The Ceiling Is On!

When I last blogged, I had canceled my order for the trim and cove, and decided to just go a different route.  (The seller did refund my money, with no explanation for the delay.)  No one else sells the trim I wanted, so I decided to make my own.  I glued two strips of railroad lumber together—one 1/8" x 3/64" and one 1/16" x 3/64".  I didn't have to worry about staining first because I knew I was going to be painting them.  I then used a sanding twig along the edges to round them off.  Not sure how clear it is in the picture below:  the piece in front is shown pre-sanding, and the piece in back has been sanded.  This got me some trim fairly close to what I wanted.  Then I painted them and was ready to begin cutting and gluing.

Because the ceiling projects over the bay window, there is a portion of the slide-in section that forms the nearest edge of the ceiling. Therefore, some of the trim pieces went on the ceiling perimeter (the portion that would be glued down), and some went on the slide-in section.

When the slide-in section is in place, the whole ceiling will look like this:

I know the pictures got a bit washed out, so that you can't see the ceiling paper, but it really is there.

Next, I worked on the cove.  I honestly don't think the wood cove I had ordered would have worked.  Maybe it could have if I had made it part of the walls when first building them, but at this point it would have stuck out from the walls and not looked at all right.  Instead, I decided to paint some card stock.  I started with a light green, figuring the green paint might cover it better than white card stock.

Then I cut strips and curved them carefully around a dowel before gluing them to the three sides of the room.  I had to cut a piece of crown molding to use as a template for cutting the side edges of the strips.  I always have difficulty visualizing how I need to cut them so they'll go together correctly.  My card stock cove was just a bit thicker than the paper border, so I simply added a second layer of the border to even things out.

Then it was time to glue the perimeter of the ceiling in place.

The cove butted nicely up against the trim around the ceiling perimeter.

And, finally, I could glue my larger pictures and my animal heads in place.

With the slide-in section in place:

Next up:  the exterior.  I'm not quite sure what to do with it.  My three options so far are:  1) paint it an unobtrusive color, like black or maybe dark brown; 2) paint it to match the exterior of Sagamore Hill—this would be pewter gray with dark green trim; 3) cover it in a stained and varnished wood veneer.  I'm leaning towards 2 or 3.  Thoughts?

Sagamore Hill Exterior Colors

There are obviously still things to do inside:  curtain on the left-hand window, the remaining rugs, books.  The "short break" I took on the books has turned into quite a long hiatus, and I really need to get back to them, but I'm not sure I'm psychologically ready yet.  😊 It was such a pleasure working on other items for a while.  (Carrie has received her package [yay!], but poor Sam is still waiting on hers, due to a surfeit of holidays in Australia and the general [in]efficiencies of postal services in both countries.)

Enjoy the rest of your week, and happy mini-ing!