Planting the Seed......

This is going to be quick and painless.....I had Wednesday Witches mini meeting here today so I didn't get a lot done.

Tessie, on the other hand, did quite well with her planting.

I gave her free run of my landscaping box and she went to work. Here you see her "cupping" leaves with a ball stylus.

She then glued them to plant stems. She cheats, you see. None of that plant the seed and watch it grow business for her. Put it together and be done with it is her motto.

I will show you some of the methods that she uses tomorrow.
This is what she accomplished today.....Yes. She still has custody of my ficus. We are going to have to have a serious talk about plant pilfering.

I need the rest of the afternoon off. For now I am going to let her think that she got away with it. Tomorrow we get back to business.

See you then.

Movin' On Up!

I was cleaning out files this morning and found this. This is where Tessie started out. Yup. She used to live in a small one room place. It is one of those curved front, Cortland Cases.One of her first complaints(one of many) was that there wasn't enough room to even have a cat, much less swing a cat. That's when I knew that there was going to be trouble.

You may recognize the cupboard, sewing chest and wicker. She moved all of that to the cottage after I built that for her.

How much things have changed.....Give her a little room to move and she moves! And then she moves again.

She says that she is keeping to cottage for a retreat when she wants to be alone. Hmmmm......I think that means she is going to want new furniture for the townhouse. This furniture is staying with the cottage.

I finally got her approval on the slate floor this morning. I did the coloring on it and I finished the roof top as well. She is all anxious to move in and start working.

The slate floor went like this. I told you yesterday that I cut the pieces as I went. I glued them down with Aileen's Fast Grab. Then I took a ball stylus and ran it along all of the seams. That pushes down the cut edges of the paper and gets rid of the "cut" look. This morning I took several Prismacolor pencils in earth tones and metallic and just grazed the top of the slate randomly. That emphasizes the texture and adds depth.

It didn't take long for Tessie to take over. She took one look and announced, "The rest of the house doesn't need to be finished for me to start work up here. I can commute."

"Tessie, your cottage is less than ten feet from the roof top. I don't think that you will have to commute. You could probably walk if you wanted to."

I suspect that the zapping power is back. She is now happily zapping back and forth. She got the potting table up there. I just saw her zip by with one of the plants from my greenhouse.....Hey! Wait a minute! My greenhouse!!!!

"Tessie! Bring that ficus back right now. Grow your own plants!"

I don't like the look of things. She is in the bedroom now, trying to enlist Zar to carry bags of potting soil in exchange for veggies that she hasn't grown yet.... I have to go now and guard my greenhouse.

See you tomorrow.

A Clean Slate.....

I am beginning to hate porch rails, posts and spindles. It took a couple of hours to paint them all. Boring! Boring! Boring! Thank goodness for books on CD!

First I painted all of the indentations on the corner posts gold. Then I did the rest in white. I really dislike, strongly, the little spaces in the rails, between the spindles. That took the longest. I know some people don't paint them, but I felt the need.

Tessie got in the act when I started gluing the posts to the rails. She made sure that everything was square and level. RGT even provided a couple of 1/8" spacers so that the railings set exactly that far off the floor all the way around.

Before I could glue the railings in place, I needed to finish the slate floors on the balcony and the roof. I got as far as the balcony floor.

Remember the old song....Monday's wash day. Well it's that, among other things. So I have to get serious and do some house work along with the mini house work.

Anyway, about the balcony floor. I have my own method of doing slate. I have this paper that I bought many years ago at a now out of business, art store. I still have a couple of sheets left. When it runs out, I am going to be very unhappy.

My method is to whack off a piece of the paper approximately the size of the floor that I want to cover. Then I just cut as I go. Stick it down and cut another piece. No real rhyme or reason. It works for me. After I get it laid down, I go over all of the grout lines with a ball stylus to soften and roll the edges of the paper.

