Old Generals Farm - Some Progress

Hi Everyone,

I'm sorry I haven't posted for a few days. Life has been a bit crazy and it's left me feeling fuzzy headed - like I'm drunk, I can't quite focus on anything right now and my head seems to be buzzing like my thoughts are having some kind of rave party in there.

First of all, the interesting bit - Old Generals Farm Progress - my little brother helped me cut out the panels. We spent two freezing cold evenings in the garage cutting out the panels until we ran out of MDF. There are still a few panels left to cut out, but I wont get to do these until next week now, at the very earliest.

This is what's been achieved so far. These aren't glued into place yet, so they're propped up with various items to show you the size and shape of the house.

 

Then "Best Friend" Thomas had a play with the panels and did some glueing...

 

 

Yes... I did say "Best Friend" Thomas...

This is why my head is fuzzy. Something isn't right here.
But I guess only time will tell - hopefully it will heal and sort my head out.
I'm glad he's back, but his reasons for his silent treatment were beyond childish, and I just can't understand why he's making up with me now, after a month of ignoring me - and why he never thought to ask my side of the story, instead he believed all the lies his so called "friends" gave him and what hurts the most - the lies are totally out of character for me, so I thought he'd know me better. I guess not.

Anyways, I'm going for a walk. Old Generals will no doubt have no new progress until next week sometime, but hopefully I'll find something interesting to tell you about in the meantime.

Bye!
ox

It's Over!!

"But...please... give me another chance... I promise, I'll be good this time."
"No, I'm sorry. It's done. It's over."
"I can change, please, just one more chance."
"You're always under my feet. Everywhere I go you're there! I need some space and time away from you. I'm sorry."
"Please don't throw me in the trash... It's cold and smelly in that dumpster. I like it here, next to your radiator, here, with you."
"Look, cardboard - get over it okay. I'm finished with you!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

That's how the conversation went with the giant cardboard box that has been taking up all the room in my living room since the day I decided to take on this project. I've decided that I'm done with the template, for now.

I've done the panels... yes, there are a couple missing. I've lost the measurement paper for one piece and the other... well I've decided I'll do that when I get round to cutting out the panel (I may regret this decision later on) I've grown seriously bored with the cardboard box and I'd like to move on now to the nice pieces of MDF I have stood in the corner... Eeek!

I managed to fix the panels that didn't quite add up the other night, I fitted them to the panels that all seem to match up first time, so I figured it should all add up right now.

My plan now is to draw out these panels and the base template onto the MDF. I only have three sheets of MDF, something tells me I'm going to need at least triple that for all of these panels, but I wanted to buy them in bits, otherwise I'd look a bit crazy walking through the hotel with half a shed...

Once I've done that, I will borrow my Dad's table saw tool thingy and his handsaw and I will cut them all out - keeping my toes crossed the whole time that it will add up when it's all cut out. (I'd say fingers, but I might end up cutting a couple off if I try this.)

Then it'll be back to the cardboard box again to create the templates for the inside.
It's getting exciting now!
Eeek.

See you guys soon!





I Spoke Too Soon!!

Hi Everyone!

So yes, the title says it all.
Got back to the template tonight - with a giant box, ready to cut out the remaining panels.. and well. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Yeh, so something has gone wrong here somewhere. Haha!

Oh well, I knew my good luck couldn't go on forever! Back to the cardboard box it is...

See you guy soon!

Old Generals Farm Progress!!

Hi everyone!!

Finally, something really worth showing you guys!!

I've managed to cut out a couple more panels and attach these to the base template. It's looking really good and I'm so pleased with how few issues I've encountered so far! The panels seem to fit really well - only two obvious ones so far that will need tweaking, but it's given my a lot of good faith in our measurements. It's a shame Thomas isn't around now to see how good this is turning out. He'll be telling me "I told you so" right about now, because I had a horrible feeling the measurements wouldn't add up at this stage.

Sadly, I haven't been able to complete it like I hoped I'd be able to - interesting goings on in the hotel this evening - including a guest in my back yard, fighting in Reception and "Security!!!". So yeh, I'm full of adrenaline and probably not going to be able to get to sleep after I've posted this, so who knows, maybe I will get it finished... but here's a photo or two of how far I managed to get up to before Zena discovered our intruder.

