The Cleaning Never Ends....

I now have a clean hall closet. I took everything out and sorted through it on the bed.  Kota supervised. 

When he doesn't approve of what I am doing, he turns his back.  All I saw was his tail, most of the morning.

Then I went back to sprucing up minis.  Spike's doghouse is pretty much spotless now...

I think that I showed the pit bull property laws once before.

They are posted on the back of Spike's house.  He takes them very seriously. Beware!!! You might have to poke the photo to read them.

Be sure to memorize them all!

I cleaned out the greenhouse... Now all I have to do is make more plants.  This is where the plants all live until I need them in a scene or room box.

Lastly, I spruced up Hubert's Haberdashery. It is another building that is pretty air tight and doesn't collect a lot of dust.  It does need going over and straightening now and then though.

Anyway, that's all of the cleaning I am going to do for today. 

Back to work. See you tomorrow.

Not Quite Ready for Parties...

I worked on the doghouse all day yesterday.  Walter didn't play golf until one o'clock and was gone most of the day...

I decided to play.

First I put a  pitched roof on top with foam core and illustration board.

I simply drew an equilateral triangle with a base the width of the house and went from there.

I had to have the house so that it would still open, so the roof was added in two sections.

The triangles were foam core and the roof and center brace were illustration board.

Luckily, one of the channels was running very old James Bond movies.  I had Dr. No and Goldfinger to keep me company.  I had not seen any good Sean Connery Bond movies in a number of years, so that was fun...

Last night I decided that the house needed some doggy décor.  I put Pit Bull paintings in my search....Not a lot, but enough to satisfy Spike.

Before I put those into the house, I painted the outside.

Spike insisted upon having his name above the door.  That way there will be no mistake as to the owner.

Tessie keeps nosing around...There is no way that she could use the house, but she keeps prodding me to hurry and finish.

I did three steps up to the area where the bed is and put Spike's collar collection in front, where he can get at them.  He is quite adept at changing collars with his teeth. 

The calendar above the bone bowl is a pit bull pinup. Spike is quite pleased with that one.

 I need to finish off the attic and then we will have a house, but Spike keeps hinting that he would like a small yard.  Picky dog!

Of course, he found these property laws and insisted on posting them on the back of the house...

That explains why he and Tessie are always at odds.

In fact, as I finished the photo session, Tessie came in, tore the laws off of the wall and took off...As she did, I heard, "These are MY laws.  How dare that dog try to steal them!  I have to change the top of the sign to "Tessie's Property Laws!  Then I will cover the bones and paw prints with pretty flowers.  No one will ever know...

Yup.  That explains everything.  Tessie is part Pit Bull!

See you tomorrow.

Hey! You! Get Out of My House!!!

Spike woke me up by hitting me over the head with a two by four this morning....It didn't hurt much.  It was 1/12 scale.  Kind of like being tickled with a toothpick, but it did get my attention.

He dropped plans for a dog house on the bed and just stared at me.  I took the hint.

Remember the box from the other day?  That's what he wanted.

I went into the workroom and grabbed a hammer.  I had to get the(what I thought was plastic) glass inset out as a first step.  Luckily, it didn't break on the first blow.  I realized immediately that it was NOT plastic.  I carefully covered it and hit it again.  This time it looked like a spider web.  I carefully pulled out all of the pieces and cleaned it up, so that there would be no splinters of glass left.

Then I went to work with a keyhole saw and made the oval into a door. 

I simply cut straight down from the widest spot in the oval and then pulled out the piece. 

By the time I had two pieces of wallpaper cut and installed, Tessie was nosing around.  "What'cha makin'?"  Here we go again...."Tessie, this isn't for you.  Go away."

That didn't work.  She pulled up the director's chair and of course, started directing... 

"This ceiling is much to short and the quarters are cramped!" she announced.

I answered with, "Buzz off, Tessie!"

Spike answered by growling like I have never heard him growl before.

Tessie translated...."He just told me to get out of his house!  His house???  How could you?".  Zap and gone.

By that time I had the floor, moldings and ceiling installed.  I have gotten into the habit of working around witches, dogs and mad Steampunk scientists.

The ceiling is actually some floor tile that I found on a real tile site on the net.  It was one of the four part squares that you see.  By putting it in my Print Shop program, and reproducing it a number of times, I got a pretty good tile floor. I printed it on card stock.  Then I sprayed it with Patricia Nimock's spray sealer to keep it from fading....I decided that it would make a nice ceiling for Spike's house.

I think that he is pleased with it too.  He just sits there and stares at it.  As soon as he finishes staring, I will start working on the outside.  I am thinking half timber, plaster and stone. 

I have to go now and give the dog a bone, so that he will stop staring at the ceiling... Do you have this kind of problem when you are trying to build something?  Or is it just me....?

See you tomorrow.