Quarter Scale Coaching Inn

One of the things I've been doing for all of the buildings in the project is using real stones for flagstone floors, which I think really gives it a more authentic feel. I get them from Stacey's Miniature Masonry , and I thought I'd post a tutorial here on how they're done. The stones and mortar (which Stacey's also sells) come with instructions, but I think it'll be handy to see photos of the process. I like to lay down a coat of paint before starting, to give the stones something better to stick to, although there won't be any gaps once it's done. Then the first step of laying the floor is to glue all of the stones down with PVA adhesive (tacky glue). The recommended way to do it is to plan them all out in advance, but I don't have patience for that so I usually just wing it! That's probably how they did them back then anyway, right? At some point you'll probably need to cut a stone or two in half to get ones that fit your last remainin...

I went on a big push this long weekend to try to get this house semi-finished (right now in the project I want to get them each to the point where their furniture can be stored within) and I succeeded. I posted about the Georgian Kitchen and the shop and modiste/milliner upstairs , but it was time to buckle down and do the wallpaper for the bedroom. I'd been procrastinating it both because it was to be my first time with wallpaper and also because it was a super-tricky first time with wallpaper. What I hadn't realized is that the arched fireplace I'd ordered for the bedroom had a really deep back. That wasn't necessarily bad as this one is above the kitchen stove which shows a pretty huge fireplace stack, but it necessitated a much bigger chimney breast than I'd used for the dog grates in Traveller's Rest . So I built one, but then that meant I had to either cut the wallpaper to fit its angles, or bend it in. I opted to bend it in, which mostly work...

Today for the first time I got at least a portion of each kit down on the floor, just to start to get a sense of how this was actually going to come together. The good news: it does seem like it's actually going to come together! Behind the street frontage on the right, you can see two Butterwick House kits, which are going to form the galleried part of the galleried coaching inn. Then there'll be another arch , one of only two kits that aren't from Petite Properties . The other I can't even really call a kit as it is the carriage house in the lower left corner of the picture, which I got used on eBay and then heavily "renovated." But more on that later. Beyond the arch in the outer yard will be a Hobbler's Loft kit, serving as stables and that second kitchen I keep talking about, and then an additional stable building. You can start to get a sense of what the frontage is going to look like. I haven't put on any of the timber frame trim ...

So I finally figured out the plan of attack for putting together the carcass of Tanglewood Hall, and executed it. As you can see in the photo, I ended up using painter's tape to hold the fireplace above in place so that I could run the wire down through the stove. I basically assembled the upper floors all in one piece to go in, so that I could run the wires for the lights down through the interior wall, the one that will run  between the kitchen and the shop. It was tricky, to say the least. Somehow in my kit-bashing I ended up with a big old gap between the wall and the floor upstairs, so I've had to go in with some CrackShot (love that stuff) to fill it in. So there's still quite a lot of work to be done upstairs -- fixing that gap, then floors, and (gulp) wallpaper.  But the good news is, the kitchen is done! I did manage to make the grill; it's got a Herdwick Landscapes griddle on top. I also bought the crane to go with the griddle but I thin...