A Magical Disaster! When a new products works too darned well

It's been one of those weeks when nothing seems to go as planned. Not anything major thank goodness just time consuming and more than a little irritating! My lovely Lily went in to be be spayed which is a very standard operation these days but a puppy who doesn't feel well is much the same as a baby - or a man - who doesn't feel well. Very time consuming and surrounded by guilt when you just want to scream!

Anyway as we have been confined to barracks I have managed to get in some mini time all be it with a puppy on my lap.

 I decided to try out a new product on the wooden mouldings after not having much success with the crackle products on the market. After four under layers I painted on the new product and then covered with the final top coat of black.

 The effect was dramatic and almost immediate. In fact it was too good and too dramatic, no subtle crackle here.

Then as I looked closer I realised that the paint had been stripped right back to the bare wood. Straight through my four layers of cream and olive/gold.

I was not a happy bunny I can tell you. 

 This is what I used and it definitely works. It will be perfect for weathered floorboards and lots of other applications but not for my moulding. So I rubbed them down and more or less started again. Grrrrrr!

 I have also laid the flagstones down in the ground floor room of the Menagerie. These are from Richard Stacey and although they lay beautifully they were quite difficult to cut with my meagre tool collection.

 Now they need to be sealed, grouted and distressed.

 My dragon room on the upper floor is going to be quite stately in  a singed and sooty kind of way. So I have laid beautiful mahogany floorboards from Miniature Wood Supplies.

 I have drilled lots of worm holes and then used a walnut stain so they are not too red in colour. Then I 'varnished' them with a brown glass paint to bring out a gorgeous shine. 

 Eventually the mouldings have been finished and they are now mostly glued into place ready for all the ArtMache to be applied to the walls.

 The quoins supplied with the kit were only supposed to fit down one side but when I attached to door I discovered I just could not get it to line up properly. No amount of sanding or tweaking would get the door and signs to align. More grrrrr!!!

Luckily I had extra quoin strips from a previous kit so I have covered the gaps with the extra strips. 

This kit seems to have required a lot more sanding and tweaking than usual. Sid Cooke kits are very snug, they require a lot of preparation before decorating and if you don't do things in the right order, or remember how painting the front door will effect its fit, they can prove very irritating.

Once I had put on all the mouldings bar one or two strips, I started looking at its shape and tried to work out how it would fit on the end of my Diagon Alley.

I then realised I had bricked the wrong side wall! The side I had bricked was in fact the back. More grrrrr!! So I had to get out the brick slips again.

It has always been part of my very long term planning to 'beautify' the backs of my shops, eventually! This will be my test case, all sides will be finished off. Apart from all the lighting wires of course, I will just have to remember which is the back!!