I couldn't wait until I put the Prismacolors on the floor to see what it was going to look like. The balcony rail is not glued down. I sat it in place and Tessie, nickers in a twist, wanted to know why I skipped a step. I assured her that this was just a trial run.

That seemed to mollify her.

As I said before, I have to do some serious big house work now. Tomorrow I will show you what a difference the Prismacolors make.

See you then.

The Jig's Up!

RGT provides a jig for doing the railings for the balcony and widow's walk around the top of the townhouse.

I did the railings in a quarter of the time that it usually takes to do them when you have to measure everything out.

This handy, dandy gadget is wonderful! All you do is put glue on the ends of the posts, lay them in the jig and then shove the rail tops and bottoms on them. Square them up and you are done!


The second rail is a bit more difficult than the first, but with the help of a spacer underneath the edge of the rail, it is relatively easy to do. Can you tell that I am enjoying the ease of this kit? I am!

Tessie helped with the glue on the ends part. Then I put the top squares and balls on all of the posts. I don't think that RGT trusts me to do it right the first time. They gave me an extra post and a lot of extra spindles.

Anyway, that was the work for the day. I have to go back and keep Tessie from using the posts for bowling pins. She is hunting for a ball as we speak. I saw her setting up the pins in formation when I left to write this. I have to get back now.

See you tomorrow.

Welcome!

It's time, once again to welcome new people to the party. Come on in. Sit down. Have a cup of coffee and a cupcake.

I still haven't solved the problem of getting the urls to paste in. I can copy them, but blogger absolutely won't let me paste. Debbie, sorry your suggestion didn't work. The last time this happened, someone told me exactly where to go and what button to push. I think it was somewhere in the "settings" area, but I just can't find it. I am hoping that someone that reads this will know what button to push. Please help! I am having to type them all by hand. I hope I get them right.

Anyway, on to party time.

Here are the newbies.

These are the ones with no information about blogs of their own. We have Lady lavendar, Heidi, Vicki, and Gigi Didi.

Then there is Elena of Elena's OOAK Dreams. http://elenasdreamsooak.blogspot.com/ She is a dollmaker.

Next is Beth of Bellesanbeaus Crafts. http://bellesanbeauscrafts.blogspot.com/ She seems to do a little bit of everything.

Then there is Mar of My Small World. http://mars-smallworld.blogspot.com/ Lots of beautiful minis to see.

Sinem of Rosesmn is next at http://rose-blogum.blogspot.com/ She does lots of crafts and there is a recipe for Baklava that looks great....Now I just need to find out the translation for Yapilisi. Everything else translated from the Turkish.

Next is Lenira of Minimundomania. http://minimundomania.blogspot.com/ She is doing interesting restoration work.

Then there is Maia of Maia's Twinkle Miniatures. http://maiastwinkleminiatures.blogspot.com/

Love her mini kitchen.

Julianna of Kouvolan Seudun Nukkekotiladyt is next. http://nukkekotiladyt.blogspot.com/

She has mini food that will make your mouth water.

Last but not least, we have, Choupavril of Mini Rivoli. http://rivolistory.typepad.fr/minirivoli/

Beautiful flowers and other minis to see here.

Welcome to all of you. I hope that you will stop by often.

Paint It Black!

If all else fails, that's my chosen color. This morning I hit the mother of all garage sales! There is a neighborhood here in town that holds a garage sale every other year. There were at least 4 or five sales on every street. I found lots of goodies. No minis officially.

I did however find this gem of a shelf for two dollars.

Some crazy person had painted it pink and someone before that had painted it black. It is ashamed that they didn't just leave it with the original wood finish.

I decided that since I only paid two bucks, I wasn't going to go to the trouble of stripping it at the moment. I couldn't take the pink so I went with the Rolling Stones and decided to "Paint it black."

The interior of the shelf is 9 1/2" high.....Room height....The width is 14 1/2" not a bad room length. The shelf on the bottom is about 7" deep.

