Starting the second room ~ The Flower shop

It has been a while! I hope you have all arrived safe and well in 2022.

I had to put my minis aside for a while because of some family stuff going on. I am finding it a little difficult to pick up where I left off. Almost forgotten where I was up to so I thought writing down what I did before it all came to a grinding halt would be a start...

I had build the carcasses for the two ground floor rooms of this house HERE back in October so after finishing the smaller of the two for 'Kaj Larsen's Furniture' as much as I could HERE , I started turning the other into a florist shop.

~ ~ ~ Ea's Blomster ~ ~ ~ 

[Ea's Flowers]

The box needed a rear door and stairs in the left hand back corner, so I decided to get those ready before finishing the walls and floor. 

I had bought a door, I wanted to use but when I took it out of the packaging, I was disappointed to realize that there was no 'glass' in the transom windows above the door. I knew I needed to adapt the door a bit to fit but these things are still irritating, don't you think?

The door needed to swing the other way, the frame was not deep enough for the build-up wall and anything with glass is so much easier to paint without the glass in place -So I started by pretty much pulling the door and door frame apart. 30sec in microwave on high to soften glue - Thanks for that handy tip Brea (Otterine's Miniatures).

The door will sit flush with the external wall, so to allow for the extra thickness in the wall, I had to cut away the architrave that was glued to one side of the frame.

I added perspex to the transom and cut tiny pieces of wood to match those already in the window frame to hold it in place. I also cut strips for wood to add a door stop all the way around the inside of the frame - to stop the draft!

While it was all in pieces, I sanded and stained the threshold with oak stain. The door and frame was painted first with an 'undercoat' of dark brown the two coats of a fawn before being sanded and 'dirtied' in strategic places.

The finished door seemed a little bare, so I decided it needed a simple curtain. Lace was too fancy since this a back door allowing the florist to get to the rear yard behind the shop, so I made this simper curtain from a scrap of very fine cotton with lines of drawn threads.

I am forever surprised how much time you can spend adapting bought pieces - but equally satisfied that the playing around can transform a plain pine door into something that looks kind of real.

Next up, the stairs...

I will put that in the next post so this one won't go on forever LOL.

Have a lovely Monday.

Anna X