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Time to wallpaper the rest of the tower room. This room is a bit tricky because of its angles and the tower room itself. To get my first cut, I actually took the wallpaper and laid it on the outside of the house at the tower, face down, and made a crease to show me how the tower goes into the floor and around the tower, and then I cut along the crease. I then took the paper and laid it into the house. I also discovered that it was easiest to lay the house on its side to wallpaper this area. This area is also a lot of lay the paper down, make a crease, take the paper out, cut it, put the paper back in, make a crease, take it out, cut it ... Once I have the paper laid against the back wall, I again rub the paper down against the tower, just running my finger and fingernail along the curves, which makes creases in the paper--and that's how I know where to cut the paper. I then begin creating a line along the ridge at the top of the tower. This line is important, because it'll be a guide when actually gluing the wallpaper in. I take my fingernail and run it along the ridge at that line. That gives me a crease in the paper and again shows me where to cut it. When you turn the paper over after you've made your creases, you can see where the paper needs to be cut. Then I just take some scissors and cut it. Now I've got my paper pre-cut and it's ready to be glued in. I will need to move and manuever this paper around a bit to fit into all its little nooks and crannies, so I liberally apply wallpaper paste to both the walls and the paper using a sponge brush. One of the tricks to putting in wallpaper is--weirdly enough--to have a straight line to guide you. Remember the ridge cut? It's my guide on this particular piece of wallpaper. I lay the paper onto the wall, and then move/slide it down so that it covers that ridge. I then check all my lines and smooth the paper down, just using my hands to rub it down a bit, covering all white areas (paint). I like to take a dry washcloth to finish rubbing the paper down to smooth out any wrinkles and/or air bubbles. There! The hardest part of that room is now done! Compliments of LPCullen

Like several other people, I wasn't happy with the way that the roof was done in this house and wanted to modify it too. The two peaked rooms, and the way that the roof came into the house, eliminated a lot of usable space. So, we decided to modify it.Here's what the original roof (back wall) looked like before we changed it:Jimmy decided that he would raise the roof line on the smaller room to enlarge the room, and also to give a more even space. He took the piece of wood which that wall portion had come out of to make himself a pattern (because there are tabs there), and then he cut another another piece of wood to go on top of that area, adding about 1 1/2 inches to the height on that area. He glued the piece in, and then put wood putty on it.Jimmy says if you don't want to sand all that wood putty, if you have a cat, just put some milk on the wood putty and let them use their sandpaper tongue on it. Funny guy. Chloe must have been "helping" again (or trying to lick his eyebrows off), which gave him THAT idea, LOL!Anyhow, he then cut a new board to make a straight roof to go across the area that he raised, and glued it in. Then he cut another board to make a room divider, and voila, you now have a larger and more usable smaller room (the recipient will be happy because she's now getting a bathroom, LOL!)! And of course we used our normal method of weighting down the roof while it dried--the old trusty paint can!Here's what those two rooms look like now. The larger peaked room is enlarged, and the smaller room is enlarged and opened up. If you look at the last picture, you can see the line where the piece was added to raise the roof.Now, what to do for the trim ...Compliments of LPCullen

I've let the tower wallpaper dry overnight. I want to make sure it's good and dry because I don't want it to start moving when I begin cutting. Now it's time to cut out the windows and trim the excess wallpaper off.Before I cut out windows and/or trim, I go ahead and get a new razor blade--I don't want any jagged edges, nor do I want the razor blade to "catch" on the wallpaper as I'm cutting. I start with the oval windows, and I begin cutting from the outside of the tower. I start near the top of the window, lay my razor blade against the edge of the opening as tight as I can get it, and begin cutting on one side. I just gently pierce the wallpaper with the edge of the razor, and move it down and around, holding my hand the razor blade tightly to the edge. Then I move to the other side of that window and do the same thing. Last I cut the top of the windows out.And now the window is cut out! I can move on to the other two.Once I'm done with the windows, I go ahead and trim off the excess from the sides. Again, I start from the outside, lay the razor blade up against the wall, pierce the wallpaper gently, and just slide the razor blade down it, cutting of the excess. I usually start about two-thirds of the way from the top and cut down. Then I turn the razor blade upside down, and cut the top of the excess off. I do the same thing for the other side.And now, the trimming in the tower is complete. You can go back inside the oval windows of the inside and cut some on the inside of the window, but you really don't have to.Compliments of LPCullen

