Foundation and Miele Appliances

Well, I'm at least gluing the foundation together this morning! Hopefully I can also get an idea of the foamcore/wood pieces I will need and maybe I'll even stop to pick up some supplies on my way to work later. I do enjoy my lazy Monday mornings. Normally I close on Mondays, so I don't have to be at work until 12:30 p.m.

While glue was drying I unpacked and photographed the Miele appliances that arrived!

The oven does take a AAA battery and lights up and makes noises. The range top also lights up and makes noises. The noises are pretty loud and scratchy sounding, but I love the look of the oven light on with the door open, just like a real one.

Included with the appliances were some plastic foods. These may need a little work to make them more realistic.

Unfinished Bespaq Pieces

Craftsman Storage Cabinet

Arrow-Back Armchair

Craftsman Dresser and Mirror

I ran across a selection of unfinished Bespaq items on Mountain Miniatures' website recently. Some of them were a little plainer and seemed like pieces that could work well in my current planned projects, so I bit the bullet and placed an order.

Of course, when I received them, they are definitely unfinished and will need more work than I had anticipated. Not that they are terrible, but there is going to be more sanding than I expected to get them ready to stain or paint. The dresser drawers especially looked a little rougher in general than I was expecting. However, they are the perfect sizes for the intended spaces, so I'm happy overall. And I still like that I get to determine the finish.

I have to really decide on my color schemes for the rooms before I know what I'm doing with them. The seat will need to be recovered on the chair, which is convenient as it came off recently. I was initially going to stain all three pieces, but I may go with painted finishes instead. If not on all three, at least on one or two.

The other order I placed recently was for the small Miele fridge, oven, and microwave from ELF Miniatures. I assume they will show up sometime next week. I've pretty much hit my budget for the month as far as purchases go, but I'm planning on another order from HBS in April to get supplies for the kitchen and bathroom.

I was really inspired by Brae's kitchen from her Baxter Pointe Villa, so I'm going the Houseworks kitchen cabinet route. (Also following suit with the Miele appliances.) We'll see if my kitchen ends up looking half as good as hers!

After the show last weekend, I did stop in at my local miniature shop, Alki Beach Miniatures, yesterday and picked up a few magazines. There are some construction/finishing supplies I still need to get before I start really assembling the shell with glue instead of tape, but I have to figure out exactly what I need first and then I'll probably go next week.

"Denise's City Cottage" for HBS 22nd Annual Creatin' Contest

Here's what the kit photo looks like above...

And the two kits in boxes plus a door I also ordered...

And here's a view of the sliding door and windows that came with the first kit I opened.

Starting to assemble for test fitting.

Exterior view for dry test fitting. All the pieces were there! 

And an interior view as well. 

Just wanted to share some images of the kit at the beginning of the project. As I'm planning on kit-bashing the two kits together, there are some modifications I'll be needing to plan to make before things get fastened together. This was also good to do, because the instructions are all just text. I needed to figure out what pieces were what, and where they went! The roof actually doesn't have as much of a curve to it as it looks like. Also, it is nice to see the inside of the space with the rafters to get a better sense of the space. This thing is going to be bigger than I imagined. Now I'm starting to see why the smaller scales have been gaining popularity since they require less storage space.

Hopefully, I'll get a little more work done today on the walls I'm needing to modify. Probably not much will happen tomorrow because we're planning on going to the Seattle Miniature Show (yay!) and then maybe the zoo, if the weather is nice.

Fun Deliveries This Week

I received my two "Denise's City Cottage" kits from HBS this week. Also, a door that I plan to use with this project. I'll be combining the two kits into one structure (assuming everything goes as planned). Excited to get started on this and I think I'll be setting the barely started bungalow kit aside while I get this going. 

Also received in the mail this week was a little sofa! I had it delivered to my work, which is a furniture retailer. I got to tell my coworkers that I had a sofa delivered to the showroom that day, and it was in my locker.

I've been looking for pieces or kits that are a little more modern, and ran across this on Ebay. I'm trying not to buy much at the moment beyond materials to finish the room box/house kits I have, but this one seemed to have a nice aesthetic. Also, I'd had a few glasses of wine, so it was much easier to hit the "purchase" button. I love it, although the fabric is out of scale. When it comes time to furnish, we'll see how it works, and if it doesn't I just may attempt a recover.

One other thing of note is that the Seattle Miniature Show for 2015 is only a week away! I'll probably break my rules to buy a few things while I'm there. Thank goodness I get paid next Friday, conveniently beforehand. I had wanted to take a class potentially, but there weren't any workshops that really spoke to me. There is one on lighting that looked interesting, but it was on Monday and I have to work that day.

HBS 22nd Annual Creatin' Contest

Been a little under the weather this past week, so I didn't do any more work on the Craftsman Bungalow. I had still been thinking about the HBS contest though, and I had a sudden flash of inspiration for what I could do with this kit. Since the entry due date isn't until December, I went ahead and placed an order today for my "Denise's City Cottage Kit" (see picture above). I don't know how well I'll be able to juggle two projects, but I really loved the idea I came up with so I'm going to go for it. The contest will give me a little more structure and deadline than the bungalow kit, which should help to keep me on track. Also, it is smaller, although I have many plans to customize it. But no more kits until at least one of these projects is finished, I swear.

Never did hear back from Lawbre about custom windows/doors and I didn't call them either. I figure I should challenge myself and try to work with the pieces that came with the kit. They'll need to be modified for sure. I did see that Jocelyn is coming along on her bungalow kit via her blog. It looks lovely! I really think her color scheme is great and I like seeing what other people are doing with the same kit. Would love to work on my house tomorrow, but I think we're having some folks over for dinner so I think my full scale apartment will be what actually gets worked on. Need to clean things up so that we can have company and mess it all up again!