Being a crazed miniaturist, I didn't see "shelf". I saw "room". After I finished painting it, I whipped out a piece of illustration board and a lonely piece of wallpaper that had no mates.

I cut the board to 9 1/2" by 14 1/2". I spray glued the paper to the front and wrapped the edges around to the back and voila! Room shelf.

I could have filled in the sides, cut to shape and finished both sides, but I wanted instant gratification and so did Tessie.

She has already moved in a few pieces of furniture, just to give you some idea of scale. I hung it on the bedroom wall, adjacent to the TV. She and Zar are watching some blood and guts, shoot'em up movie now.

In answer to your next question.....Yes. I am going back to work on the townhouse as soon as I finish here. Maybe..... After all, it's Saturday. I might just take the rest of the day off. Please, don't tell Tessie!

See you tomorrow.

Fit and Trim.....

I am not talking about exercise and diet....I am talking about making the trim on the townhouse more interesting. Or we could call this entry "Blue Painter's Tape is Also Our Friend..."

This morning I painted and glued on all of the vertical corner trims. It's another one of those jobs that I would just as soon get out of the way, because it's the pits.

As you can see, the more painter's tape the better, as far as I am concerned. The more you use, the fewer cracks between the boards where they meet at corners.

As I was doing it, I decided that the windows needed a bit more interest. I also decided that the peaks over the second and third story windows look more Colonial than Victorian in style. I don't think that they really add anything.

I would like to see some kind of cap trim on those windows, but not the stuff that was provided. The ones on the sides of the bay don't even fit between the vertical trim. They would have to be shaved on the ends to work. They stick out too far on either side of the window and make the space look crowded to me. I am going to have to do something about that.

I took a trip over to the one and only mini shop in Tucson to see what I could come up with. They were out of 1/16" double bead molding, so I will have to wait for that. I did get some 1/16" cove and some door and window trim molding. I also got some interior door knobs and some Chrysnbon plain white dishes. Nothing very exciting. Just needed materials.

When I returned, I got to work and painted a lot of the cove molding gold. I lined the inner edge of each window frame with that and edged the cross bars in the center with it also. Then I did the inner edge of the door frame to match.

Tessie suggested the center of each half moon window should be gold also. She got her way. I figured it was better to agree to that, because if I held out, she would want the whole house gold leafed.

I have to get those darned books about fancy houses and castles away from her and hide them.


She seems to be happy with the resultant door and windows.(so far)

I need to go back and get the hinge on the other two thirds of the bay so that it will open and close without falling to the floor. Another job that I hate. Wish me luck!

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Emery Boards Are Our Friends......

I decided to see what we could do with the existing windows before we go off half cocked and buy more.

I started out this morning by figuring out which part of the windows should be rounded. Pretty simple. I decided to round all of the inner mullions and leave the outer edges square. This is just my own plan. Not completely realistic, but enough different from the square ones that I think that they look better. I need to buy some more double bead molding and then I can put more fancy work on the window edges.

I grabbed a handful of emery boards, put on a book CD and started sanding.

A little while after I started, Tessie showed up and I made it look like a really fun job. It worked. She volunteered to help out.

This is how to keep Tessie on the job. I handed her an emery board and proceeded to surround her with windows. Then I told her she could quit as soon as she finished everything around her.

She happily started, whistling a happy tune. That lasted about 17 minutes and 34 seconds.....Then she realized that it was going to take her a couple of hours to get done.

You should have heard the squawking! No....On second thought, you shouldn't have. It wasn't pretty.

Since she is still building up her zapping power, I finally had to let her out of the cage, so to speak, just to get a little peace and quiet.

I finished the sanding and then painted everything Ceramcoat Light Ivory.

I didn't glue the windows and door in place, but I had to see how they looked.

This photo is closer to the true color of the house now. It is very calm and sedate....Unlike the owner.

