Been shopping again

Dressing Tilda’s room

Couldn’t resist the opportunity of buying more Duncan White pottery from Pedlar’s Tray when I realised Tilda could do with a ewer and bowl.  They’ve just arrived and are now in the room, finishing off the bits and pieces for it.  At least I think so.  Might add an odd clog or two if and when I get round to making them.

Reading candle run out of puff – white paint and shiny glue

One night cap on head post next to Book of Hours

Washing accoutrements in place – that candlestick is definitely wonky!

Stepping back – careful not to fall down the gap

Well it’s roof time for this particular section but I think I’ll hold off on it till it’s roof time all round to make sure I don’t go too adrift with the meeting of the two slopes etc.

Jobs are back to the brick laying variety now the floating doorway is in place more or less.  Nearly there, nearly there 😉

Many mini mini sessions of drying time later

Smile

just might have solved a boo-boo

First plans had been to make the inner gable end of the stores unit as a complete framework that included the door to the main kitchen room that it covers, including the tiddly bit of walling above the doorway but, of course, I didn’t do it.

If it wasn’t for the houses in between

(Old music hall song title – click on for lyrics.
Was going to link to actual singer clip on YouTube but so old and crackly it was very hard listen to)

The second master plan had been to do the doorway along with the closer to the room above, making it a one job reveal to both bits.  But that wouldn’t have worked because of the ceiling/floor edge in between.

It would still be nice if the said doorway and itsy bit of wall could be removable so you can see that corner of the main kitchen but it would be very vulnerable, flapping about there on the end either by itself or jammed on to the stores block.  And so I’ve been working on as reinforced an addition to the stores as I can with extra spars and the odd hammered in tack.  (Yes, sorry)

You see that light on up there? That’s the doorway that needs a door. Through that doorway we’re looking at the underside of the steps up to the linen room area

As you can see, when the older great hall block is removed, it’s a very narrow door and quite tall – ah, yes, forgot to say it’s a split door with a smaller open top bit.

Stores block wall that closes the kitchen off.

Closer look at the forgotten doorway from inside

and from outside where the ever-open upper section hangs against the dry goods store wall

In the first of these three photos the new doorway is on the right.  Most of the horizontals on the central section of this pic are added/dug out/renewed in order to support the flying doorway at the end and give it some rigidity as it flaps around there in the breeze.  Actually, at the moment it’s pretty firm.

Are we nearly there yet?

You may well ask.  Here’s some of the intended layout back here.

With the rest of the great hall back in place there’s somewhere to lean the cart

Hanging bits and pointy roofs with chimneys rising upwards and works on the roof still going on

A village unto itself, with many roofs and angles, nooks and crannies

I’m off to do some general domestics and then perhaps squeeze in some sorting around the work area and then, if it’s still daylight, crack on with the missing bits of Hogepotche.

Setting out Tilda’s room

Them there fairy lights
and their wires

I had always planned to hide the wiring for the fairy lights within a wall space on the outer face of the storeroom block, but in this room I didn’t want to lose an inch of the bedroom floor space.

Part of the sheet of planks loosely sitting. There’s wire running in a channel across from the wall on the right to where it lies bundled on the left

The wiring is sturdy and has a life of its own so I’ve taped it gently to stop it running away as it goes onwards under the wall to the next space in the loft

A two plank section is just sitting there on top of the run of wire – just floating around

and holding them in place is a one-legged plank desk surface and the coffer straddling the width of the two boards

Decided on a totally floating floor.  The wiring is pretty sturdy stuff and there’s only so much cardboard you can channel out to recess it in before you find your coming through the other side.

This is a particularly strong set of boards with a firm, peel off backing to it.  I’m not sticking it down though, just letting it float about.

Going around the room

In the ‘floating’ corner we have a book of hours and a ledger

The bed is a scrap of card on blocks of wood, padded out with bedding (two mattresses). Bedhead is a piece of carved scrap balsa with a couple of fancy corners. The foot is a lolly stick carved about with a file.

