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Gull Bay – more wallpaper and shingles

The Gull Bay has been sitting for a while, and before that I made some progress that I never blogged about. I pulled the house out again last weekend so now need to play catch-up on the blog.

For starters, the wallpaper is now finished. I’m papering this house with white scrapbook paper, since the house is fully enclosed and I want the furniture to stand out when you look in through the windows.

I realized as I was finishing the wallpaper that I didn’t have enough of the paper I was using to do the whole house. I purchased it on clearance years ago from a Ben Franklin store that’s now out of business, and I’ve never seen that brand anywhere else.

So, the kitchen (shown below) and the middle upstairs room are done with another white paper that’s slightly brighter and has a different texture. You can tell if you really stare at it, but at a glance (especially with the house enclosed) it’s not obvious at all. (And I’m sure you can’t tell in the pictures…)

I don’t know if there’s a “right” way to wallpaper dormers, but here’s how I did it. First I cut a piece to go along the back side.

Then I cut a second piece to wrap around the inner walls and ceiling. This has flaps that hang out past the edge of the dormer, to wrap onto the ceiling.

Glued in, the two pieces look like this.

And here they are glued in place. My flaps were a bit excessive so I cut them down as I was gluing in the dormers. My order of operations was: 1) glue paper to inside of dormer, 2) glue dormer house, and 3) glue flaps to ceiling. I guess I could have glued the dormers first and then applied the (already cut) paper, but I thought this would be better for getting my fingers in to glue the paper neatly.

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Rosedale landscaping – finishing the patio

The final stage of landscaping the Rosedale involved finishing the patio and adding a fence. The patio is made from “slate” (actually, plaster) flagstones. They’re textured with very slight color variation that seemed too dull to me, so I decided to spruce them up using the same technique I’ve used in the past with egg carton stone.

Using a “dry” brush with most of the paint dabbed on, I first added two shades of gray to the stones. You can hardly tell.

Next came brown, which is more obvious.

I kept at it with various shades, including the tan and purple of the house and shutters. I didn’t have any particular plan for how I wanted these to look, just wanted to give them some character while also making them “go” with the house.

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