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Other than a few minor details, like putting flowers in and glueing on the flower box, my studio is now a reality. Mirrored Walls I used acrylic mirrors that I was very fortunate to buy off a really nice guy on ebay. It is better and cheaper than the mirror sheet I bought to start with. You can cut and drill into it. I dryfitted the roof and marked where the inner half wall came to. Then holding my breathe and praying that it would still fit, I glued the front roof together and measured and remeasured then glued the mirrors to it before placing it on the house. Low and behold, for once in my life I measured correctly. The roof still fit and the mirrors met perfectly or at least as close as I could figure out how. The next step was to set in the small tea cup hooks for the balance bar. Since I didn't want to push my luck with measuring again, and the bar needed to be straight, Riley drilled the holes and put the hooks in. Now, you might say what's the big deal. Well, with roof angled and mirrors reflecting all images--it was like working in a fun house. It really kinda boggled the mind. Funny note about these mirrors--sitting at another table and looking at the house, I kept wondering when I stained the walls. The light bulb went off, and I realized I was looking at the reflection of the darn floor. Here's a picture--feed back is welcomed. Shingles After getting the side and back roof parts on, I decided not to use the foo foo trim on the top. Two reasons, actually 1. I didn't review the instructions again before I so merrily attached the parts and 2. They little thing that was supposed to connect that back corner no longer fit. So what's a person to do, I close the gap and got rid of them. :lol: Now I understand when people say a lot of bashing comes about do to misunderstanding the instructions. The Lily had shingles and I really did not have a problem with them, but it's roof is not angled. That back corner gave me fits. I didn't do to terribly bad on the V of the front, but I could not seem to get the back to line up at the corner. Now, this could very well come from the fact that I can't draw a straight line and I really thought I was doing pretty good, until Riley sitting across the room (and I thought was paying me a bit of attention)says "Peg, you're crooked." I started to take offense, then realized he meant the shingles. I ended up taking a small level and placing on top of the row to mark the next. At this point I had been happily glueing them on with tacky glue. Those suckers were stuck good. If you look real close you can see where I started trying to straighten them up. Needless to say, I was real worried about the front, but Riley surprised me and when I came home from work the day I was to start on the front he had taken pity on me and drew lines for me to follow on the front. Bless his heart, without him doing that I probably would have done a real hack job. I used fleck stone paint, I wanted a lighter color to contrast with the brown of the house. I also started using hot glue, I figured if it was good enough for Tracy and Deb, it was good enough for me. Boy did that make the job go so much faster. Elevator It is not working, but I do have an elevator. Riley made 2 solid circular discs and 1 with the middle cut out, using scrap pieces and then he made 4 support posts. He notched the discs and the poles so they would fit in each other flush. Using hot glue he first place the edge of a clear plastic sheet and then slowly rolled to the next pole, glued and rolled to the next. Here's the model: Here's ours: In Studio: We are still debating on how to do the 2nd floor, but more than likely, it will on have a partial frame to give the appearance of the elevator rising. Finished and Furnished Thank You I like to thank Greenleaf owners and members for asking me to be a member of this team. It has been an honor. I just hope I did the house justice. I very much enjoyed the experience and want to say how much I appreciate the advice and help I've received not only with this house, but since joining the forum. I feel I've made new friends and have learned a lot of new things. Again, Thank You.

