Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Upstairs fireplace

I wish I had a fireplace in real life. They can be such a pretty focal point and then you have a mantle to decorate. And of course, I would want beautiful built-in bookcases. So I'm trying to make my dollhouse fireplaces nice but they have been a bit fiddly to work on.
So this is the upstairs fireplace in the bedroom. The kit is designed so that there is a fireplace, then next to it a built-in box for firewood. How cute is that going to be with logs stacked up inside and just the ends showing? There is a curved trim piece that goes over the front of the fireplace opening. There is a piece that fits on the floor of both openings (and juts out front a bit) for a hearth. And lastly there is a little mantle.

I made a few adjustments. The curved trim part really does not match the curved opening. I could have cut the opening away so that they matched, but I painted both in a stony grey (as seen in the 3rd pic) and figured it didn't matter, it's like an extra grooved detail in the stone. I think this stone paint will need some touchups but basically I used old separated grey paint that was kind of sludgy. I painted everything grey, then painted a paler grey over top (leftover Titanium from our old kitchen) then sanded it all down. The result is a smooth surface but with a mottled grey colour for a subtle stone effect. I like it now.
The second adjustment was because I didn't like the pointy top to the wood box. This was an easy fix. I took the original punched out piece and cut it so that just the top part was left, and glued that in place. Then a bit of filler and sanding and the wood box is now squared.

Behind the fireplace and woodbox there are pieces you glue in place to make the sides. In the case of my adjusted woodbox, I just cut that piece in two and used one for the side and one for the top so that it's square inside.

The mantle is two pieces glued together and I used a bit of filler to make the edges smoother. The mantle is painted in semigloss while the walls are eggshell (Cloud White). It's hard to see in the pictures but I thought it was important!
This is the final result - and a sneak peek at the flooring.

2 comments:

AMCSviatko said...

Possibly too late now (or maybe you've already thought about it and discarded the idea) but have you considered, now you've closed the pointy opening, of continuing the mantle piece right across from the stairs to the wall?

Would give you lots more discplay space and thie the whole wall together quite nicely...

Claire Louise Milne said...

Thanks for the suggestion! I actually think I like the length of it so I'll keep it as is for now. In fact I've shortened the one downstairs too, I'm going to post that next...

although I do like display space on a mantel. hmm.

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