I built the foundation one day last week.  I now kind of wish I hadn’t primed the whole  thing, but c’est la vie.  It’s so much smaller than I thought it would be!  I know it’s half scale,  and I know I read the finished dimensions, but still it’s tiny.  Which turns out to be an  excellent  thing because it fits on the table in my craft room perfectly (with the laptop and  other things  that live on the table).  It’s a really good thing I got that room in order  otherwise I’d  probably  be doing this on the dining room table, and have this stuff everywhere.

This morning I got up, and started putting together the fireplace.  About halfway through I  decided to stain the outside to give it a bit of umph.  I’m going to put “brick” in the fireplace part  for a bit more realism.  I found a nice picture online, and have sized it appropriately (I think) and  will take it to work on Tuesday to see how it goes.  Hopefully this will be an easy way to get  wallpaper, patterns, etc as there are no miniature shops around here, and I really don’t want to  have to wait for shipping for everything.  There’s an insert piece for the mantel that goes in the  holes, but I may use some trim to make it a bit more fancy.

I also put together the stairs, and since I was in a staining frenzy I stained the treads to match the fireplace, and painted the staircase the same green that’s in my kitchen.  It looks really good with the dark treads.  I seriously can’t get over the tiny aspect of it all.

Anyone familiar with the Fairfield will notice I’ve made my first change.  I really didn’t like the stair railing as it was in the kit (flat, no detail, etc).  So, I cut it off, and have ordered new rails, newel posts, etc (I also ordered supplies for the porch addition).  So far nothing has given me a lot of trouble.  The stairs were a bit finicky, so I glued the right riser to the wall first (the instructions say to do this last) then I was able to stand the stretchers up vertically, and after a few were in place glue the other riser.  I then filled in the rest of the stretchers, painted, then glued on the treads.  It worked better for me than the way the instructions wanted me to do it.

That’s it for me today!  I think the next step is putting the shell together.  :D

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