Un miroir pour la cheminée

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Uh, oh!!!!!

This week I was searching for just the right mirror to go above the fireplace.

Everything crashing down like that has happened so many times.

The only place I was searching was through all the stuff I have.

This was my first option but after surfing the web (for quite some time)

 I decided the mirror needed to be taller.

I found this one but it was a bit  too tall. 

So...I went at it with my trusty craft knife,

it was unfortunate that it broke in the middle.

However, it went back together ok.

I'm happy with the result.

It fits the space.

It's grand but not overwhelmingly grand!

The fireplace needed to be a tiny bit higher so I added a dark marble base for it to sit on.

It's not quite finished.

And because you asked Shannon...the paint finish on the couch did look ok in the daylight!

And you said you avoid painting things in bad light but funnily enough 

I sometimes think things turn out better when I paint in bad light! 😂

So here's the space without the kitchen walls.

Now I'm working on just the right sort of little coffee table.

I'm enjoying seeing this room coming together one piece of furniture at a time!

I already want to live in this little house...and have all of you visit me there!

Building Furniture for La Salon

As the Salon is such a small space I'm going to have to build most of the furniture from scratch. 

As usual I'm just using what I have.

The process starts with a very quick sketch of an idea.

Things don't always end up like the sketch...so we'll just see how it goes.

I find it easier to use cardboard rather than wood, no fancy cardboard, just whatever is lying around.

The legs came off a funny looking chair I had no use for.

A coat of paint always makes a difference.

Decided it needed a few extra bits.

Legs fell off..LOL!!

Sometimes (er, most times) I rush the making and paint before the glue is properly set and everything falls apart. 

A bit of aging. 

However it's night time as I'm working on this and 

it might need a little less aging once I see it in daylight.

Well, that almost ended in disaster! 

I was getting the fabric ready to glue in place when I knocked over my cup of paint water!!! "#@!%*^%#@*" Fortunately nothing got damaged. Just a lot of little things to be moved and a tonne of water to mop up. 

And now I realise how badly my desk needs to be tidied! 

Oh, well, that can wait til tomorrow...

et voilà !

I wasn't going to take pics of it in the house because there are no lights yet and like I said it's night time here but the pics worked!

Can't wait to see it in daylight tomorrow.

Then I'll know what adjustments need to be made...or if I need to start again.

Thank you all so much for the comments you leave, you really make my day. 

Your advice and input is greatly appreciated! 

Writing these blog posts is pushing me to get things done. 

So glad you're on 'La Maisonnette' journey with me!

La Maisonnette - A fireplace for La Salon

 The Salon was crying out for a fireplace so I researched French fireplaces and

 then set about trying to create one with what I had.

As you can see it's made up of bits'n'pieces!

The two wooden sides came off another piece of furniture I already had. 

I figure if I have no use for some of the furniture I have lying around

it might as well be turned into something else.

I was going to leave it painted shabby and white or blue... 

because I was just too lazy to figure out how to paint it marble. 

I hadn't marbled anything for a long time and just couldn't be bothered figuring out how to do it again.

However, I soon realised it HAD to be marble.

Very pleased with the result!

It was actually quite fun marbling it after all.

Last Saturday the weather was very stormy here. 

It was a good opportunity to stay inside and work on this room. 

Not that anyone would notice most of what I did...I was just making things fit properly! 

It's good now that the boring things are sorted.

View from the kitchen to the Salon.

Now I'm working on the kitchen. 

It's Autumn here in New Zealand so there's a good chance of another rainy weekend

which means things might get done!

Hope you're all having a great week!

La Maisonnette - Creating La salon

 This room is in the original building that I added the rooftop bedroom onto. 

It will now become the middle floor of the building. 

This one room has many spaces that need to fit in it - kitchen, dining area, lounge, the staircase to the bedroom and an entryway and door to outside.

Here's how the room looked when I began stripping it back. 

As the room is tight on space I removed the window on the left side wall and boarded it up. 

I used foamboard to create some depth to the wall around the windows.

The wall design just sort of happened!

Everything looks better with a little aging.

There's not much room for the staircase so it had to be really steep.

It was too difficult to build a handrail for such a steep staircase so I added a wall to enclose it.

All the walls in this room can be removed. 

It's nothing short of a miracle that they actually fit. All too often my measurements are wrong!

And now I have the added challenge of finding something to fit in the space under the stairs!

The empty space on the right there will be the entry door from outside. It's on the side of the building.

So this is a sort of entrance hall.

Still working on the door.

The space on the left behind this wall is where the worlds tiniest kitchen will go!

The kitchen space -  7.5 centimetres deep by 17 centimetres wide!

(3 inches deep by 6 and a half inches wide)

Of course now I can't decide what's going to go in there...the older I get the harder it seems to be to make decisions.

So here's where it's up to. 

Too many decisions to make about what to work on next, aaarrrggghhhh!!!

But I'm happy with how it looks so far.

The floor below will the the Patisserie - not even thinking about that yet!