I found Tessie and Zar sitting on the unfinished balcony discussing interior decorating....I knew that I should have kept them separated. He has been reading the Builtmore book. He has visions of a roof top pool, and a game room for billiards in place of the workshop. Not going to happen! He also suggested a formal ball room for dancing on the top floor.....Oh! and a fully stocked wine cellar. There is no cellar.....I am NOT building a cellar!

I am sending him home immediately and putting Tessie back to work before things get out of hand altogether.

"Zar! Go home and work on your own cottage! Tessie has enough ideas already."

I am so close, yet so far from finishing the outside. I can see it all finished in my mind....Now if I can only execute the plan....and not Zar.....

See you tomorrow.

Painting and Repainting......

OK.....This is a tough one to illustrate. I couldn't get an accurate photo of the first color.

Tessie decided that she wanted a grey house, so I went to the store yesterday and bought some Ceramcoat Dolphin grey..... It looked grey in the bottle....

To make a long story short, I started painting the house and it looked more like Williamsburg Blue. The photo to the left doesn't show it half as blue as it was. I mean there was nothing grey about it after it dried. It was very blue.

Tessie hated it and so did I.

I had part of a bottle of Quaker Grey. It is a light grey with hardly any blue in it at all.

When I got up this morning I didn't feel like making another run into town, so I proceeded to mix a batch of Quaker Grey myself. I got an exact match. I painted a bit of the Ceramcoat Quaker grey and beside it I did a swatch of mine. I couldn't tell the difference.

I proceeded to put a second coat on the house.

It is now a couple of shades lighter. It is much less blue.

I took some more photos......The stupid camera lies through it's proverbial teeth! This is the after photo. In the photos, I can hardly see the difference. Oh well. Both Tessie and I like it a lot better than before.

I proceeded to repaint the front door in black and the little triangles over the windows black....I keep looking at those windows and the door. I can't get myself to like them. They look clunky. The mullions between the window panes look way too big to me.

Tessie also complained about the windows in the front door. She says, "If I can see out, people outside can see in. I have to agree with her. I think that I would prefer a solid door there.

Guess who is digging for the HBS catalog to look for windows and doors right now?

I don't have the heart to tell her that I carefully put it away and now I can't find it either.

It is in a stack of books or magazines somewhere.....I hope she finds it so that I won't have to go looking for it....Or I could just get on line and look.

Maybe later. I have to go get ready to go to Wednesday Witches mini meeting now.

See you tomorrow.

Potting Shed Table...

Tessie came trudging in this morning, pushing one of the tables that I found at miniatures.com a while ago. She looked very determined. Not in the mood to argue.

Like the Big Bad Wolf, she huffed and she puffed as she pushed. Out of breath, she announced, "This shall be my potting table!"

Since I still had another one to spare, I didn't argue, but I asked, "Why didn't you just zap it in, instead of pushing it?"

She scowled at me and replied, " I used up most of my zap the other day to get off of the roof! It's your fault!"

How could I refuse, after she went to all that trouble? We discussed colors. "It has to be elegant.".

I asked her, "Who ever heard of an elegant potting shed, let alone an elegant potting table?"

She replied, "I don't care. My potting shed is going to be elegant! Understood? Anyway, this is what we came up with after much deliberation.

It has a red mahogany stained top and slats to match the roof. The body of the table is painted light ivory to match the trim on the house.

Tessie decided it was too plain. She got out a 0000 brush and whipped up some gold trim. She is going to have to go over some of it again in places with a second coat. The leaves are just "S" curves with single brush strokes for leaves. Very simple with practice.

Now she is busy trying to figure out how to get it up on the roof without my help. Sooner or later, I imagine that she will break down and ask me to do it.

It's too much fun watching her fume and sputter about it for now.

As soon as I put it up there, she will want pots and plants and dirt. Oh my!

I still have to do the floor and the railings up there. She is just going to have to wait.

Back to work. Elegant potting shed??? This should be an interesting day........

