ROCK'IN IT!

Do any of you remember the annual t.v. cartoon special 

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"?

 Every halloween, Charlie Brown and his friends would go Trick or Treating in the neighborhood.
All of his friends got candy in their bags, but poor old Charlie Brown always got... A ROCK.  (Such a rotten thing to do to a kid, but it was very funny at the time. )  In retrospect, I really admire Good ol' Charlie Brown for not loosing his cool. What extraordinary self-control that little guy possessed.  He always responded to adversity with these words

"Good Grief" 

I bring this up because all of last month, I was collecting a lot of rocks of my own.

Here is where I am, as we speak

 This is just a temporary arrangement.                                            

   Nothing IS now, as it will later become.                        
I just had to show you something colorful because the following photos are all pretty dull.

 the insulation board glued in place and painted with a coat of gesso

A while back, Betsy the Daydreamer, of "About My Dollhouses " blog, showcased her wonderfully creative usage of pink foam insulation board.  She cut and carved it into a room- dividing brick wall in her Conservatory makeover.  I was very impressed and had to get me some.  I bought a sheet from the Home Depot and stood it behind the door in my Studio and then I just looked at it for several weeks.  I still had the 3rd wall of #43 to add the egg carton stones to, but I couldn't do that until I got the back of roof on, which eventually I did and of course... it didn't fit the first time, so I struggle with that until I figured out a better solution rather than having to shave down the top of bathroom wall.
Good Grief! 
(that was a very long sentence)

Next up, was to determined where the chimney would run. But what kind of a chimney?  So it was back to Pinterest and many more days of looking... and looking... and looking. Too many choices.
 I couldn't make up my mind.
 I got extremely tired of my indecision.
 Finally, I opted to NOT tackle the stoning of the 3rd wall-  as yet,  
or
 do any more thinking about the chimney. 
 I was itching to do some 'real work' and NOW, before the summer drew to a complete close, so I turned my attention back to that pink insulation board, propped behind my door and dove right into building some rocks.
The idea was to have the cottage above grade.  I had never tried this kind of structure before but I thought it would be fun.  Betsy had built a hill for her Folly, which looked great so I thought I would like to give that a try.

Trying to decide on a landscape layout was not as much 'fun' as I thought it would be.  I don't do well without FIRST- a clear vision in mind of where I think I am headed.   I won't go into great detail of how much anxiety groping around within the dark recesses inside my head, caused me, or the sleepless nights I spent scrolling through pages and pages of English real estate photos as well as Pinterest.  
Meanwhile
The house itself was
dead silent,
and no help to me at all. 
 I couldn't find anything Anywhere, to inspire me, even in books.    
After an entire week, with the foam board glued onto the plywood base, I still had no clue what to do next.  Janine had earlier given me some thick scraps of white styrofoam packing, 
(leftovers from her RL kitchen renovations.) 
   I started cutting and shaping the slabs with a serrated bread knife.
Ey-Yah!
WHAT A MESS IT MAKES!
it looked like a styrofoam bomb went off inside my studio; it flew everywhere!
 okay, whatever....

I wanted the house to be countersunk into the landscape and so I built the grounds up around it.  I was still able to remove the cottage when necessary.  After I got a rough outline of what I thought was interesting to look at, I painted everything with Gesso to make it all cohesive; then a thin coat of Spackle followed on top of that. 

another blank slate.

  But then out came the modeling gel medium, something I had demonstrated over a year ago  August, when posting the finishing of the cottage walls in 
"Such a Little Kitchen"
 and later again I used it for my fireplace hearth tutorial in 
"Light My Fire"

I LOVE THIS STUFF!

I used a COARSE AND AN EXTRA COARSE  gel medium for the  first 2 coats of texture.   I laid it on with a trowel and boy was the texture rough looking! 

over the coat of Spackle,  I applied the gel medium

In fact:
 It was Too Textured you might even call it 'Volcanic', and it took at bit of extra work to make it look a little less rough. Eventually, after some painting and aging, I smoothed it out with a light over-lay of Matt Gel Medium which filled in some of the most extreme irregularities, but to tell you the truth, I tried to keep as much of the rugged look as I could. 
 Now This was Fun!
  I really enjoyed playing with the FAUX STONE surface.  I  merrily continued to paint and age it over several more days as I tried to make the steps up to the house look as though they had been well worn and carved out of rocks.  
But afterwards, I had an entire garden space that looked bleak and barren. It made me think of the water's edge, therefore I changed my direction mid-stream and decided to add some seawater to the left corner that you can see carved out below.  I made some BIG ROCKS that would be sunk half-way into the water.  The rocks looked like something found near the ocean.  

The above photo show the rocks I made and the styrofoam on top is what it started out as.

And this is a close up of the texture of the rocks that were going to be part of the shoreline .
Oh, I was so happy with the way the rocks were looking, but then I had to ask myself.....
'WHO IN THIER RIGHT MIND, WOULD LIVE AT SEA LEVEL, THIS CLOSE TO THE OCEAN'S EDGE?"
So it was back to Pinterest to see if I could find at least one other crazy person in England who had built their house this dangerously close to the incoming tides. 

Naturally, I couldn't find anything anywhere. 

The only thing that came remotely close, was the home of Dan Peggotty, Ham, Mrs. Gummage and little Emily, all living in that capsized boat which had been washed ashore from the novel
 "David Copperfield." 
I ended up watching the Freddie Bartholomew movie version just so that I could see that humble upside down house- boat planted so snugly in the sand.
Not exactly what I had in mind for this project so after more stalling, I had to decide what was more important to me; 
A)  a house of grey rocks sitting on a patch of  brown rocks with some deep dark water on the side, 
OR
B) a house of grey rocks sitting on a patchy green lawn with a garden full of colorful flowers surrounding it?
hmmmm?

