Back and Building the Bathroom

Well, it's been six months since I last posted.  I didn’t mean to disappear for that long.  First, I was busy on the Halloween decorations, so not making minis.  After that it was Christmas, lots of masks, and learning how to program in PowerPoint to make game show games to play with our friends on Zoom.  I also took a longer-than-expected break from social media, starting the week of the election.  That whole process just seemed to drag on and on and on, and I continued staying away.  While I breathed a sigh of relief on January 20, I had been sidetracked by so many other projects that minis were not high on my radar.  I admit that part of my problem was that I needed to do the upstairs curved window next, and I was not looking forward to it.  The downstairs window had gone smoothly, so I’m not sure why I was so paralyzed.  Then, one day a few weeks ago, I just did it, and it took (ta da!) two hours.  That’s it.  Months of inertia because of two hours of work.

Once that roadblock was cleared, I was able to quickly install the stair railing that I had already made, as well as put up a surround for the staircase opening, which I made from railroad lumber and another strip of cherry wood.  I was very happy with how it turn out.

 

Next I prepped the hall wall, which is completely inaccessible once installed.  You can see two doors.  The one on the left is real and made entirely from strip wood with a pin hinge.  The one on the right is fake and is just veneer with some strip wood.  (That doors do not get narrower at the bottom; it’s just the odd angle at which I took the picture.)  The fake door goes to an imaginary closet which corresponds to the bump-out behind the tub in the bathroom.  I had wanted an art deco armoire, but there simply wasn’t room, so I decided the next best option was to make a “closet” near the bathroom.

With the wall prepped and up, I got to the very enjoyable part of decorating the bathroom.  You may have noticed, in previous pictures, the disparate pieces (taken from three different collections) I am using in the bathroom. 

I gave them and a half-scale tile sheet a unifying coat of glossy pale green spray paint.  It’s not quite the eau de nil color I had wanted, but my spray paint options were limited, and I felt this was the best of the bunch.  The penny tile floor is just printed on cardstock (no texture to it), with a coat of ModPodge.  Because I did not like the look of the painted “wood” tub sides, I made an outer cover of matboard and painted that as well.  

To give the bathroom a luxe, slightly over-the-top feel, I found some art deco mermaid art for the tub surround.  Using Word’s color adjustment options to make it cooler (i.e., bluer) made it fit a bit better with my paint color.  I added an overlay of fine white lines to represent the grout and printed it on double-sided matte presentation paper, which has the thickness of cardstock.  A tiny ball embosser was used to press down along the grout lines to give the tile a more realistic look, before it was given three coats of clear nail gloss.  I also tried clear Gallery Glass, but felt the tile looked too lumpy-bumpy.  That might be just fine in other contexts, but not for this one.  Finally, I made an art deco tile border, in black and white, for the trim. 

 

Then, of course, the tub needed a bath caddy, which I made from cherry strip wood.  I added a little cake of soap on a half-shell soap dish (nail art), a pink scrubbie made from bunka, a bead “candle,” a bottle of purple something (lavender-scented shampoo?), and, of course, a 1920’s Photoplay magazine.  Now my little homeowner can have a luxurious, relaxing bath with some entertaining reading material.

 

The sink had a tiny, almost flat set of fixtures as part of its mold.  You could barely see them, and I thought they detracted from the look of the sink, so I sliced them off with a box cutter.  When I had finished painting the sink, I glued on a “chrome” fixture set I had purchased from Dollhouses, Trains and More during their “going out of business” sale.  The medicine cabinet is from a Greenleaf half-scale bathroom furniture kit.  I flanked it with two nail art mermaids I had painted silver (they were originally a cheap-looking gold), and added two crystal beads to make art deco “light fixtures.”  For over the toilet, I made a little shelf unit.  The one I based it on had a fancy filigree silver edge.  I had thought that I could paint some fairy lace silver and use that on my edges, but to be honest, it just didn’t look right, so I opted for simply painting my edges silver.  I’ve added some Scot Tissue, Camay Soap (“The soap of beautiful women”), some dusting powder, and pink bath salts.

 

A towel rack, toilet paper holder, and fluffy rug made from a scrap of velvet and some fringe trim completed the decorations, but then I couldn’t resist adding a pink peignoir with black lace trim to the back of the door.  😊

 

With the bathroom done, the house is getting very close to completion, and I have another project coming up!  My better half bought me Real Good Toys’ half-scale lighthouse and cottage, and I already have ideas for them.  Hopefully, I won’t go another six months before my next post.

I hope you have all been well, staying safe and healthy.  I look forward to catching up on all the posts I've missed while I was playing hooky with other crafts.