See you tomorrow.

Fit and Trim......

Now that the stupid shingles are done, we can do some of the fun stuff.

What a relief to be able to breath deeply again!

As for the fun stuff, I started the molding around the roof edges. The kit comes with plain planks as edging. I had to jazz that up a bit. In place of the kit trim, I used some large crown molding.

I just like the detail that it gives. So does Tessie. See the smile on her face?

I ran some door trim on either side of the open tower.

I painted the interior walls Ceramcoat Sandstone. We wanted to keep it neutral so that plants and pots will show better. I still need to put some trim around the top and bottom interior.

Tessie is anxious to start potting. I won't let her until she gets her own table.

She took one look at the opening and declared that it was way too plain. "It needs something." she said.

I dug through the wood scrap drawer and found some scalloped trim and some one sixteenth, double bead molding.

I ran two rows of the double bead across the top and painted it Light Ivory to match the trim. I glued it in place.

Tessie tells me that it still needs something. She suggested either curtains at the side or a striped valence across the top, behind the scallops.

I am going to go do the Monday housework and laundry now.....While I am doing that, I am going to be figuring out the rest of the roof garden in my mind. See? Housework can be fun!

See you tomorrow.

Not There Yet.....

This is going to be fast. I still have 6 1/2 more rows of shingles to do. Again this morning, I stained until I was blue in the face from breathing that stuff. Then I stood on a step stool for a long time gluing shingles onto the house.

That's the disadvantage of a town house. It's tall when it is on a worktable. I am getting lots of bending and stretching exercise with this.

Tessie is back. She is sorting and handing me the correct shingles one at a time. Or I should say that she WAS doing that.

The smell got to her before it got to me this time.

She announced that she would not be available for the rest of the day because she had an important appointment to keep. She wouldn't tell me what it was.

I found out what it was all by myself. I went to put a couple of things away in the workroom and found Tessie in there watching the big screen. That's what she calls the baby TV in the workroom. I guess it's big to her.

When I caught up with her she announced, "You smell almost as bad as the family room does. Stain stinks!" It seems that the workroom was the farthest room from the smell. Kind of ironic, it didn't smell at all in there.

She is smarter than I am. I think that I am going to go clean up, eat some of the enchiladas that I made for lunch and then join her in the nicest smelling place in the house.

Later, I will finish the rest of the last roof panel. If you need me, I will be hiding out with Tessie, where we can breath.

See you tomorrow.

Hanging In There.....

I finally got around to staining shingles. I made Tessie do it while I sat around drinking coffee and eating bonbons.......Here's the photo to prove it.

OK......So I bribed her to hold the brush whilst I took the picture. I think that the fumes are getting to me. I love Minwax, but that stuff is harsh if you inhale it for prolonged periods. I finished about half of them and then had to quit until the smell dispersed.

I am using Red Mahogany stain. I tried Provincial and English Chestnut, but they were both too grey looking. Besides, Red Mahogany is my favorite stain, so I talked Tessie into liking it too.

When I had enough shingles to do the tower, I closed the stain and stopped holding my breath.


Tessie was in one of her "Let me help." moods. You know what I mean........That translates to "Let me tell you where you went wrong.".

I drew the lines on the tower roof before I even put it together, but she insisted on using a plumb line and a level to make sure everything was square. Then she re measured to make sure that the bottom line was exactly one and one half inches from the edge and every other line was exactly one inch apart. She finally let me start cutting and gluing.

I got about half way up before she noticed that the last line was only a half inch from the edge. I had to go through the explanation about how the last course of shingles would be cut across the top so that they would be the same length as the overlaps below.

She watched every move I made and kept whipping out a ruler to make sure that everything was going right.

I finally reached the last row......She bent over the edge to check it and went nose over toes. She managed to grasp the edge of the roof.

I do wish that she wouldn't panic and forget that she can "zap" when she does that. She started yelling,"Get me down from here! Now!"