I may have mentioned that Riley is a truck driver, although he is home every night, he leaves very early and usually has to be in bed by 7:00 or 7:30. I mention this because you will understand that sometimes to get him to do things for me he only gets to work on my projects if he happens to get home by 3 in the afternoon and is not to tired. Well, I've been depending (and waiting) for him to hang my interior door, in order for me to move on and get the floor/ceiling glued in and to glue my roof. The interior door was all I needed to call the downstairs completed (other than the elevator that may or may not get done this weekend). Night before last he promised he would hang it today, but I asked him, what he did to the front door. He went to bed, and I decided to tackle it. Thinking he could fix any damage I may do. So here's what I did: Step one: Drill a hole in the doorway of the wall in both the top and bottom. Riley used a dremel, but since I really didn't want to take a chance of destroying the wall, and I have been known to let it get away from me, I used a tiny hand drill that came with a "starter mini tool kit". Following is a picture of all the things needed to do this. The hole was drilled in the roof the width of the drill from the edge. Using this measurement Step two: Drill hole in top of door. Now to make sure my measurement for the bottom of the door was correct, I inserted the small nail through the floor while holding the door in place and push just enough to mark the spot where to drill the bottom hole. Step Three. Insert a pin--I used a regular straight pin, but one a little thicker might work just as well, (Riley started out using a needle he had shortened.) I cut off a very small portion of the pin, but that's because I had drilled the hole about half way the distance of the drilled portion of the bit. Step four: Insert pin into top doorway hole; line up bottom of door and insert nail. I used a short, tiny nail, I think there called finishing nails. Riley actually rounded off a dowel piece and use it as a plug. I did have to take it out and sand the sides of my door a little more, one side wanted to hang a little. But it went back in easily enough. Here's the end result: If your pin seems to small, you can add glue to it to keep it in place. My door may not swing as freely as I thought it would or as freely as Riley's did, but it does swing. For my first try, I'm very proud of myself. I apologize for the quality of the pictures, but it is hard to hold things in place and hold the camera at the right angle also.

Although, I really wanted to be able to do my dance floor by just scribing and staining the foam core, I just never could in all my practices (and believe me there was several) I just could not for the life of me get the depth of the score just right. I was either to deep and the underlying foam would stain (which would not work for the ceiling portion) or it was to shallow and the lines wouldn't show up. I am also hampered by the inability to draw a straight line even using a metal ruler. So I finally decided to bite the bullet and use skinny sticks. I have got to say staining all those little sticks (it took almost 200) was a blast and I felt like a child playing in mud puddles. I had read where Holly had heard of people taking 2 aluminum pans, poking holes in one and pouring stain in the bottom one and letting it drain. This sounded like an excellent idea to get 200 itty bitty sticks stained and not take forever. Well, it did save some time staining them, but silly me was using Mini wax Poly Shade Bombay Mahogany (you know the kind with the polyurethane already mixed in). That was my first mistake, this stuff is thick and doesn't drain like normal stain, so each stick had to be handled individually to wipe off the excess. My second mistake was putting to many sticks in at once. I had to keep stirring the mixture to get an even coat. The picture shows me wearing gloves, this was after I realized that my hands were also getting stained and I had a meeting at work the next day where I would have to be shaking hands with community leaders from 5 counties and they probably would wonder what I had been playing in. Needless to say before I got all those sticks stained, I had it running down my elbows and had puddles forming on my table. If I hadn't gotten so tickled at myself, it might have seemed like real work. After the stain had dried I tackled the job of gluing each individual stick to the floor. After the first two rows I got a system going and it worked real well. Again, a hint from Holly, I took one of those plastic credit cards from a "free offer" I would lay a bead of glue and then using the credit card as a smoother I would lay a row of sticks. You can barely see the credit card because it happens to be one of those clear one. I'm not sure if having the polyurethane already mixed in helped or not, but I was able to apply a second & third coat of stain after gluing it down to get a better color and no glue stains showed up. (Thank God) But I did have to paint the ceiling portion with about 3 layers to hide where I had accidentally picked the roof up with stain on my hands and it had transfered. Here's the finished floor It is still not permanently attached I have to finish installing my interior door. I