See you guys soon!!

Old Generals Farm - Little Bit Of Progress

Hi everyone,

To take my mind off of the whole Governor's Mansion/Madeline's School decision making for Hildred House, I found myself searching for a miniature-related task. While staring at my projects gathered around me in the living room, my eyes wandered over to the ugly stack of cardboard boxes and cut out shapes of graph paper spilling over the floor.

Tutting, I knew I had to do something about that as my Grandparents are coming over to visit in a couple of weeks, and this was unsightly.

So, taking my pencil, ruler and scissors I set to work cutting out that huge ground floor template.

Here's an image for you. This gives you an even clearer idea of how big it's going to be.

I've also started on drawing out the wall panels and I placed a couple of those against the template to see if I was on track. A few of them fit perfectly, and a couple disagree - but nothing major that's going to cause any issues for me... she says.

Sadly, because of mine and Thomas's fall-out the last room of the house that needs measuring won't get measured any time soon... and it just happens to be one of the most complicated.

Hopefully, when I get some time off work I can borrow my brother one weekend and we can measure it together before Mom and Dad start decorating ready to rent it out.

But either way, everything is looking good so far and it's pretty exciting :)

Back Soon!

Hugs,
ShellbyFay

Help! I've Lost It!!

Evening everyone!

I hope you're all okay! :)

I am so sorry that I have been away for some time now. I have been so super busy it's unreal! I've had the decorator in the flat for the past week and a bit, so I haven't settled down to do any template work for Old Generals because my flat was in so much chaos - every time I tidied a room, the decorator would empty another into it, so I gave up. My evenings were spent trying to burrow a tunnel through my flat to make it liveable!

Now... the real reason for this post... I wondered if you guys could help me track something down. When I'm doing the templates I use a Scale Calculator, which I found straight away with a simple Google search when I first started this project. Somehow though, I can't remember exactly what I typed in, but it couldn't have been anything spetacular.
I've since done lots of cleaning of files etc on my laptop, and it appears the link got cleaned away too.

This evening, I have set aside some time to get back into the templates and get the outside shell completed. Thing is, I cannot find the calculator anywhere online!!

I am in absolute dispair!!

I have tried all the different ones which keep popping up in my Google searches, but I don't trust them, and I don't like them.

The one I was using was really simple. It was a case of type in the measurement (which was in my case typed in, in inches and mm's). And then in the box below it came out with the 12th scale measurement in inches and mm's. I really liked it because it was so simple to use, easy to see the measurement at a glance and the page wasn't full of distracting text and adverts like all of these other calculators I'm finding.

It was also on a red background.

Please, please someone help me find it?!
I've typed in all kinds of combinations of scale conversion calculators and it's not showing up. If the creator of this calculator has since removed it I will be distraught.

Maybe I should've posted the link on my page here, but I didn't think of this at the time. I'd like to use the same calculator because if there is just the smallest bit of difference between calculations of this site and another it could mess everything up. Plus, I really don't like the way these other calculators are set up and most of them have really distracting pages.

Please, if you recognise the description of the calculator please post up a link :)

Now, I must dash. Got some more Google searching to do!

Thank you everyone!
Hugs ox

Another Day of Tape Measures and Graph Paper!

Hi everyone,
Hope you're all okay!

I'm sorry I haven't been around these past couple of days, I do have some progress to show you - mainly in the form of pictures though. I've been suffering with sickness again - all day yesterday and today. Been extremely busy at work and if it hadn't been for the manager who works next door in our bar and resturaunt, I don't think I'd have coped! I've been grabbing 10 mins of sleep here and there when I can, but my stomach and my head will not allow me to get any proper sleep! :( Booo!

Anyways, on Wednesday Thomas and I went back to Old Generals and did some more measuring up. This time I was the one who was really late, busy updating our other receptionist who has just gotten back from holiday and paying the tyre man for fixing my flat tyre!

When I got there, Thomas had already measured up quite a few of the "panels."
The way that I'm going to build this house, since it's got so many sides to it and it's such a big house, I will have to do each outside wall as a panel, and then add the internal walls and floors afterwards. This will obviously be tested out in my big cardboard stencil of this build.

