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Mansard Victorian – bathroom floor & recessed medicine cabinet

Oops, how is it fall already?! The Mansard Victorian has been sitting neglected all summer, but I’ve finally made a little progress on the bathroom. My excuse for the delay is this little bundle of joy.

Her name is Daisy and she was estimated to be 6–9 months old in July. We’ve been working on things like potty training, sleeping through the night, not eating acorns and plum pits off the ground, not cowering in fear when a stranger says hi, and not chewing on carpets and furniture.

But look at that face!

And that sploot!

Anyway, it’s been hard to get into my workshop for any length of time, but she’s settling in, and today I was able to get back to the Mansard and figure out where I left off. Back in May, the bathroom floor was next on the to-do list. Here’s how I left it.

I made this floor using the same scrapbook paper / Gallery Glass method as the kitchen countertop. Cutting, gluing, and Gallery Glass-ing these tiles took a loooong time.

And… meh? After all that work, I’m not feeling it.

I considered a few other options (which I won’t bore you with) and then got my hands on a few sheets of this embossed blue and white tile. I like it, but the blue wasn’t quite right for the green trim in my house.

Did somebody say Gallery Glass? A dot of light green on top of the blue tiles comes close to the Bauder-Pine green color I’m trying to match. I still have more dots to do (these also take a long time!) but the end is in sight.

I have a Cassidy Creations wall cupboard kit to use as a medicine cabinet. When I was making the false wall and ceiling for this room, I got the idea to recess the medicine cabinet into the wall.

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Unfinished Bespaq kitchen for the Turret House

It’s been a couple of years since I touched the Turret House. I have a tendency to go all-in on a dollhouse for a while, and then put it aside for an even longer while. (Ahem, speaking of which, I’ll have an update on the Mansard Victorian soon…)

To refresh your memory, this is an ornate Victorian bashed from an American Craft Queen Anne Rowhouse, which I’m decorating with over-the-top colors and details. I’m planning on a fancy interior as well.

Last week, during a late-night eBay search, I came across this unfinished Bespaq kitchen and impulsively decided I needed it for the Turret House. I paid $245 with Buy It Now. I’m glad I happened to check eBay before bed, because I’m sure it would have been gone by morning.

I have a similar kitchen set that I bought ten or more years ago for the Little Belle (which has also been sitting, untouched, all this time). Both of these kitchens also include an island, which you’ll see farther down. The walnut kitchen did not come with a sink.

I paid significantly less for this set (I think $20 per piece), and someone on one of the mini forums later informed me that it was a knock-off. I didn’t notice until too late that the cabinet next to the fridge doesn’t have the medallions that are on the other cabinets.

At the time I was aware of two 1:12 kitchens made by Bespaq. One was the Provincial, which has medallions.

The other was the Mercer, which has plain doors.

I assumed mine was a half scale Provincial, but after someone told me it was a knock-off, I looked into it and learned that there was only one 1:24 version of this kitchen, which had plain doors like the Mercer. Long story short: my walnut kitchen was not genuine Bespaq, but I didn’t care. It’s still a nice set and I got it for a good price.

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Momma’s Kitchen cabinets & flooring

Haven’t been mini-ing much lately, but here’s some progress on Momma’s Kitchen.

The walls got a few coats of the yellow paint that came with the kit. I found an off-white on my paint shelf that’s close to the cabinet color, and used it in the area that shows through behind the glass cabinet doors.

The next step is to apply glaze to the resin cast cabinets, window, and door. I’m not sure what this stuff is, but it’s like a gray wash.

I used a sponge brush to spread glaze over the cabinets. It pools in the cracks, at the edges of the door panels, and around the hinges.

Then I dabbed it off with a paper towel.

And finally I used a damp paper towel to get the glaze off the flat parts. Here you can see an unglazed cabinet on the left and a glazed cabinet on the right. The difference is subtle, but the glaze adds a little bit of grime and brings out the details.

I felt like the details weren’t popping enough and repeated the process three or four times on each piece. I had some glaze left over so I decided to do it on the fridge too.

Here are my glazed pieces in place. I might have overdone it — they look pretty grimy! But white kitchen cabinets do have a tendency to get this way…

The next step was to glue down the flooring. This was much quicker than my hand-laid floor in the Mansard Victorian.

And then I tackled the countertops and backsplash. The kit came with these pieces taped down on a piece of MDF. They’re paper, and the packing tape covering the paper adds a glossy sheen. You’re supposed to use a ball stylus to score the grout lines, but I don’t have one, so I used a size 22 tapestry needle. In this picture, the long backsplash piece have been scored and the others haven’t yet.

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