Time to say goodbye : Villa staircase and Music Room

Hello to one and all and Welcome Back! 

As you can see from the photo above, the staircase handrail has been installed and assent to the 3rd floor
 is now safely possible.
It took me a while to settle on a course of action 
prior to constructing the handrail, 
but I must say that I am pretty darned pleased 
with its final outcome.

Even so,

 you may have to view this post with one eye shut, because I made plenty of mistakes along the way,
 and although I've disguised most of them
I realize that some of them are still obvious.
🙄

In any case my staircase ordeal is over,
 and I'm ready to move up to the 3rd floor
leaving behind only a few minor details 
 to be finished on the second-

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I'll begin by explaining how I constructed my iron handrail:

It's made from 16 gage stem wire which I already had.  
I chose it because it seemed sturdy enough to support a handrail,
 and also because 
it fit through the holes of various beads I'd chosen for it. 

I referred to the directions in Lea Fisoni's 
The BIG BOOK of a MINIATURE HOUSE
https://atelier-de-lea.blogspot.com/2018/10/le-grand-livre-de-la-maison-miniature.html
and cut equal lengths of 7 cm stem wire, 
as per her instructions.  
I also found an equal supply of half-round bead spacers 
in my stash 
which I glued onto the bent ends of the metal rods.

I did this to by-pass drilling individual holes 
into the side of the staircase, as Lea had done with hers.   

Once the spacer/supports were secured
I then slid more metal beads onto each of the wire stems. 

I adjusted the beads as needed and then glued them in place with a drop of
Zap-a-Gap glue.  

As you can see below
I didn't get the ornamentation lined up properly
but was able to correct it
before I proceeded to the next step. 

To even out the colour
 I was going to spray paint the metal
 with a black BBQ spray paint. 
but unfortunately 
I had run out of it😕
and so
 I used a hammered metal spray paint 
as a base coat instead. 


To affix the posts to the staircase,
I used a combination of white glue and super glue 
however, 
the connection was brittle and unstable
 and the posts kept snapping off of the staircase 
with very little provocation.
sooooo
  I ended up using E600 Glue to tightly bond the spindles to the staircase and IT worked beautifully! 

once the glue had set
I was able to paint the rods with
flat black acrylic paint. 

For the handrail
I found a length of wood-channel in my stash 
which was narrow enough to stabilize the rods as well as substantial enough to support the visual weight of the staircase.

I painted the wood with a metallic black acrylic paint 
then lightly sanded down the hard edges along its length 
to give it some additional wear.

E6000 glue was added to the tops of each rod before the handrail was positioned over them and into place. 

I  aged everything 
with several layers of thin, brown transparent washes.

Finally I glued the staircase and rail unit into place.
Any gaps between the wall and the stringer were filled in with drywall patch and when that was dry;
 the hall wall was also aged. 

Now that I have reviewed this photo below,
I may have to add a ball finial to the end of the rail-
what do you think? 

Once the stairs were permanently installed,
I finished the backside of them 
with the baroque Music Room wallpaper 
as outlined in a previous post. 
 I blocked up the area under the stairs, then impulsively
 decided to wrap the paper around the side and-
YUK!
I DIDN'T LIKE IT AT ALL! 

SOooooo
to fix it-
I applied a thick layer of dry-wall patch with my finger 
and a pallet knife
 and completely obliterated the offending paper. 

To fill the void and to add some textural interest,
I cut some scrolly sections,
  from an old plastic doily and imbedded them into the wet putty. 

When everything was dry, 
I re-painted the entire side section of the staircase 
to make it look cohesive with its new bottom.

The painting of it proved to be challenging since I was working in a very tight space, 
and struggling to match it with the existing stone 
on the opposite side of the hall.

All I'll say is that
 I did my best and since you can only see
 one side of the hall at a time... 
it IS, 
what IT is. 

 After I'd had a look at the photo above
I touched up each of the rods
with more flat black acrylic paint
to tidy them up. 

above are the end results of the finished staircase; 
top, side and bottom.
And once again, I see something I'll need to correct
ie. the end of the stub wall should be more defined. 
*sigh* 
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Even though the wallpaper in the Music Room had already been sprayed with Matte Acrylic Sealer, I sprayed it again with 
Stiffen Stuff fabric stiffener,
which I quickly dried down with a heat gun.
I did this to hopefully protect the colour from fading 
and 
to give the paper itself, some added resilience.  

My remaining "big" task
was to construct an inside window frame 
for the Music Room. 
However,
I wanted something romantically Italian  
hmmmm?... 
what should I do?... 🤔

I KNOW! 

How about 
SOMETHING MADE OF STONE?!😩 

Well, why not? 
I've already had LOTS of practice! 🤪

and since I had plenty of unused pieces from the Willowcrest kit,
 I decided to make the interior window frame 
by modifying one of its door frames. 
I cut through the centre section,
and removed about 1/4 inch from the curve,
shortened it,
 then re-glued the two sections back together
 to fit the width of the window opening. 

below is the raw wood door frame

Once the frame was textured and painted to look like stone, 
I repeated the same colours on the insert so that it matched the  finish of the inside frame and sill.

below is the finished
Music Room window with casing

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For the ceiling of the 
Music Room
I deliberately peeled, patched, painted, stained and roughed up the  yellow ceiling paper
to try and make it look more old world.  

The main reason I did this was to disguise
 an obvious join between the ceiling paper in the hall and the ceiling paper in the Music Room.

hmmm?
 I may have to try this out on the bedroom ceiling too

and I thought that I was "FINISHED!" 😤 

The overhead light fixture was made from an ethnic necklace found at my local thrift store.
It is studded all around with tiny pink pearls
and is very ornate.
I glued the light to a ceiling medallion
(formerly a backplate of a dresser drawer-pull.)

For Pepper's little table
I found a small rug printed on suede paper, rescued from another project of mine.

 I added some fringe to one end, 
and draped the rug to fall over half of the tabletop.
 I sprayed the rug with the Siffen Stuff to seal the colour, then
I lightly aged it some more by with coloured chalks 
blending them in with my fingers.

I Really Like 
the softness and warmth which the rug adds to the room. 

Another Change 
was with the accessories on top of the chest of drawers. 

Although I liked the original arrangement, 
I thought that some of my coloured glassware 
should be on display
 to represent Venice 
and it's world famous Murano glassworks.

The new table-scape is simpler
and 
more formal. 

and
Thanks to Drora's delighfully easy cookie tutorial 
http://drorasminimundo.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-very-easy-no-clay-cookies-and-serving.html
I made some tiny sandwich cookies 
arranged on the glass plate
 then I filled a cranberry glass compote 
with mandarin oranges and pears. 

Just a little something for the music teacher
 and/or her students to enjoy after practice. 

wouldja look at that waxy buildup -
how in the world did I miss cleaning that up? 

On the opposite side of the room under the staircase,
I decided to remove the long lidded chest. 
I pushed the draped table against the wall under the mirror 
  and installed a second chair next to it. 

This new more practical arrangement gave me a little more floor space and visually unified both sides of the room.

I LOVE the depth of field in the photo above- 

The Music Room 
was an interesting room to construct. 
  And despite it's odd size 
and obvious limitations, (namely "ME")
I feel that it has managed to turn out pretty good! 

So that's a wrap!
 Villa Leone's second floor is "done"

and 

I'm not sorry to be leaving it behind.

 I feel I have been stuck between floors, 

 for far too long. 

 "Time to say goodbye"
to the stairs and to the Music Room


 and so- 
goodbye!😎

elizabeth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L_yCwFD6Jo