Plant post

Do you remember when I was planning on adorning the windowsills with plants, and bought some kits to do so?  Well, I made my begonias a long time ago, but somehow I forgot to post pictures of them.

So here they are.

I love their colors!

Kassandra loves them.  However, we are both sad because the little cactus that my co-worker brought me back from Lanzarote has not survived the move; it wilted and died.

So now Kassandra wants some pretty fuchsias for her bedroom window.  I told her of course I would get them for her, but first I have to finish with the parlor walls...

Kassandra's big renovation part 3 - Shop

The work is progressing!  Another room of the house is done.  This time, it was The Magic Shoppe turn.  The easiest of the rooms to do:  just three straight walls.  It only took me a morning to do everything.

As always, I started by stripping clean the walls.  Well, "clean" is probably not a good word, considering the stains...

For the shop, I used another of Ana's wallpapers.  This one looks straight out of a Tim Burton movie - I love stripes!  As always, I took measurements and modified the design to fit them.  I was lucky enough that the printed sheet covers almost from floor to ceiling.  However, I had to add a bit of a cornice at the top, as I was lacking just 1 cm for it to fit perfectly.  

The design is gorgeous, and you can barely see the union between the two sheets.

Sans the cornice

With the cornice

I had to be extra careful while glueing the side walls; otherwise the design would not be aligned properly.

Left wall all done

Finished!

Despite my efforts I could not get the right wall to cover completely the corner, but I am not worried because the shop shelves will cover the mistake and it will not be visible.  The shop now looks much better than before, even though the decorative panels are not very noticeable - only to customers that sit to have a seánce with Kassandra...

As you can see, there are still plenty of stuff to do with the walls.  I have not yet decided which pictures I am going to hang again, or where, same with the wall shelves, so I will leave that for when I am finished with all the rooms in the house.

The next room will be challenging:  the parlor is conected to the hall with a flight of stairs that has lots of steps!  It is going to take some time and a lot of trial and error.  We'll see how that goes...

Kassandra's big renovation part 2 - Study

The second room in Kassandra's home is finished!  It took me a couple of days to do it, and it posed a little challenge for me.

I started stripping the walls of everything they had attached: paintings, portraits and shelves.  See the dreaded Blue Tack stains.  I decided to let the curtains hang until it was really necessary to remove them.

Following with the same wallpaper I had used for the bedroom's ceiling I took measurements for the walls of Kassandra's study.  This time I chose the complete design with all the details showing.  I adjusted the design to my measurements and printed 3 sheets.  It was very easy to do the front and left side walls.

The right wall had a little difficulty: the space for the door, which I have covered wth the courtains.  I took them out very carefully (thank goodness no damage came onto them!), and then I used scrap paper to make a pattern, so I would not make any mistakes in cutting the printed wallpaper.

Well, guess what?  I made a mistake, and so I had to reprint one of the sheets (two were necessary to cover the whole wall).  But once the mistake was corrected, the whole room looks very nice and regal.

It reminds me of an antique library, or one of those Catholic choirs from where the monks used to sing.  Maybe it is a tad dark, but Kassandra loves it.  She says she finds wood very soothing to study and read.

Kassandra says now that the room has been redone, she is thinking of getting rid of the fireplace and putting instead a little table to hold more of her books and artifacts.  She is still thinking about it and window shopping for ideas. 

And finally with the curtains in their place

 Next stop, the shop!

Kassandra's big renovation part 1 - Bedroom

Since we have just moved our big house, Kassandra thought it was the perfect moment to have some major renovations in hers.

She asked that I finally put wallpaper in her walls.  I bought the dollhouse already mounted (at the time I did not want to deal with the building up), and it came with a rather dull, standard beige with white flowers wallpaper.  I had been waiting years to find the perfect wallpaper for her, and since she knows I finally found it, she insisted it was time I redecorate the whole building.

To tell the truth, I was very anxious to not make any major mistakes that could ruin the whole appearance, but I found that putting up wallpaper is rather simple and fun, although time consuming.

First of all, I made several visits to Ana to buy different wallpapers sets.  Hers are the best wallpapers I have ever seen.  So different and out of the ordinary.  Really, Halloween papers are fun, but for people with inclinations and tastes like Kassandra's, those simply would not do.  Ana's wallpapers are regal, scrumptious and luscious. 

First, clearing out the space.  With our recent move it was easy, as everything was securely packed.  You can see the awful wallpaper the house had all these years, and the stains caused by the Blue Tack holding the pictures.

For the bedroom, I chose the Red Velvet Panel wallpaper.  It is just perfect.  Fancy that Ana called it the Count Dracula!  First I decided the layout, and modified the images so they would fit my walls height.  Then I took scrap paper and made patterns of the walls.  I printed the images in matte photographic paper and cut them using the patterns as guides.

In this pic, you can see that I made I mistake.  I cut the wallpaper from the top instead of from the bottom, so I lost the pretty golden design.  I had to reprint and cut again.  And then, for the dreaded moment of attaching the paper to the wall.  I knew I had several options, but I finally opted for using double-sided tape.

I was so nervous when glueing it down!  But I think it looks pretty nice.  Then I did the two side walls the same way.

Peeling the double-sided tape before glueing the paper

And the room is completed!  Or so I thought...

I absolutely loved it!  However, upon careful inspection, I noticed that the ceiling had the same terrible beige wallpaper - the rest of the ceilings are just unpainted wood - so I decided that the ceiling had to be wallpapered too.  For that, I wanted to resemble an antique paneled wood, and so I chose this wood panel wallpaper.  As with the other images, I adjusted the design to my measurements, and printed it.  The ceiling now looks imperial!

So gorgeous!

Now, I thought, it is finished!

But then I realized that I had not made the last wall, the one that opens up and closes the room.  Oh, the horror!

No matter, I printed two more sheets of the red panaled wallpaper, and got ready to finished it.  But unluckily for me, the sheets did not cover the whole wall!  They lacked about an inch, so I decided to add a decorative wooden trim at the bottom.  And lo and behold, now it was finished!

Kassandra is delighted with her new bedroom, and I am very happy she likes it!  She says she cannot wait for the rest of the house to be redone.  I understand her eagerness, but I need to buy some more double-sided tape first.  I spent a whole roll (5 meters) to do just the bedroom.

If you want to see all the renovations in the house, just click here.