabbit patchwork cushion.

 This has been displayed for 20 years and has travelled to four different homes with me. It was the easiest of my houses to move!
I hope your week is going brilliantly!

New Year and New Achievements

I enjoy the challenge of something new. Solving a puzzle leaves me feeling happy. For a long time Oly and I had been trying to think of a way to make toiletry bottles without spending a fortune and getting into mixing resins, hardeners and colours. Little by little as the months passed we tried several ideas but finally we perfected a way that suits us! I made so many I had to design some display stands for them.

Then I got carried away with the stand making and made even more, so filled them with bling! I love sparkly.

Solving one problem produces another! Now the Ladies Shop needs more tables and shelving!

My Victorian House

I feel more than a little guilty about my Victorian house. I've had it for 21 years, the first of my collection but it has become neglected as I 've spent time on newer, more colourful projects.

Having decorated and filled it in the Victorian style it holds less interest than other lighter and modern styles. It feels gloomy inside, difficult to see things and rather depressing.
Yesterday the bathroom painting fell from the wall, the 20 year old pieces of Blue-Tak finally dried out and gave up their hold showing the discolouring to the wallpaper from the years - just as real life, I guess.

The Victorian house holds two of my favourite miniatures. My most treasured is the gate legged table with candy twist legs that my father made me in the early eighties. When he was very ill he made it on a tray on his lap and died shortly after he'd given it to me.

The other is a smoker's bow chair made by Colin Bird which I bought from him at his first London Kensington fair. It was the most expensive single item I'd bought but as the chair was a replica of one my grandfather sat in I just had to have it. Colin's furniture is exquisite and worth every penny.

The ground floor of the house has been a shop with toys and children's clothes but I've never been satisfied with the look of it. Too much wood panelling and wooden floors - too dull and uninteresting.

I'd removed everything from the shop this week, not knowing quite what to do with it when Oly came to visit and she came up with one of her brilliant ideas! I'll let you know more as it happens!