kept looking at where the tabs joined and finally asked Riley if he would cut me some corner posts--I felt this would help hide any gaps that I hadn't be able to completely sill up and would help add more accent to the house. So I glued those in place on all corner joints. I used real vinyl flooring for the porch covering. Again, at first I experimented with Tracy's method of scoring grout lines on a different medium, and gave up but while visiting my sister, she had some left over from redoing her daughters floor and I swiped a piece. Luckily I swiped extra, cause I had trouble cutting the piece I wanted with the right pattern. Riley decided it was easier to hang the front door using pins. He drilled a whole in the bottom of the house, one in the top and bottom corner of the door and glued a pin in the door and carefully inserted it. It works. On the interior door, I made from scratch wood a trim to cover the top, bottom and side and then again using scrap wood glued little rectangles on the front so that from the reception room the door is not so plain. Plus, it give Riley something more to stick a pin in to make it open and shut. This idea was probably borrowed from Melissa. The door handles are made from some old earring I had, but they remind me of the "glass" knobs I've seen in some homes. Right now, it is just propped up and not attached. But once it is installed and the trim glued in the downstairs will basically be complete. I've had an idea every since I started this house/studio that I wanted to put in an elevator. This has been one of my procrastinating points. I finally found a picture of one, that I think I (meaning Riley, really) will be able to closely duplicate. He has drawn up plans and started working on the actual building and the transformer to our mini saw went kaput. But the new transformer arrived today, so I'm hopeful that within the next few days he will see if his idea works. Now, let me say, before I got him involved I spent and ruined several plastic tubes and borders trying myself to get the look I wanted. Those mistakes are in file 13 right now and hopefully will never see the light of day again. Whereas, playing with the itty bitty sticks had me laughing, this had me fit to be tied. If this doesn't work out, then we will go to plan B (of course I'm probably up to plan H or I). This is also one reason I've not finished the second floor, we are debating on whether we will actually cut a hole in the floor or just give the illusion of one. Until I can get the floor in and measure with a ballerina on the roof/wall to place the barre and mirrors, I'm kinda at a stand still. I can work on the porch supports and finish the interior door. But I really don't even want to do much touch up paint until I'm through actually gluing the roof and floor in.

Before I start this weeks blog, please notice several thank yous to different members for their most welcome tips and tutorials. Without the help and teachings of members like you, I would be totally lost. There is mentioned two things that Riley and I made during this week that I hope will help some one to--the desk and my bay seat. During the week, I mentioned to Riley that I would like a "customer service" type desk for my reception area. One that is a little taller and the front slightly rounded. After showing him a couple of examples, he said he thought he had the general idea. The next day when I came home from work he had made a "prototype" out of cardboard to see if that was what I was talking about. And By Dog it was. So last weekend he took scrap pieces from the kit and part of a wooden floor I had bought but wasn't going to use and made me one. I think it turned out great. It only needed a light stain and it was exactly what I had in mind. My next step was to add the front bay window. For some reason I had some bad gaps, but solved that by using small dowels (actually I think these particular dowels was given to me by a friend that uses them to put color on hair at the beauty shop). I want to thank Nutti and Holly for this idea--it worked perfectly. I was afraid if I used putty it would go through and ruin my pre-wallpapered walls. Touch up paint job is in the very near future. But since I know I will have a lot more touch ups to do, I will wait and to it all at one time. I was very nervous doing the inside and adding the plastic windows, when working on the Lily I ruined the windows by putting them in to early and didn't won't this to happen to these windows. A problem I ran into with several things that needed gluing was that none of the clamps I had seem to reach areas I needed them in, but I used a lot of masking tape. After placing the window and trim in the interior of the bay. I felt that a window seat would look great and also give the "parents'" another place to sit while waiting for the dancers. I took a pieces of paper and made a template of the wall curve. Then I used this to draw on a piece of scrap wood, and took it to my newly acquired mini table saw and cut it out. Keep looking through scrap pieces until I found one the right height for the base and cut it to fit the front width of the seat and glued and clamped together. While this dried, I took my paper template and cut another one slightly smaller out of foam board and covered it with material