Anyways... side tracking! Thomas had provided me with some... er... rough sketches of the sides of the house he had so far drawn. I'll admit, a brief glimpse at these and I understood them, while I was facing the wall we were looking at on paper - sitting on my living room floor inspecting them Wednesday night... hmm, Thomas, I may need you to decifer which drawing is for which wall here? Please?

I managed to snap some amusing pics of Thomas on a ladder though! :D

Each photo was snapped with a rather rude comment from Thomas himself, basically telling me to stop taking pictures. I couldn't. It was too funny. I stopped when he chased me around the house with a wooden ruler though... that was not funny! :'(

But anyways, we got the measuring completed outside - all except for the conservatory. We got all of the measuring done inside too, all except for my bedroom. It was 5pm, pitch black outside and we were freezing (as the house is empty and there's no heating on) and my bedroom is the most complicated room upstairs to measure, so we decided to leave it until next week!

Which gives me a little under a week to get the measurements we took on Wednesday scaled down and draw up so that any mishaps and discrepancies we have over the measurements can be ironed out. The clock is ticking, and I don't have much longer to get everything that I need from this house to begin my build!

I'm going to attempt some sleep now, I need it desperately. So I will bid you all goodnight, and I hope to be back very soon with some proper progress! :D

Hugs ox

Something Is Missing Here...

Hi everyone,

So yeh, this dolls house could get a little bit drafty if I don't figure out what's going on here...
(click the link!)

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03342.jpg

I've spent today cutting this cardboard straight so that it is easier to handle, and I've just finished pinning the graph to the cardboard, ready for my to draw around. Good new is, it just about fits the width of the cardboard! Whoo.

I've also done a rough measurement of the house so far (may change once I find this missing piece of wall, or realise I've added a wall where a wall shouldn't be somewhere here... But hey, it gives you an idea...

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03340.jpg

It is a little under 5 foot 10" wide.
And 2 foot 6.5" deep.

Big.

See you all soon!

Template and Tips On A Burnt Pan Anyone?

Hey everyone!
Hope you're all good!
I'm back and feeling much better after being poorly sick.

Today I did the template for Old Generals Farm. Already, removing the remaining bits of paper from the graphs, it looks a little more managable... but I'm not going to lie - it's still pretty massive!
Here's a photo (click the link!) I've used a saved TV box... which wasn't quite wide enough... oops. I can add bits to the cardboard until it's right. But hey, the outer edge of the bits of paper is the outline.

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03339.jpg


My next step is to make this into a one piece of card, thick and sturdy and use that as a baseboard and template.

Thomas and I won't be able to get to the cottage to do the remaining of the measuring this week, so instead I'm going to spend my day researching building methods - angles for those scary dormer windows - and some doors and windows :) Exciting.
I also want to dig out my clays and see what I can come up with :)

I can't wait to get cutting wood up and really seeing this build take shape. I have the space picked out in my living room ready for it with plug sockets right near by for the lighting :D Eeek!

Oh.. and before I go, anyone know how to get rid of this awful burn on the bottom of my pan? I got chatting to a friend last night and completely forgot about the rice I had cooking... this was the result :( . I've tried boiling salt water, it's made a slight difference but not an awful lot (it's also why my pan looks really grubby around the edges.)

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03336.jpg

See you guys tomorrow! :)
Hugs ox

Ground Floor Graphs First Bit Of Progress Pics

Well Hello Everybody!!
How are we all?

I've been busy this evening converting measurements to 12th scale and I have some progress photos for you!

I have finally completed the ground floor conversion. I had to do a couple of tweaks - tweaks I hope won't effect anything... eeek! But we'll have to wait and see.

Well, bluntly put - it is HUGE! I always knew it would be. But I'm seeing a lot of paper. A lot. So maybe once I've done a cut out stencil it will look a little smaller and I will have a true size of the house. I would measure, but I've spent the past 20mins looking for the tape measure so I think I'll save that exciting part for tomorrow. I believe I've left it in my car. Silly me.

Anyways, this first picture was of my progress last night. I did half of the converting and it took me about an hour. Everything seemed to go pretty smoothly, all the measurements added up and I did well.

