Terrier racing........

Gorgeous Daughter went to a County Show recently, excited at the prospect of Terrier Racing.... a sport of which I was blissfully unaware.

As the owner of a terrier, I am fully cognicsant of the terrier credo - 'If It Moves....Chase It. So when friends let us know that they were entering their dog into a terrier race at their local County Show over the weekend, I was understandably curious about what would ensue.

They seemed to be quite confident of young Frederick Albert Chang's prospects, as before the event they ordered a cabinet to house his trophy. Sadly, the confidence turned out to be misplaced as he failed to finish, finding the spectators rather more interesting than the lure.

No matter.

I've been finding out more about the ancient sport of terrier racing, and its more recent modern incarnation.

It has been my experience that terriers like two things.

Chasing things and scrapping. Not necessarily in that order. So to my mind, the prospect of putting a random bunch of assorted terriers in traps, waving a small furry creature (lure) in front of them to wind them up to frenzy pitch, then releasing them to chase the lure, can only result in mayhem and carnage.

This was borne out by the very first terrier racing clip I chanced upon via You Tube. In the first part, some random hound who isn't even supposed to be in the race, dashes out from the spectator's area and grabs the lure, which race officials then struggle and fail to prise from its jaws.

Then one of the dogs manages to catch the lure and mayhem ensues. Dogs running in all directions, owners trying to separate scrapping terriers...... BRILLIANT!

Apparently it is traditional to keep a bucket of water at each of the track to cool the competitive spirits of the dogs (or owners)

I'm all for letting Small Dog have a go, but PP is more circumspect and will only allow it if SD can wear full body armour.

K.I.S.S.

Bitter experience teaches miniaturists the wisdom of the acronym 'K.I.S.S.

Which, as we all know, stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid.

I should have subscribed to that principle, as for a large part of today I have been involved in creating THIS...



Can you guess what it is yet?

Top marks if you guessed it is the unholy guddle that represent the wiring for my nursery room box.

However.

Despite the fact that is is most certainly NOT a thing of beauty, the end result is this....




Aha!

And only mild second degree burns from a recalcitrant and unstable soldering iron.

Result!

Quit while your're ahead......

Doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself. I just looked up at the clock to see the time and it's gone 6pm! I thought it was about 3-ish, but such has been my level of concentration and engrossment (is that a word?) the time has just rushed by.

I'm really quite chuffed with my achievements today, although inevitably there were lots of unforeseen difficulties along the way, which I overcame with a combination of rank stupidity, derring-do and absolutely no forethought at all.

However, much progress has been made, as I shall demonstrate. Bear in mind that nothing is fixed permanently in situ yet, as I still have to shorten electric wires etc and finalise tape runs.







Not bad eh? The floor has come up beautifully, thanks to a mixture of burnt sienna and dark brown acrylic paint, mixed together and thinned down with water, then brushed on, left to dry for a few minutes, then wiped off with a dry cloth. It's taken the sheen off too, so that the floor just looks waxed rather than varnished.

I'm also really pleased with the cabinets set into the false wall. I managed to find a sample paint pot in a really lovely period colour, which matched the blue in the wallpaper perfectly. I've set light bulbs into each of the top sections of both cabinets which should give a cosy glow.

The fireplace wiring, as predicted, did give me a major problem, as I have to run the wires from two wall lights, a flickering fire unit and another light bulb, along the floor on the left hand side, to behind the left cabinet. You can see the bundle of wires in the photograph.
I had calculated the measurements of the false wall and inset cabinets to the last nano-millimetre, so if I ran the wires by the side of the left hand cabinet, the whole back wall assembly wouldn't fit. So I had to drill a hole at the bottom left hand corner of the cabinet, just big enough to let the wires run through, while allowing the cabinet to fit flush against the wall.

Not easy, and I'm not 100% satisfied with the result but I'll tidy it up tomorrow. The wall paper is all fixed in place, but I haven't yet been able to check any of the lighting to see if it works. I learnt the hard way years ago, that being impatient to check lighting runs just after wallpapering was a Bad Idea. The wallpaper paste conducted the electricity across the copper tapes and caused a catastrophic short circuit which blew all the light bulbs and frightened the life out of me. So nowadays I always leave 24 hours to let everything dry thoroughly before doing a lighting test.

That aside though, I'm quite pleased with my day's work. There's still an awful lot to do - curtains, soft furnishings, view through the window, trompe l'oeil panel behind the door, fire hearth to make.....the list goes on and on. And that's before I even think about furnishing it and adding all the little finishing touches.

But for now my work here is done, and a large glass of something chilled is calling me from the kitchen.

Cheers.........

Nursery roombox update 1........

Well.

So far so good.

Have made a decision on the wall lights and will have two equally spaced on the chimney breast.

No problemo.

Except I have made the chimney breast construction from foamboard, so that it can be hollow to take the wiring from the wall lights and the light which will be installed in the fireplace. Foamboard is lovely to work with. It is light and easy to cut with a craft knife. It has a smooth surface which can be painted or papered over, with the proviso that it has a tendency to warp when it comes into contact with anything even remotely liquid.

Like paint or wallpaper paste.

The back false wall which I'd papered a few weeks back had dried into a definite curve, which is annoying but fortunately not irrevocable. I simply 'hot glued' a strip of wood along the back which has straightened it out beautifully, and also given some strength and support to the lightweight construction.

