Over the holiday weekend I was able to work some more on the Buttercup!

My goal was to finish the entire thing before Christmas, but I'm going to focus on the interior just to make sure I can at least take photos of it all decorated for the holidays. I will need to paint the exterior paperclay so I can finish the windows, though.

I'm really irritated with Joann.com right now! They have the paint I need in stock but their server can't handle the cybermonday traffic, so it keeps dumping my shopping cart after I spend 15 minutes sluggishly picking out what I need! I'll try again later, or maybe just stop at the brick & mortar one night this week - though they rarely have what I need. What's more, the Michael's across the street is out of Ceramcoat hippo gray (and ONLY hippo gray), so what's to say they aren't, as well?

Back to the build, sorry for the rant!

I actually finished the last of the paperclay the previous weekend, so I was just adding coats of the stucco on Wednesday night. Then I decided to paper the stove nook and install the light so I could solder the wires all at once (the carriage lights outside were still waiting to be hooked up, though I glued them on over a week ago).

I can definitely see why people try to paper before assembly (not that I couldn't see the logic in it before)! The brick paper was also not cut to exact size before I glued the nook on, though I had made a template, thank goodness, way back when. So I cut the paper and glued it in, then cut out a circle from the ceiling surface (thankfully I DID cut this to size before) for the lamp to glue directly to the wood. I'd also already drilled the hole so the wires went through easily and it all rested upside down to dry. Meanwhile I glued the stone sheets for the flooring to the piece of wood for that (which was separate as I'd made the floor too low in the nook). I accidentally dropped that face-down on a glue spot, but thankfully the stove will cover it all the time anyway.

I also reset the roof on the alcove because it had dried with a gap and I finally couldnt' take it anymore!

After Thanksgiving day I sat for a while, frowning at the house trying to figure out what the next step should be. It was around this time that I decided the interior got priority, not to mention I'd been to Michael's and couldn't find the paint for the stone work. I stripped the casing off the wires and got ready to hook them up to the exposed tapewire I had in the second floor, both on the veranda and in the upstairs alcove above the entrance. But I couldn't find my little brads! I emptied out my box of supplies in the hopes that I'd find them, but no luck. So I decided I could use eyelets instead.

Yesterday I drilled holes the size of the eyelets and pounded them in place with the exposed wires around them. I considered testing them before soldering, but something stopped me. What was it? Dumbicity, I tell you! The eyelets were loose in the wiring, plus drilling through the tapewire made ragged edges that didn't connect well unless wiggled, so only two of the three new lights turned on when I plugged the house in. I managed to get the second exterior light on by wiggling the eyelet, but I wasn't about to accept a wiggly eyelet and put flooring over the connection. I double-checked my wiring overall with a test probe and all was fine.

A renewed search in my supplies box found a paint tray with exactly six brads stuck to an adhesive label! Jackpot! So I was able to reconnect the lights with the brads, using the soldering gun to melt the solder off the eyelets and trash those. I decided this time to TEST the connections before soldering again. ;) The light in the stove nook still wasn't working! It was a loose bulb. *facepalm*

With all the lights now working, I soldered the connections and finished the flooring in the upstairs living area. Note I didn't install the wallpaper yet, but I will have baseboards so that will cover the wallpaper edges above the floor boards. I ordered that miter box set from HBS finally, along with a couple holiday decorations.

I'm really dying to put the trim up around the windows, but I suppressed the idiotic urge (the paperclay isn't painted outside, recall), and continued on the upstairs. The two triangular walls on the sides got their wallpaper glued on, with loose tabs awaiting the roof eaves. I put on the front roof first, though life probably would have been easier if I'd done the back roof first. It took some trimming of the paperclay to get the front roof to lay flat, then some 'clamping' with masking tape to hold it so it could dry. I realized that the side pieces were cut so that the border lined up with their tops, even though there was that triangle of space. Since those pieces were glued on and dry, I decided to lower the roof papers and paint a coordinating color above that just in case any photos revealed the difference. So I painted this 3/4" or so while the glue on the roof dried.

While this dried, I glued on the gable over the door. I wish I'd thought to wire that front wall there for a little lamp. What a dark corner!

I took a break to watch football downstairs, but came back up for the evening game and glued in the papers on the roof pieces and gable walls. So the upstairs just awaits trim!

I still had a bit before bedtime, so I attempted to hinge the cabinet under the windowseat. Thank goodness I hadn't glued that piece in yet, or I'd never have gotten those little brads in! As it is, I needed glue to help me hold the hinges in place in the frame. I could not, for the life of me, figure out the drawer pulls I had, and wasn't crazy about them as door pulls, so I left the cabinets hanging open until I could. I'm sure I'll wish I hadn't glued them in yet when it's time to install those. ;)

I have another project I have to spend the evenings of this week working on, but hopefully that'll be set by the time I get my paint for the exterior, then I can do that painting and get the windows glued in!