Before I began wallpapering and painting the tower, I took the roof piece out that goes over it and laid it on to draw myself some lines to work in. I drew two different sets, one where I would need to paint to, and one where I would need to wallpaper to.I started with the smallest outside side of the tower first, and just cut the paper to the line, or actually slightly above it. I also cut a slight overhang on the edge so that I can wrap it around to the inside of the tower. I'm using a prepasted vinyl paper, so I go ahead and put wallpaper paste on both the tower itself and the wallpaper, and then I laid that small piece in, wrapped it around, and rubbed it down with a dry cloth.The larger side of the tower is a bit more tricky, because I have to go around corners with it. I took a piece of wallpaper, already cut to the largest height that I would need, and held it onto the tower. I then folded the paper back/down until I found my lines, and continued to do this all the way around. That gives me my lines where I can go ahead and finish cutting that paper, and that will give me the height I need to go all the way around it. I have again left myself an overhang to wrap around to the inside of the tower on this piece. I then put my paste on the paper, lay it on the tower where I've already drawn the lines, wrap it around, and rub it down with a dry cloth.Now it's time to wallpaper the inside of the tower. Normally, I use the top uncut edge of wallpaper as a gauge, but this time I will use the bottom uncut edge of the wallpaper as my guide. I lay the wallpaper inside the tower, dry, and see how much I need, of course giving myself a bit extra, and then go ahead and pre-cut the wallpaper as much as possible. I am also leaving extra at the top because I am unsure of how the tower roof goes in. Once again, I put wallpaper paste on both the inside of the tower and the wallpaper itself, and I begin laying it in, aligning it at the bottom, and on the first panel, and I then rub just that panel with a dry cloth. Then I move to the next panel, and repeat the process, except that I take the cloth and use my fingernails to run down the edges of the tower room to lay the paper down tight on those edges/creases. Once I'm about halfway done with the tower, I change tactics and go ahead and align the paper at the bottom of the rest of the tower. Then I continue rubbing the dry cloth on the panels, one by one, until I am finished. If the wallpaper has moved up or down, I just gently move it back into place, and rub it down again. I always give the creases an extra rub, just to make sure that stays in there tight.Now, all of this needs to dry overnight. Then I will cut it.Compliments of LPCullen

I tried and tried to come up with the color for the exterior of this house, and kept waiting for it to "speak" to me. Actually, it was speaking to me, but I didn't believe it. So, I called the recipient of the house to get her input and told her what the house said to me, and she said that's OK, that's one of my favorite colors! I had three shades in mind, and again couldn't decide ... So, I put one coat of each color on the back of the house and had youngest son take it to the recipient's house for her choice. After all, it's being done for her and I wanted her to be happy with it. According to youngest son, she was stunned with the detail on it thus far. She also made her choice of the paints, and here it is:I also got more of the walls wallpapered in the house.And I wallpapered the bay in the livingroom.Compliments of LPCullen

Now that I've got my ceilings wallpapered, it's time to figure out what I want to do with the interior. I'm only doing the first two floors for now, because I want Jimmy to modify the roof for me and I can't decide what I am going to do on the third floor until I can see how the modifications will work. As usual, I start with wallpapering the front wall first.For the livingroom, I wanted something that would make that fireplace stand out, plus I have to carpet the room because I messed up the bay window area flooring ... I wanted something warm for the kitchen area, and something that would look good with a lighter "linoleum" ...The second floor will be a boy's nursery, the hallway, and the master bedroom ...Here's an overall view of it thus far:And while I was waiting for the wallpaper to dry, I went ahead and primed the exterior of the house.Compliments of LPCullen