from an old tie, my boss had given me. (When I read that old ties was good for upholstery and drapes, I asked if he had any he was ready to get rid of and he brought me a sack full). Here is the end result before the "cushioned" seat is added and here it is finished. I am probably over proud of this, but I'm usually so bad about measuring, that when it fit, I was overjoyed, and though Riley has use the mini table saw several times, it was the first time that I actually used it "unsupervised" LOL. I've been really bad about not referring to the instructions, since I had dry fitted it together 3 different times, and that led to slight problem when I went to do the side bay. I ever so carefully fitted the sides and front of the bay together, checked and rechecked the fit and then glued to my heart's content. Stood back and was proud that it fit and didn't have big gaps and then went to put the roof on. (Refer to first sentence in this paragraph--not reading instructions) The roof wouldn't go--remember it was made to go in first. So like any amateur builder what do I do--went begging to Riley to figure out how to fix this without me having to take it all apart. (The poor man really did not know what he was getting into when I first asked him if he thought "I could build a house" . I don't think that the word I meant "we".) Being a very good husband and man and living up to my and I might add his daughters expectations that he can fix anything, He pondered on it while at work and came home cut one of the tabs off the roof that would have slid inside and made it fit. So the side bay has a roof--next problem the window ledge (I beg dementia--I really never read until it was way to late that the bay was suppose to slide under the roof and in between the ledge) No way was that sucker going to hood inside--and with the little L shape tab it stood out from the wall about 1/4 or more a inch. Again it was by by to tabs. (Think I'm starting a pattern here?) With all the alterations and cutting of tabs it still looks pretty much like it would with them. I've added a soft beige carpet to the "reception" area and wallpaper flooring in the side room. I've added my skinny sticks molding to the corners of the walls to cover bad glue and gap mistakes, but all in all I'm beginning to see it come together. Last week Riley had gone to the doctor and had a prescription for predisone--I won't go into why right now, but the pack it came in I kept looking at and thought this would make a great display/bulletin board for the outside. So I printed pictures of my dgd from their recital a couple of years ago, made a brief schedule and put them in the empty pack. I need you opinion if you think this is to "out of scale" or as an outside board do you think it will work? Right now it is only posted with mini wax so it will be easy to remove. I've started work on my front door. With the Lily I used the tiny hinges and they haven't held up well. Reading Holly's way of using chamois for hinges I thought I would try that. I've glued the chamois between the door panels (using Holly's directions of cutting 1/2 inch about 2 inches long and then cutting that into 3). I've also sanded the door so it will fit the opening. So my next step will be to see how to make it work, by gluing the exposed strip to the door trim. Right now, before gluing, it seems to not want to open very far. So Holly, if you can help me with that it would be appreciated. What have I left out or not done yet? (see I even printed out Holly's instructions to go by while I tried this. Thank you Holly). My edges to the house look unfinished, so I will be putting up corner molding on the outside to hopefully add a more finished look and hide where the tabs fit together. I think this will work better for me, than to putty and sand till. So the next couple of days, I will hopefully get my front door hung, make another panel to put with the inside door so it can be hung, add molding to the outside corners and decide how to finish the front porch. I had printed out (thanks to Melissa's help with photoshop) a tile pattern, but oldest daughter says she thinks the pattern I picked even though looked like real tile--is more of an inside tile and not a porch tile. So back to the drawing board on that one. Then on to the second floor.

This past week, I was able to make a some progress, not much, my regular work schedule has been hectic, its budget time so a couple of days when I got home I just sat and looked at the house. I did browse the internet and downloaded some pictures that will be display in the reception office of dancers and ballerina shoes, etc. I also downloaded some printables for a slate/rock pattern that I would like to use for the porch. So if any of you can help me with some hints with Photoshop it would be appreciated. I just bought this software program and although I understand it will do just about anything, it doesn't appear to be "user friendly". Since, I'm going to lower the second floor, the tabs/slots that the normal floor would be using was filled with wood putty and sanded and painted over. To lower the floor, Riley figured out that we would only have to cut off one section of the middle wall. Basically he sawed about inch off the top of the center wall, but only the portion that serves as the