Oh My!

My kitchen kit from http://www.elfminiatures.co.uk/ arrived today.  I feel like a child at Christmas!  I can't wait until the weekend when I can start on it...

...but look at all the parts!!!

 The instructions, though very long, are consise and once again, Elizabeth has added a personal note in with the parts where she's come up with another suggestion for making it look a little better.

By the way, every step of the order was communicated very well and the kit arrived the very next day after paying for it.

Last weekend I managed to get the extra tiles I needed to finish off the outside wall of the bathroom and I fixed in my window in the bathroom.

Here is a picture of the bathroom looking from above the door towards the outside wall (the ceiling isn't on yet!)

The chair outside the window is a little scary, it must be 30ft high!!

I also managed to get the picture rails on in the landing, just got the skirting to do now!

Roll on the weekend!  I'm so excited!!!

I'm Itchin' To Do The Kitchen!

Well my kitchen plans have changed over and over again!  I was planning to make my own and had it all worked out in my head and on paper.  Then disaster struck when I costed it.  What I initially thought was going to be a budget kitchen as I'd make it all myself, turned out to be quite the opposite.

So I've given in (and am really excited and pleased that I have!) and have planned and ordered my kitchen kit from Elizabeth Le Pla at Elf Miniatures, which will firstly look far better than a home built one and secondly (and surprisingly) will cost me less!

I cannot rate Elizabeth's speedy response to my emails highly enough and the level of service I have received so far is unsurpassable.

I sent Elizabeth an email with a scanned sketched plan of my kitchen (quite a rough one at that!) and a list of all the parts that I thought I needed.  Within the hour she had replied with a couple of suggestions of things that I had forgotten which the kitchen would not look realistic without and also showed me a way of changing a couple of cabinets to save a bit of money too!  She ensured that I had enough length in my kitchen for the worktop to overlap a little and also gave solutions if I didn't have the length required. 

From the few emails Elizabeth and I have exchanged, I can already tell that this lady obviously takes great pride in her work, has a passion for what she does and must (yes MUST!) get a lot of her business from repeat customers and word of mouth.

http://www.elfminiatures.co.uk/

Kitchen aside, this weekend I will be working on odd jobs, such as the outside wall of the bathroom which didn't get done as I ran out of tiles.  The picture rails and skirting on the landing.  And making curtains for the bedroom to match the duvet I made last weekend.

I'm not too sure how much I will get done this weekend, as a lot of time is already planned for my Maxi life which leaves little time for my Mini life.  But I'm sure that with the bank holiday Monday, I'll find time to get some bits done.

It's A Dog's Life

And ok, this isn't dolls house related, but he looked so cute after his bath this afternoon, that I just had to show you all a picture of Goose.

He gets INTO our bed after a bath to help keep his skinny little lurcher body the right temperature!  Just as well Sunday evening is clean bed cover time isn't it, little rascal!



A Stitch In Time

I don't feel like I've achieved much this weekend, but that's probably just down to the fact that the last two weekends were so grand in the mini scheme of things (the hall and the bathroom) that until I do the kitchen, it'll all seem quite slow.

Slow is good though as it gives me time to aquire more inspiration and to work out in my head how I'm going to make the kitchen.

Talking of inspiration, I checked on the internet to find my closest dolls house shop.  The closest one to me that kept coming up on Google was Small Talk in Shepperton.  So on Saturday morning, I got in my car quite excited at the prospect of being totally surrounded by mini-everythings.  It's about a 25 minute drive to Shepperton, but when I got there, Small Talk was no where to be found.

I went into the local hardware shop (next door to said address) and they told me that it closed down quite some time ago.  Oh NO!!!!

So, I drove all the way home again somewhat disappointed.

Never one to let disappointment last for long, I went into our local Haberdashery (Needle & Thread in Horsell Village) and bought some off-cuts of material.

I've since made a duvet and pillows for the master bedroom and a duvet, pillow and matching blind for the second bedroom.

YIPPEE!!

I don't think I'm going to use this bed in the house... or maybe I'll paint it... not sure yet.

My single bed duvet and pillow in lilac gingham and a dark mauve.

My blind.  The top is a satay chicken skewer that came with my Chinese meal on Friday evening and the bead at the bottom was from an old necklace of Mario's!  (Waste not, want not!)

Off Sick (Please read with a sense of humour!)

I have been blighted again during last night and today with more stomach cramps (etc.)  To add insult to injury, last night whilst biting into a digestive biscuit, (one of the very few things I'd eaten all day, due to being ill) a large filling came out!

In the early hours of this morning whilst clutching my hot water bottle to my tummy, I decided that due to having to pay for a dentist to fix my tooth, I'd have to go to work with or without stomach cramps as I couldn't afford to not get paid.

However, at about six thirty, a rapid trip to the bathroom was the first of many and the decision was taken out of my hands!

Every cloud has a silver lining...

...I haven't been able to leave the house today, but between trips to the loo (ok, I'll stop going on about it now!) I have sat with pencil and paper and started to design my kitchen.  I have measured the room and drawn a birds-eye view of it to scale, putting in the details of where the window and doors are and trying to fit in cabinets so that they look asthetically pleasing when the house is opened, but which also look realistic.

I think I'm going to go for a classic looking modern kitchen with cream shaker-style units, a wooden work top and wooden floor.

Originally I was going to have the wall between the kitchen and the dining room opened up to make it open plan, however this limits the wall space I have so I've decided against the original idea.  This will also give me wall space in the dining room to add a casual sofa that I've seen on Ebay.

I've also been surfing the internet this afternoon looking at other peoples blogs (some of them are absolutely amazing!)  I can't believe how realistic these things are!  One web site that I will be using is http://www.jennifersprintables.com/ where you can download and print off wallpapers and grocery wrappers etc.  She also has links to some great tips on making your own items.

Well this evening, being Monday, I would normally be helping Mario rehearse for this week's salsa lessons, however tonight I will be watching him and hopefully getting the ladies steps correct from the sofa.  If not, I could be looking a bit daft tomorrow evening.  Let's hope the tum is better by then or Passion de Salsa will be without it's glamorous assitant!!!

Bathroom Bliss!

Well just because I couldn't work on the bathroom yesterday doesn't mean that this weekend's mission was in vain.  Oh no!  Mario went out for the day and so that meant that I had several hours peace and quiet to work on the bathroom.

I went to work with balsa wood and PVA.

I decided to paint the balsa wood and use mosaic tiles from Hobbycraft for the areas that I wanted tiled (around the bath and the walk in shower).

Much patience, measuring, glueing and 422 tiles later, I had a bathroom mini-person would be proud of.

The door handles are beads from Hobbycraft

The shower is a kit from Elf Miniatures as are the sink and toilet.

The mirror is a craft pack of four for less than two pounds!

There is also a spot light in the hidden ceiling above the bath, one above the mirror and there will be one in the shower area too.

Wash Day Blues

Well last night I managed to put together all my balsa wood and build the bathroom in.  Unfortnately today I have been blighted by two things; firstly I have had the most appauling stomach ache and secondly, the tiles I was going to use for the bathroom wall and floor look wrong.

I had found some lino floor tiles in Homebase and thought if I cut them up small enough, they would be perfect for my bathroom, but they just look wrong.  Maybe they're too shiny and make the scale look out, I'm not sure.

Anyway, I'm now on a mission to come up with something that will work.  Nothing less than perfect will do for Mini Jo Jo!