Thus,... I filled in the shoreline 

Earlier, I had contemplated the idea of a surrounding stone garden wall just like that of my friend 
Janine at"MINWORKS". 
see her post "Vegetable Garden"

 Her "trusty man", the Mighty Bruce, had built her the most Marvelous enclosed side garden for her French house and he had even made 2 custom iron gates for 2 of the surrounding stone walls.  I already had an iron gate that I had purchased many, many years ago.  Above is what I had been originally contemplating before I had decided to do the water. 

 

  I felt that my original wall was too high, so I cut it down and tried to fit what was left, around the new in-fill of the old shoreline.  I did a rough cut; but I found that I liked the effect and decided to keep the wall raggedy.  I liked the look of it being broken and needing repairs.  The iron fencing on top use to be green plastic farm yard fencing. Currently, it is precariously balancing on top of the wall, until I can decide how I want to secure it.  I almost have enough of the fence; but not quite.  I shall have to make some adjustment somehow to get this to look as it should.
To get the texture that I needed for the lower wall, I laid on a thin coating of Spackle and then dashed it with Bird Gravel. ( see photo above) I had run out of the Coarse Gel Medium and I didn't want to buy any more so this worked as a good base coat.
But I still needed more layers and more texture. 

To get the wall to this stage, I did a little experimenting.  I mixed  SPACKLE with WHITE  TACKY GLUE, SAND, BLACK AND WHITE ACRYLIC PAINT,  BIRD GRAVEL and WATER.  It became very thick and plasticy like Mastic Putty, but it applied Beautifully, dried hard like cement and cleaned off the knife with soap and water.   By going against the grain as it was setting up I was able to emphasize the irregularities of the wall and by allowing some of the base coat to show through, I got a bit more visual depth. 
[sidebar] 
I recently discovered several tutorials on Pinterest,  on how to make your own Textured Gel Paste, which I tried out and Highly Recommend if you don't want to spend the money on the commercial brands.  The mix I used above was my own idea,  but inspired by what I had previously seen.
check them out on youtube

This is a close up view of the new/old cement wall.  
Who would know that this began life as pink foam board insulation?

 ( trick shot) I had to see what it looked like from the front Parlor window! 
Yes!

This is the corner of the left side of the retaining wall, almost done.  Still adjusting the paint color.
My intention is to eventually add growing things in the cracks and crevices.
I really enjoyed making this wall, and I am so glad that I gave up my stupid ocean side idea.

This is supposed to be a city house after all on 
"Green Dolphin Street!"  

So now that I have a house with a yard, the next question is what part of England is it suppose to be in? 
 The house looks a bit French with these bright red shutters against the stone finish.  Of the hundreds of photos I have previewed of English cottages, I have NEVER Yet seen shutters on ANY English stone cottages.  ONCE I did see, shutters on an English wood- sided building.  That  surprised me. 
I didn't even know that the English HAD wood-sided houses..... Duh!  But generally speaking, it appears that the English don't seem that keen on shutters, at least from what I have seen through Pinterest.  If I am wrong please correct me.   Every time I discovered a photo of a stone cottage with shutters, it was French or from another European country.  
Janine and Fatima said it doesn't matter. 
 I reluctantly concede defeat. 
 But Next Time, I shall do the required research FIRST instead of LAST. 

A  LESSON LEARNED THE Dumb WAY.

So my English stone cottage, is not so English after all, and looks more French..... *shrug*
c'est la vie

(  still I'm very grateful that the French like shutters!)

And as to the garden, well.... that is still under consturction.  The  photo above is where I began the garden. ( The black front step you see here, is not the current one but only the understudy, the new stoop is in the photo below.)  
With any project there has to be a beginning so not knowing exactly which direction the garden should take, I took the front steps and began there. 

After all of those monotone photographs above, I had to leave  you with a little taste of color and how my  French/English garden is 'growing'.  Tai the cat, has jumped from the chair by the front door, to sun himself outside on the new stoop.   The climbing red roses are just temporary stand in's for the better ones yet to be made.  Meanwhile, I have ordered some flower kits from England's
"the Miniature Garden"
they have just arrived today.
 I am really looking forward to assembling them.  
The flowers are Euphorbia and Snapdragons by Georgie Steed.  I am working towards a lot of color against all of this stone.
As I awaited the arrival of the flower kits, I tried my hand at some faux iron work and
 I  made a handrail for the front step just to see if I could.

This vibrant grouping are some of the plants that I made last year, 
see my post
  "A GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS" 
By piecing together bits of assorted plastic plants, I made a lot of flowers that really needed a home.  I have bushels of plastic flowers that I have been collecting both for this as well as future garden projects.  As you can see, red and acid yellow will be bright additions to the colorful chaos that I have in mind.
My fellow Minteer,
Fatima of Beauminis, 
has been very busy making armloads of Peonies that are Simply Fabulous 
 and she has promised to make some for me. :))
Yipee!

I shall really need to figure out a planting plan for the garden....
But all of that is for a little later on.

 I have still a lot of work to do on the cement retaining walls and attaching the iron railing.
Not to mention the 3rd side of the house which is still unfinished and still needs it's egg carton stone.  I have to make the gate posts and secure the front gate, as well as  the slate roof shingles to make and then install  and also the brick/ stone chimney which I am still unclear about ....
 and as Charlie Brown would say-
"Good Grief!"

 (will these projects never end? )

 Unlike poor ol' Charlie Brown who did not enjoy the rocks he was given every  disappointing halloween , 
 I am EXCEEDINGLY Thankful for every assorted rock of mine and I Love them All  
what an experience

***

ROCK ON!

elizabeth :D