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03329.jpg

This second picture is of my progress tonight. I'm sorry you probably can't see much more than just paper - if you click the pics to bring them up bigger you might just see some faint lines there, but I thought I would show you were I'm up to now. You get the general jist of the size this house isn't going to be this way too. :)

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03335.jpg

See you guys tomorrow.
I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do, but I'll do something :)

Today's Exciting Progress!

Hi everyone!

Today finally arrived! I woke up this morning all like "yaaaay!" excited, and was dressed and ready to leave the flat in record time. I got to the house, expecting to find Thomas there since he lives two minutes up the road, but he'd lost his keys - so off I went to pick him up before I could start my day measuring and photographing every inch of wall!!

I took pictures of the inside as well as the outside, but I had more time to photograph the outside while I was waiting for Thomas to show up - until he told me he'd lost his keys.

My parents told me today that within about a month they will be putting the house on the market to rent. Next week the decorator will be in to paint all of the walls. That's okay, I took pictures of all the rooms so I know the room colours. When it comes down to particular brands and colour shades, I don't think it'll matter - just as long as I have the right colour and shade to my memory.

So I really have to step up the mark now and get everything I need from the house. Theoretically, I only have 4 days left. Since I only have one day off a week that I can get home to do all of this, and even then I have to find the time!! I decided a week ago I was going to go home to take all of these measurements - luckily I wasn't busy with an overload of work to do! Fingers crossed it will be the same over the next few weeks!!

Anyways, enough boring you - here are a few photos of the outside.
(I hope they're interesting enough for you Kim!)

PS - You have to click on the links, its the only way blogger will let me add images I'm afraid :(

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03013_zpse1c1dc3a.jpg

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03150_zpsc17931ca.jpg

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03151_zps2af8d0b4.jpg

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/funkymonkey1993/DSC03155_zps532130b3.jpg

Please note: All of these images are of my own. If, for whatever reason, you wish to use them - please contact me first. Thank you :)

Tomorrow's The Day!! 1 More Sleep!

Hi everyone!!

I've been busy running around my flat preparing for an early start tomorrow.
I've made 100% my camera is charged, I have my camera lead on the kitchen table read to put the photos onto my laptop when I get home. I have my list of things I must not forget to photograph. I have my list of things I must not forget to measure.

I even have my clothes laid out on my chair in my room ready to put on! I haven't done that since school?!

This new project has really got me by the tail, and I plan to allow it to take me anywhere it has to, to complete it! I'm so excited and all I'm going to be doing is measuring walls. Pahaha!

Any tips for tomorrow?
Anything in particular you think I should look out for or pay special attention to?

I hope to have everything measured by the end of tomorrow - including inside. Then I will transfer all of the measurements onto graph paper before I go out and buy the MDF.

Hopefully, next Tuesday or Wednesday I will be able to go to B&Q, but the MDF and have it all cut out. That will be when we know this project is for real!

I will see you all tomorrow, bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning!! :)

Night!

Just Dropping By...

Hello everyone!
How are we all?

Before I begin writing this post, I would like to say a huge thank you to those who have started following my blog recently. I really appreciate it, and I hope I continue to post pages that interest you. A big Welcome from me :)

Now...
I've been going crazy at my reception desk today, plotting and planning the build for Old Generals Farm 12th scale! I have a To Do List - of course! And I have my best friend, Thomas, helping me on Wednesday to measure the house from top to bottom - literally!

Since moving out of home and into my flat, I haven't photographed anything, so the number one item on my To Do List was to dig out my camera... and then my camera charger. Mission accomplished. I have emptied my camera's memory card and I plan to fill it up again with billions of photos for Old Generals Farm. I'm going to photograph every tiny detail so that when it comes to adding those finishing touches once I have built the house, I can add every tiny bit of realism I can.

Oh, I really mean every tiny detail.
On my "To Photograph" list is the following:

- Cobwebs
- Mould patches (around the windows outside)
- Birds nests
- Slipped roof tiles
- Weeds

All of these details will add the finishing touch to Old Generals and I hope it will really help the build to resemble my old home perfectly.

I cannot wait to go home. I'm so excited it is unreal. I've been counting down the days all week. Just 2 more sleeps and I can finally set this ball rolling!!

Hurry up Wednesday!!!

See you guys soon :)