I was determined that this warping wouldn't affect the chimney breast, so before wallpapering it, I glued some right-angled quadrant moulding to the inside corners using hot glue, which sets immediately and doesn't cause any warping at all.

At this point, after I'd measured and cut the wallpaper, but thankfully BEFORE I'd pasted it on, I remembered about the wall lights, so carefully measured and marked their positions. Making holes to thread the wires through would be a 2 second job using a large embroidery needle.

Or so I thought.

*sigh*

Naturally, the wood quadrant I'd used to stabilise the interior corners, covered the back of the area I where I wanted to install the lighting.

Buggrit.

Moving the position of the lights wasn't really an option or they'd be too close together and look odd. So there was nothing else for it. I had to root around for just the right size of drill bit to drill the holes through the wood, rather than simply poking a needle through.

These things are sent to try us, as I'm sure any miniaturist will agree. If there's one thing we can always rely on, it is that something unforeseen will crop up at the the most inopportune time.

However, the correct size of drill bit was eventually located and the holes have been drilled. The chimney breast has been papered and is currently drying in the airing cupboard.

Hopefully warp-free.

I'm not holding my breath.......

While it is drying, I am trying to get on with some other things, but am being thwarted at every turn.

Somewhere in the house, I have a little gripseal bag with assorted brass door knobs. I need two for the door but can't find them anywhere. Of course as soon as I've bought some more, I will come across the bag.

I also need some 1/16" thick stripwood, exactly 1 1/2" wide, to make the window casement shutters and the fielded panels for the front of the window seat.

Predictably, I have dozens and dozens of lengths of 1/16" thick stripwood, in every conceivable width.

Except 1 1/2".

*sigh*

So, in the meantime I am going to paint the skirting boards.

Progress so far..........



Ok. So yes.

I know it looks even further behind than the last photos, but that's because I've had to strip everything out to install the lighting. The photo also highlights the floor, which I intend to 'age and distress' by painting on a slightly darker acrylic wash and rubbing it off before it dries so that the grain of the wood shows up better. Hopefully that will also take the sheen off the resin, avoiding the necessity for a further coat of matte sealer.

Note to self - experiment with some of the floor offcuts FIRST before committing to this course of action.

Right, back to it then.

Straight after a cup of tea and chocolate HobNob.....

Meh...........

As predicted, it is raining today.

Rather wishy-washy, showery stuff, as though its heart really isn't in it, but rain nonetheless.

Instead of lovely, clear blue skies, we have shades of grey. It's like living inside Tupperware.

The weather has informed my mood, which is a bit meh.

Not to mention bleagh.

With a bit of ho-hum thrown in for good measure.

I'm girding my loins for doing battle with the electrical installation in the room box. As a veteran of 25 years, this shouldn't faze me in the slightest. I've wired everything from a massive 20 room baronial mansion down to a little shop window display, so I'm not going to come across anything I can't deal with.

Hopefully.

The main problem is I don't have enough copper tape to do all the runs I need. So it will be a 50:50 installation - half copper tape with lights directly to plugs which connect directly into the tape, and half wired lighting which will run to a socket strip concealed behind the false wall.

I'm not entirely happy about that, but I'm loath to buy another reel of copper tape just because I'm a foot or so short. I'm also still swithering about the wall lights. Because I need the ceiling to be removable to aid better photography inside the box, I won't be using ceiling lights. I have some pretty wall lights with tulip glass shades which will do the trick but wall lights take up precious wall space, which is at a premium. I've more or less decided, therefore, to put wall lights on the chimney breast. This has the added attraction that I can run the wires down inside the chimney breast construction, and along the floor to behind the false wall, where they can simply plug in to the socket strip.

However, do I use just one wall light centrally on the chimney breast over the fireplace, perhaps illuminating a nursery sampler or similar, or use two, equally spaced to give more light? I could try out both styles on my foamboard construction to see how they look. I haven't wallpapered the chimney breast yet, so any holes will be covered over. However I'd rather just make a decision and be done with it.

Carpe diem and all that.

I think I need a cup of tea and Kit Kat to mull this over before I start. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, I think it's a four finger problem.

Marathon week............

I seem to have crammed more work into this past week than all of the last four put together.

Which is good, because I had really fallen behind on lots of things.

Over the Bank Holiday weekend I'm planning on getting the lighting installed in my little day nursery, which I just know will take longer than I anticipate. So lots of hole drilling, soldering and electrical jerrymandering will be taking place. I've been putting it off as I'm still meithering about where to put wall lights etc.

However, I can't get any further at all with the roombox until all the electrics are in place, then I can decorate (wallpaper) and install the false wall with the built-in window seat. I might even get as far as doing the curtains and window seat base cushion if all goes well, but it's probably best not to tempt fate.

In other news.... there is no other news.

Nothing to see here really.

You might as well move along

Busy, busy, busy.........

So much to do, so little time. I've been multitasking like a crazy woman since Monday, packaging orders, working on the new website, casting (yes again!), and refining a brand new toy doll kit which is finished at last.

Not to mention completing three little toy dolls which will be listed for sale by the end of the week.

Voila.......



The one in the middle is the template for the new kit. I've also made kits for the other two Jumeau-style dolls in dresses and jackets.

Predictably, the weather is on the slide on the way towards the Bank Holiday weekend. It's been raining off and on all day today and the temperature has dropped markedly. So much for planning a BBQ weekend in the garden.

I might as well just work through the weekend to try to catch up with everything.....