One fairy light housed in wood with a candle casing over it. When off, you can see the bits, including some candle grease that seems to have run down and staining above from the ‘flame’

Bedroom over the scullery

(Do click bed or light if you wish to take a closer look at the general messy detail of these composite photos, and these in turn should click once more to become unbecomingly large)

Viewing from above. The steps down from the main block are missing here as is a curtain yet to come and one or two other bits of more personal items to dress it

Am working my way round slowly dressing the unfinished spaces.  The majority of the remaining tasks are bitty, drying and waiting jobs but it’s a little iffy moving from task to task, filling the waiting time with the remaining fabric work as there’s got to be a limit to how much hand washing this all takes.  We’re talking over-washed old paws and really slowed activity here 😉

~~~-~~~

PS:

Curtain prepped and added and step in place. Still edgings to finish around them on the building itself

A cozy but dark view from the inside with the first of the roof slopes on

 

A lot of blather and hot air

just to get a roof on

It’s always roof shapes with me.

If I carry on with mini-ing after Hogepotche it’s got to be room boxes only or something similar, preferably with no ceilings let alone a roof!

I get in such a bundle of mental knots with the roofs.  OK, eventually, after much hacking and remodelling something comes out of it – this girl doesn’t give up in a tussle with a piece of cardboard and a few wood strips, but the whole structure never feels the same.  For instance, once-upon-a-time this kitchen storeroom extension was a nice clean-lined build.  Each room a simple box, each containing its necessaries but go up a level and what have we got, just trouble.

The puzzle

Stores extension butted up against the main building.
The stores block has a slightly lower loft floor level than the main block room and a workable ridge height but very little at the outer edge.

I’m OK with the fellas having a hard time in their side of the loft sleeping area with very low roof lines, but not so keen on the women crawling around to get to the palliasse for a night’s kip.

The plan had been for a dead space for a lighting control and a battery box.  It became obvious that you could squeeze another useful room from it and I can never see an extra space go to waste.  Its access would have to be from the main building, keeping the women’s area accessible only from the house.  The main block room is slightly higher up, much higher ceilinged .

Moving from the small cubby in the high room into the much, much lower ceilinged extension roof space is a puzzle to solve.   How much head space can be squeezed in along how wide a path?  It would be high enough at the ridge side but virtually unusable at the outer edge as it stands at present and a crawl in area to a floor bed in the extension somehow doesn’t appeal this time.

Levels and that flow thing

Diagram of closer look at relative heights (not exact here) of older room and storeroom loft space

The idea is to create a little bit of roofing that is square-on to the main block giving a straight-ceiling entry area to this upper space.  See photo A below

The top sketch (right-hand diagram) shows the profile of the store block triangular roof against the end section of the upper room.  The lower diagram is a side view of the outer wall to the store block with a planned stepped approach to the wall height in the room.  See photo B below

Working it out

Photo A: Raising the roof level at the entrance to the room and turning the slope through 90º for a short run.

Photo B: With a slope running at 90º to the stores block you can see that it makes a squared off entrance to the room for a short distance, giving free access at this point for anyone living in either space and a height of 7″ (18.5 cms) dropping to 4.5″ and finally 3″ when it rejoins the rest of the loft space slope all round the building. The ridge (apart from the entrance slope run) is about 5″ (12.5 cms) which I find acceptable because I could stand up in it – if it were not 1:12!

Roof shape now

From above (and yes I’ve dressed the room space whilst I could get in there)

Viewing the roof it looks as though it twists and bends but I reckon it’s an optical illusion. The triangular shapes need filling in with small vertical walls

The stepped roofing from below

The square opening is in the fourth wall to room above the kitchen – sorry if not posted about building that but will dig out the photos wherever I’ve managed to lose them.

On the right you can see the stepping down of the wall heads for the changing slope. I’ll post detail of the room space next time but here is a view of both sleeping areas for the women living and working here. Once the roof is on it’s a shot that we can’t get again 😉

A long shot for a little perspective?

Well not so sure about how it will all work out but am ploughing on and will report back whether total calamity.