The New House!

Hi All!

I'm back! I guess it's been a while, but I have a good excuse! We just spent the past 6 months trying to find and move into our new Dream House! If you have ever bought a house, you know you probably don't buy the first house you see, and of course, that's what happened to us! We spent 2 months this summer in 100 degree heat looking for the perfect new home! Thankfully, our Realtor was very patient with us! We started out looking at new new homes, they were all gorgeous and anyone would love to live in them, But...as a miniaturist and all around crafter, they all just didn't work! So we started looking at older homes and hit the jackpot!! Not only were they on bigger mature lots, many of them had great custom features! We didn't have to look at many before finding this gem! It has just shy of 4000 sq. ft. and 3 garages! It's in a wonderful neighborhood of eclectic houses and more than fit our requirements! I guess the house is pretty standard, a big Master Bedroom (without the luxury bath! 2 other large bedrooms and another bath on the main level which also includes a very large living room, big family room and dining room and kitchen. The family room has wonderful wood sliding doors leading out to a very nice deck with views of all downtown Albuquerque! It's the lower level that gets pretty great! There is a huge family room with another gas fireplace, (This is Mark's "Man Cave" or so he thinks! Off this room through a set of wood doors is my library (another huge full bath leads from there) on the other side of the family room is a large sunroom which leads out to a great walled backyard. The dogs are loving life out there! There is also a large laundry room which thrills Mark to death since he does all of the laundry! Down a short hall is a closet that is the size of an average bedroom! Beyond that (yes, there's more! is a large room we will use as my craft storage room. From that room, you go through another door to my large Miniatures workroom complete with bathroom! There is a door to the yard and another into MY garage  It's the 3rd garage that has been outfitted as a workshop! Finally! All of my miniature tools have a home! We are going to have to get at least 2-3 work benches or tables to set them all up on. The garage also has outside access and best of all, it has it's own heating and cooling system! I can finally work all year round! Well, that's the end of the description, here's a few pictures of the disaster areas as we move in!

Here's the front of the house, pretty normal looking, huh?

This is the view of from the front porch! Those are the foothills of the Sandi Mountains! Those cars parked up on the left are at the beginning of the trailhead! Our street is the highest you can go in the city!

This is just the beginning of our moving in! This is the 2 car garage that I actually got to park in for the first 2 weeks we loved here! It's now full to the brim of boxes!

My Library! Currently painted baby poop brown! LOL That will all change soon with a fresh coat of paint and all of my books!

The "Blue Room" or my craft storage room. It will be nice when it gets organized!

This is supposed to be the Guest Room, but for now it holds all of my jewelry stuff! At this point, there is a Queen size bed in there just in case you want to come help organize! Our son Chad flew in from South Carolina for a week to help with the move, thank goodness for sons!

This is "My Garage" This is where I will have all of my miniature tools! A whole room just to build my dollhouses and castles! Yippee!

The Miniature Workroom!

This room will be totally devoted to finishing my houses and building other miniatures! That's my private bathroom with a deep sink in the back!

My Sewing/Craft Room

This is upstairs in one of the bedrooms. On this wall there are 2 large sets of steel shelves. The one on the left will be for all of my papercraft/mixed media stuff. Paper, Xyron machines, Cuttlebug and down on the left, my big Cricut on a wheeled cart. On the right will be all things fabric! Fortunately, I have plenty of room downstairs for my 30 bins of "overflow" fabric!

This disaster is actually my sewing table! I have been sorting bins and boxes for days!

This side has my "project" table for painting fabric and doing all of my mixed media work. As you can see, I own a lot of the white storage boxes from Michael's! 50 at last count! Mark was kind enough to place them all. Unfortunately, none of them are in the right order and everything is in the wrong order! I am in the process of rearranging the contents to make everything more convenient! A huge job!

Last but not least... This is the "Living Room" which will be  the upstairs Miniature Showroom and my office.  All of the boxes contain miniatures, mine and those that will be sold on my new Website that I hope to launch very soon. The other half  of my miniatures inventory and all of my dollhouses are currently in the garage awaiting this room to be set up!

I thought you might be interested in some of the organization tips that I have been scouring the Internet for, so I will be following this post with some of the better ones I find!

I hope you have enjoyed this little tour, feel free to drop buy and help unload boxes!

Later!

Michael's Castle

Well, I was sort of right, it's almost a Quarter Scale castle. It's going to take some major renovation!

So you can tell the difference, I took pictures of both half scale and quarter scale furniture in the castle to compare the sizes. Take a look!

First- Half Scale Furniture

So... You can see from these pictures, that the windows work, but the furniture is way out of scale!

Now the Quarter Scale

Here is the open castle with a few pieces of Quarter Scale furniture in place. Do you see whats wrong?

The windows are completely out of proportion! 

So... I have measured the windows and will be cutting new windows more in scale and in better positions for the quarter scale. Since the windows will be lower, I shouldn't have a conflict with the current windows. A small piece of wood cut to size on both sides, or one of the right thickness will fill the current holes and Paperclay will cover everything! Problem solved! It sure sounds easy doesn't it!  I plan to use the "Rubble Stone" mold from Malcolm's miniatures to do the outside walls and I'm not sure what I will do for the inside yet. Possibly stucco, quick and easy especially in tiny scales. I found that Golden Fine grit Pumice mixed with  little paint is the perfect stucco for small structures! It's a bit more expensive then sand and paint, but the finish is superb! You can get it at Michael's with a coupon too! I will use the brick mold on the stairs of course.

So... this all sounds so easy on paper doesn't it? It's the "doing" that's the hard part There are a lot of windows that have to be filled! I also have to order more S kits to fill the rooms!

ON the home front, I have been complaining for years now that we live in a teeny tiny house with no room to display my houses and other mini's. My workshop is a big white tent out in the back yard, so no working out there in the winter! BUT... Tomorrow, Mark and I start shopping for a new house! Whoopee!  We have been preapproved and have picked out houses that all have large workrooms for me! 2 of them have craft rooms the size of a 2 car garage! Can you believe it?

Well, that's my big news of the month!

Heather