back wall for the little side room. Knowing that the floor had to be supported, we decided to use crown molding in the downstairs room. This serves two purposes now, its pretty and dresses up the room, but it also gives us a basis to glue/place the floor on for support. I hope the following picture shows better than this verbal explanation. And view from the top Now here came the fun part for this semi beginner builder . First let me back up, the molding's back surface was not even, therefore it necessitated that each piece be fixed to give a level surface to glue to the wall. This was done by adding wood putty to level it and sanding. I also decided to paint the portions that would go in the little side room. I mixed some white paint to the Nutmeg colored paint to tone it down, which gave me (at least in the cup I was mixing it up in) a creamy milk chocolate color. For the large downstairs room I left it white, I debated on giving it a gold color but decided that might be a bit to much gold accent with the gold accent I had already used on the wallpaper. Next I decided it would be easier to add the molding to the walls while they were laying flat. Novice that I am, I remembered for the first couple of walls to leave a space for where the walls would join and even kept checking that the joints and tabs were not hindered, but I guess a brain fog hit the next time I was able to work on the house and finish gluing, because when actually assembling I had to "saw" off several more edges to make them work. For putting the wallpaper on, I used tacky glue, which I like to also use to glue the walls together. But the bottle was about empty, so I went looking for my brand new bottle and couldn't find it anywhere. Luckily, I found a bottle of Titebond. I did not realize that it did not dry clear as the tacky glue. Long story short, my dance studio will now have molding in the corners, made from skinny sticks. Hopefully, this weekend I will be able to install them. The sticks are not quite long enough, so it will take one and 1/3 of another to reach from floor to ceiling. I will play with this and hopefully where they meet join will not be to obvious. Right now, the bottom shell is glued together and I'm seriously considered finishing out the first floor with the interior doors, carpet/tile, bay windows and porch covering before tackling the second floor. I will also be spending some time in doing touch up painting to the edges where the walls meet on the outside. I've considered, but not sure yet if I will follow through, of using on just the corners a "sandpaper brick". I really need to scout around, but I think I've seen some businesses that only have brick only on the corners of the wood structure. I have been please that it has taken very little work in getting the tabs to fit tightly. Some minor "carving" of the tabs was needed and some innovative use of masking tape to get the walls to stay put while the glue dried.

I finally repaired all of my paint damage. Since I'm not going to electrify this house, I thought I would wallpaper before assembly. Last year while working on the Lily, I was fortunate enough to go into a local paint store and picked up for free several sample wallpaper books (about 10). So I spent time going through the various books to figure out what was small enough in scale to use. I still hope to make this a dance studio, so the long first floor room will serve as my reception area. I had a tan/beige dollhouse carpet that I hadn't used, therefore I picked wallpaper that I hope will coordinate. The small first floor room will be a sort of combination changing/bathroom for the dancers. Right now I'm leaning toward (and have ordered) a folding screen to place in the room, which the dancers can either hide behind to change, or place in front of the toilet for privacy. This room is done in green and I will also use sample wallpaper for the floor. I'm waiting on some more molding to arrive, after measuring and cutting the pieces I had, I realized I would be a tad short. I've seriously considered using slate from a child's lap type chalk board for the porch covering. But I've checked with a couple of Dollar Stores and Walmart and haven't found what I wanted. (I know they use to carry them real cheap and use to hang near the checkouts. But that's par for the course, when you're not looking for something it appears everywhere and when you need it, its gone. LOL). The second floor wallpaper has a little gold running through it and is not what I would normally use in a house, but I thought that it might look OK for a dance studio--a little out of the ordinary. Sorry to say that I've not worked out all the glitches involved yet with the slanted roof, but I have ordered and received some mirrored sheets but if they don't cover the slanted portion enough or stick well I may in up having different wallpaper on it. My next step after the molding arrives will be to actually put it together again this time with glue then I will start the process of working on the 2nd floor. I've experimented with some scrap pieces for my flooring and right now I'm still can't quite get the grasp of making the indentions in the foam board uniform. But if that doesn't work, I will cover it with skinny sticks. I work best though tackling one problem at a time.