I calmly walked away and as I did I told her, "Tessie! Go zap yourself!" For once she took the hint.

She turned red and disappeared. Maybe that little incident will keep her away from the roof while I am finishing it. I haven't seen her since.

One can only hope......

See you tomorrow.

Kidnapped!!!

This morning April abducted me, as all good daughters should, once in a while. She forced me to go estate sale-ing and thrift shopping in Green Valley. That's a retirement community south of Tucson. I think I have mentioned going to the "White Elephant" thrift shop before. It has been a least a year since the last time that we went.

On the way back, we stopped at the out of the way quilt shop. Tessie benefited at both locations.....

I am now 15 brand new, one inch, foam brushes, richer. Coincidentally, I was getting out the stain for the shingles when April arrived. I had no brushes for staining.....It was fate. The price was $2.00 for all of them. No more excuses.

Next she found two hand painted #18 needlepoint canvases. She is under the impression that I am going to let her have them for hangings in her townhouse. That's more of the stuff that comes under the category of "Hide it and she will forget it." They are quite nicely painted and I think will work well as scissors cases. Don't tell her that.

The three books behind her in this photo is giving her grandiose ideas. They are quite nice all color books on Leeds Castle, Buckingham Palace and Builtmore Estate....She keeps saying, "We could add a wing or two on the townhouse, couldn't we?"

I am afraid to say no(but I will) because of the very long library scissors that I found for my scissors collection. These were used to cut apart pages in books when they came through with some uncut. Tessie is 5" tall.....The scissors are three inches longer than she is....As I said, I am not arguing with her when she is holding them.

She is standing on a Larousse Cooking School cook book that is about a thousand pages thick. There are lots and lots of colored photos of the recipes. Luckily she is having difficulties turning pages in that thing or I would be making Fimo food right now, instead of playing on the computer. The fabric on top is four fat quarters that I found for her at the quilt shop.

I did manage to scarf up a few things for myself along the way, but mainly she claimed everything in sight. So what else is new?.....

Since there is no longer a "no brush" excuse for the shingles, I guess I will go do some staining now.

Sorry that there's nothing new to report on the house. April had to go be a librarian tomorrow, so I will be safe. It's all her fault I didn't get anything accomplished on the townhouse today. Bad April. Thanks April. It was fun!

See you tomorrow.

Hippo Grey???? Ugh!!!

Tessie got very upset with me this morning when she saw me pull out a bottle of Hippo Grey Ceramcoat....."Ugh! That's worse than aubergine!" was her only comment.

I had to explain that it was only a base coat for the foundation and the roof.

"It is going to be covered up, isn't it?" she asked.

"Some of it is." I replied.

The foundation is going to be brick and the roof floor s going to be tile or slate. There will only be Hippo Grey where the mortar is between bricks, tile or slate. This is only the first step.

After I finished that, I proceeded to take a tip from the RGT worksheet. They suggested that, if you didn't want to use a flat course of shingles before laying the cut ones, you could use copper flashing. I had just the thing. It was an old roll of copper tape left over from stained glass days.

I don't use copper tape for electrical, so there is no need to save it.

Tessie did like that. You know her usual reaction to "shiny". She stared at it for a bit and then murmured, "Pretty....."

I have to agree. I think that it will add an extra spark to the edge of the roof.

I still need to stain the shingles, but I had to see how much of it was going to show.

At least Tessie waited until the paint dried on the roof before going up to look. As soon as it was possible, she moved in a couple of my tables in the tower, to try for size, in the potting shed that she is planning. Zar caught her putting a spiderwort in a pot for the roof garden.....I am just going to have to move it out of the way or work around it when I put in the floor.

She is very anxious to move in and get to work. Actually, I believe that Zar is encouraging her. He's not stupid. The sooner her house is finished, the sooner I will be back working on his.

