Quarter Scale Coaching Inn

 I had to take a big break on the coaching inn project to do a couple of Christmas projects, so it's only been lately that I've gotten back to this one. Which was a bit of a shame as I was *almost* done, but then again I didn't want to rush this one, given I've been working on it for years. I got the rest of the houses in and wired, and did a lot of gravel work to lay that down. Then really the last thing to do was to put in the details...lots of animals, baggage for the yard, and other items. Except for the horses, the animals are from mini-gems . The wooden trunk and gold bird cage are from Petworth Miniatures , while most trunks and barrels are either from Skytrex or S&D Models . The pump and trough are from Herdwick Landscapes . The hand cart in the yard is from Petite Properties , with a basket from Stewart Dollhouse . The stagecoach in the yard is an old Tally-Ho stagecoach and horses kit; since I already had the Matchbox stagecoach and horses out front I jus...

 I've been scarce again because while I've been making progress, nothing has been tangibly done...until TODAY. Landscaping for this project first involved prepping the base. I first looked into gluing a bunch of traditional quarter scale lighting drawers together, but it was going to be super expensive to buy that many of them. So I ended up buying two custom monitor risers from The Paper Skiff on Etsy.  These I glued together and then glued the whole unit on top of a dollhouse turntable (I got mine from Manhattan Dollhouse ). It became apparent pretty quickly that I was going to need touchup paint as I made a bit of a mess on the risers while working above them, but the seller from Etsy let me know the paint color so I could buy some for touchups. Once everything was together it was time to drill the holes for wiring. Lacking any better tools I also used the drill to make the channels for the bulk of the wires to fit into. Because of the way I kitbashed the houses, I knew I ...

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...

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...