Last weekend, about the only thing accomplished was Riley got the foam board floor cut and cut the wall so that it will fit. I got a little sanding done with some help from 6 yr. old Rebecca. She wanted to help, so I handed her an emory board and let her work on some tabs. She loved it. At one time she did have the sanding block, and did a fair job of following the grain except when she decided another spot needed sanding and zip across the grain she went--luckily no damage done. Today, though, since I'm not going to electrify this house, I decided that I could go ahead and paint the outside walls. I spent some time in sanding trying to ensure that the surface was real smooth. Then I painted the walls with American Accent Nutmeg and used Heirloom white for the primer for the inside walls. Of course, in my usual manner, when the Nutmeg dried and I turned it over to paint the interior--I got overzealous (actually until I started on the third piece, it didn't occur to me to check where that extra paint slopping over the window openings was going) and when it dried had the unique pleasure of having to sand and/or use fingernail polish remover to get the white off the nutmeg on the front and repainting. (Queen of the Do-Over--that's me ) I know this doesn't look like much progress, but it took me most of the day. While waiting for this to dry (again) I decided to try a trick I had read about in an old Nutshell News magazine. It had an article in it where someone had used foam board for flooring and instead of using siding or sticks glued to the floor to get a hardwood look, they scribed the board and painted. Earlier in the week, I had tried to cut a few shingles to the appropriate width and had trouble with it following the grain instead of my knife. So reading this, I thought "Let's try this, cuts out a step and the picture they had of their floor looked real good". So here is my attempt (at least I remembered to try on a scrap piece--maybe save me another "do-over" LOL). Here is my attempt. I'm going to wait until tomorrow and spray or paint varnish on top. The stain is Miniwax Early American. I may try different colors, it may look better darker. Feed back on trying this something new will be greatly appreciated. I will explain more about how we plan on lowering the floor later when I get to the point of inserting it.

Over the weekend, my real house had to be cleaned so not much was accomplished on the cottage, except getting out my clamps, glues, and various other tools which had been packed into the spare bedroom, last time Lori and family were home. But today, I was out with a stomach bug, and what better to do, but start on the cottage. I started out by punching out all the pieces needed for the building and grouping them together as called for in the instructions and placing them in plastic bags labeled by Section A, B etc from the instructions. Doing it this way all the parts now fit in a priority mail box and I don't have to sift through all the big sheets. The furniture and scrap wood are still in the box. Then I started dry fitting the pieces together, luckily Riley made it home in time to help on some of the trickier parts that you go counterclockwise on. (I'm not good at left/right or clockwise/counterclockwise directions). I'm so glad we did this, because seeing the dry fit, made me realize I want to make the second floor a little higher, meaning I have to lower the 1st floor ceiling. After much discussion, Riley thinks he will be able to do this with out very much trouble. (We've just bought from minicrafttool.com a mini bench sander and table saw and I think he wants a chance to check them out B) ) It will probably mean cutting a new floor in order not to leave a gap. Right now the plans to do this is mostly in his mind so I can't relate it just yet. He has marked the walls where he plans to cut them down and I know that crown molding will be used to sit the new wall on. Doing it this way, he thinks he won't have to change the front and right walls. So now, I will need to take it all a part, do a little extra sanding before it is started to put together for good. I only had one piece, porch post/right trim, that I had to use a little glue on after it split when punching it out. Trying to think a few steps ahead on this one, hoping that will keep me from having to redo a lot of things. Only time will tell.

Yesterday, here in middle GA, it was a lovely sunny day. So I get the cottage, take it outside to DH Big Green Egg table (that's a grill/smoker for those that don't know what a Big Green Egg is ) and decide to try something different. I've looked this kit over for a week, the wood looks good. So I decide to save on some hand sanding and take the buzz sander out and give each sheet a good sanding, before I punch the first piece out. I was so glad, nothing fell out and got lost; none of the wood split or separated. I'm thinking good idea. So today, I decide to try Holly's technique of sealing. Went to Home Depot and bought sanding sealer, came home took things back out to the table and except for sheets 1 and 2 (the floors) sealed them all with Miniwax Sanding Sealer. This to says it will make sanding easy--I hope another good idea B) I don't know yet, whether I've saved myself some hand sanding or not, but the sealer really brought out the wood grain and I feel like I've accomplished something. (Don't really know why, all parts still in sheets--now back in the box) Also by doing it this way, I was able to look over all the sheets and the ones that did have tiny ruts or flaws, I went ahead and filled with putty before sanding. Also while at Home Depot I bought paint--Nutmeg and Heirloom White. I'm thinking of mixing to get the nutmeg color a little lighter. I haven't decided yet what stain I will use for the floors. As I posted elsewhere, I'm thinking seriously about making this a dance studio, the open airy top floor I think will work out for that. Downstairs will be office/waiting room and a breakroom, but we'll see when the parts actually start being punched out and put together.