Now that I've got my walls and ceilings primed, it's time to wallpaper the ceilings. Normally, I would turn the house upside down to do that, but because I had polyeurethaned the floors, I had to wallpaper the ceilings while the house was on it's side.I'm going to use the same "real house" textured wallpaper that I used for the ceilings in the Glencroft for this house. I cut the paper to close to the size that I need for each ceiling, but leaving some "overhang" to give me some room to move the paper around to get a good fit. This paper is pre-pasted, so after I cut it to the lengths and widths I needed, I wet it and folded it up for a bit to let the glue set. Then I just laid it into the house on the ceilings and used a dry rag to rub it down. I generally run my fingernails along the creases where the ceiling meets the walls to fit that area.Now I'm ready to cut. I use a razor blade for that, which is the only tool I can use without cutting myself, LOL! I position the razor on the paper, and lay my hand against the wall to keep it steady and to make sure that I cut in a fairly straight line. I also leave a small portion at the edge uncut, since I can never seem to get it right with the razor.Once I have most of the area that I need done cut, I go ahead and lift the wallpaper up by pulling gently on the piece that I just cut, and then I use scissors to snip off the end that I didn't cut. Then I just lay the wallpaper back down and rub over it with a dry washcloth.Compliments of LPCullen

While I was doing my "balancing act" to paint some primer on the house, I had intended to go ahead and put a coat of primer on the outside as well. However, I noticed that Jimmy must have gotten in a hurry because I had "grooves" on the bay and tower, and I just didn't like that. Plus there were a few other areas which I wasn't comfortable with, and I wanted to get the back as smooth as possible too, since it looked like a jigsaw puzzle back there. So, I put some wood putty on and smoothed it down good by dipping my finger into a cup of water and just rubbing it over the wood putty. I let it dry overnight, and then sanded it the next morning.Now the house is just about ready to begin the exterior primer. Compliments of LPCullen

For some reason, I am still waiting on this house to "talk" to me and tell me what it wants me to do. So far, the only thing it has told me is what wallpaper it wants in the living room .... Hmmm .... So, time to think about "priming" the interior of the house by using two coats of semi-gloss primer (I like using semi-gloss paint under my wallpaper because I can more easily move the paper around to position it, and it is easier to remove if I have to). Of course, this house has quite an interesting design to it, and since you all know I simply can't paint unless the house is upside down ... well, hence the title here, The Balancing Act. I had to use cans and whatever else I could come up with to balance the house while I put my primer on, LOL! Normally it wouldn't be that difficult, but because I still haven't decided if I like those floors or not (I used Minwax Colonial Maple to stain them), I have not yet polyeurethaned them. That means I can't get any paint on them, so I have to be super careful!Here are some pictures of me balancing the house up in the air so that I can put my primer on! P.S., try not to laugh too hard! Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to get paint, etc., into a house!Compliments of LPCullen

Jimmy has continued to assemble parts of the McKinley. I'm waiting for him to get to a point where I get to play ...One of the things I find interesting about this house--probably because I've never seen it before--is the back of the house. I note the little holes in the back where you would actually hang it on the wall, but I cannot figure out what goes in the front of the house there to cover those holes ... Hmmm ... guess I'll figure it out as we go.Jimmy has installed the bay window, which is pretty neat I think (starting to fall in love with this house now). It even comes with its own window seat! Pretty cool!He has also been working on the tower, and assembling it. I've been looking at it, trying to figure out if he is creating me a difficult angle to wallpaper. I think he does that on purpose sometimes, just to see me squirm, LOL!He has also caulked some portions of the interior for smooth lines and to add a little additional "security" to the house. We are opting to not put the closet in the bedroom, and there is also a modification that Tracy made to an earlier house where she opened up the top rooms somewhat, and I think I would like to do that as well.Compliments of LPCullen

Unlike Tracy, we have never built this house, or really anything with a tower. The Pierce that we have that we are restoring was already built when we got it. However, I have always liked the look of this little house, and I think a wallhanging house is a fantastic concept! Especially when you start getting a few (like me) and start running out of room to put them ...As usual with me, I pulled the floor boards out first so that I could stain them. I chose Minwax English Oak as the color, and I used two coats of it. I have not yet polyeurethaned the floors, because I want to try the little trick Holly was talking about in adding stain to the wood filler to plug the holes in the floors. Unfortunately, I keep leaving the stain at the other house ...I turned my back for a bit, and Jimmy had already assembled the base shell. He says the house goes together very well.Compliments of LPCullen