Another Mini Weekend

Lisa and I had another mini weekend this past weekend and this time it was at my house.  We had a beautiful day on Saturday and I convinced Lisa we should enjoy the outdoors at the same time as we enjoyed our minis.  Most of my work I've completed on the castle this past summer has been done outside because it's such a messy project.  Here's Lisa working on a much smaller mini project, a dollhouse for a dollhouse!  She's a brave lady, I find 1/12 scale challenging, I could never imagine 1/144 scale!

I continued work on the castle.  I loosely assembled it and located all the edges that still needed to be painted and put a first coat on all those edges.  Once dried I sponge painted the second lighter coat on all the surfaces.  The turret dried first and I was able to get a third even lighter coat on this room.  I detached the walls from the floors before sponge painting (believe me, I'm not that neat of a painter!)

I can see one edge I missed still above the steps to the turret!  You can see the turret is much lighter.  The wood paneled wall is just propped into place and a little off center at this point.  

I am having a little issue with some of the painted edges peeling.  Nothing major, just the top of the chimney and the front edge of the floor.  I have to figure out why it's doing this to ensure it doesn't happen again!  Luckily it's repairable in both situations, but I don't want it to continue to happen.  

I still have a final lighter coat for the turret walls and a finish coat for everything.  I plan to have a much lighter look by the time all the sponged coats are applied.  I think the much lighter colour will work nicely with the "wood tones".  

The paneled wall will be capped with a crown molding, plus I have to build the fireplace mantle as well.  I still have to cut the stones for the crenellation at the top.  I tried cutting them this past week with a blade, but I can't cut it straight through the 1/2" foam, so I may have to cut it on my table saw.  I know it will dull the blade and I only have one blade for the saw, so I am holding off on this task for now.

Here's some close ups of the castle.  You can really notice the lighter finish here on the turret, but I still want it much lighter.  I'm glad I started with the darker coat however, it makes the stones stand out.

I still have to put several layers on the brick.  You can still see where I drew the brick incorrectly on one side.  But it's carved correctly, so once it's all painted, the pencil lines should disappear.

Lighting in areas like the stairwell is important.  Right now you can't see much.  I plan to drill holes up and down through the foam to drop in wires for the lighting.  Considering there is no ceiling in this project I have to work with wall sconces for everything except the stairwell and turret.

Here's a shot of the outside, looking at the turret windows.  I have wood windows to insert into these cutouts.

Overall I am pleased with how this project is coming together.  My incorrectly cut wall it not visible once I painted.  It's a shame I stuck the project in the corner for five years because of this mistake.

Surprisingly, a castle was never a room I would have chosen myself.  But I am glad Camp Mini Ha Ha choose to do this as one of their projects.  It's forced me to research an area I would probably never have looked into had they not went with this idea!

I have so much more to do yet, including a lot of furniture to make.  But I have all the furniture pieces decided on, just have to make them all!  Accessorizing this project will be fun as well.  I've got some great inspiration pictures for the project.  I'm going to have a little fun doing a bit of landscaping outside as well.  But not too much, there's not a lot of space, but a lot of wall.  I'm thinking ivy!

I'm waiting for Lisa to send her pictures from this weekend.  More on our fun weekend together once I get those pictures.  It was great sharing the hobby with someone!  It makes it much more enjoyable!

Until the next time.....

Wanda