I have to go figure out how to separate the two of them so that they will be hassling each other instead of me. I greatly dislike it when they work together......

See you tomorrow.

Vacillating....Again.....

Tessie is getting to be one of those tempermental decorators that changes her mind about every six minutes. This morning she had the wall that I took out of the bedroom down on the first floor and had it shoved in the kitchen area. She cut up the L shaped counter and has half on either side of the kitchen now. Actually, it looks pretty good this way.

I am all for more wall space in the living room area and It opens up the kitchen so that you can see all the way to the front bay window. I am now debating whether or not to permanently close the bay and not add hinges to that area.

She played with that whilst I finished the rug.

The warping wasn't too bad when I finished. I used the basketweave stitch on the black background. That always keeps the finished project much straigher than tent stitch for me.
Here it is before pressing and stretching.

I used to do finishing for other people on regular sized needlepoint projects, so I am not afraid to do a bit of stretching by hand.

This little guy only took a few pulls on opposite corners and some steam to take it back to square.

After it dried from blocking, I flipped it over, backside up, and ran a bead of Elmer's plain old white glue around the edge. I made sure that it hit a couple of lines of the needlepoint itself and at least one line of the bare canvas on the outside edge.

I let that dry thoroughly and then I, very carefully trimmed it just outside of the stitching.

Here is the trimmed rug. The left side is just as it was trimmed. The right side edge has had all of the raw ends of the canvas covered with matching Sharpie Permanent Marker. They come in lots of colors these days, so usually you can find one that is pretty close to whatever color thread is on your outer edge.

Be sure to use a pen that says Permanent!!! If you use the watercolor ones that are washable, you will wind up with a mess! I prefer this finish, to the one of turning under edges. It makes for a much more in scale thickness to the rug.

With that finished, I am going back to see where Tessie has moved the walls now. Hopefully she will tire of rearranging things soon and let me glue something down. I should never give her more than one option at a time......

See you tomorrow

Verry Little Progress.....

The very little progress refers to the townhouse. I did make progress on the rug.

Tessie has tried it out in several of the rooms. She keeps ripping it out of my hands and dragging it to different locations.

At the rate that I am going, I should have it finished by tomorrow. When I do, I will block it and show you how I finish the edges.

Meanwhile, I thought that you might like to look at a couple of the areas of the house to check out the scale.

The room that Tessie is standing in with the rug is the bathroom on the third floor. It is not too big, but half of the time Tessie only needs to wash her dirty feet anyway. She says that's the only part of her that touches dirt regularly.......


After taking the extra wall out of the second floor, she is going to have one humongous bedroom. Looking at this photo, I think that she is going to have the opposite problem from the one that Zar had with the bed. It looks pretty small in here. Maybe a larger canopy is in order here....One that she can do her jumping under without hitting the top of her head. Now I am wondering if I shouldn't put the partition back to cut it up some. Decisions, decisions, decisions....

Last is the roof top and tower. The tower is going to be her potting shed. I think that is going to be ample space for the purpose and from the front of the house, nobody will know it's there. She already hired Zar to be her gardener.....Not really.....She just told him that she would give him all of the carrots he could eat for watering her plants when she didn't have time to do it. I hope he likes carrots....She is away a lot.

OK.....So I am stalling. I promise that I will be back to work on it tomorrow. I am stalling because I am having trouble getting Tessie to decide on colors. Surprisingly, the first words out of her mouth when I asked her about it was....."No PUCE!" Tastes change I guess.....For those of you that haven't been with Tessie from the beginning, her first favorite color was puce. Everything she had was puce at the start....Evidently, no longer. Maybe I should take her along to buy paint tomorrow......Or maybe not....I just heard her tell Zar that her latest favorite is aubergine because it is a "pretty word". Do you think that she knows that is just a very, very, very dark relative of puce?

Nope. She is staying home. I am going to buy paint without her.

See you tomorrow with new paint in hand. Hopefully it won't be aubergine.