Well I have some great news regarding my Gloucester. Last weekend I got almost all of my furniture and belongings into storage. Family came together and helped me a lot. While doing it my mom asked me what I was going to do with my Gloucester. I told her it would have to go into storage too since I didn't have a place to put it while we stayed with them. She was worried that it would get ruined in a metal storage unit, in the summer time especially in the Arizona heat, so she rearranged her office and found me a place to display it and work on it while we stay with them. I am on cloud nine right now. I brought it with me and now can continue working on it. The best part was while I was setting it up my mom came in and was oohing and ahhing over it and the accessories I had accumulated for it and then proceeded to take over setting up the kitchen! I loved it! LOL.
As for the title, I decided that the Gloucester needed an update. I wasn't 100% happy with the facade. It didn't seem complete or very realistic to me. So I have been mulling it over and have made the decision to re-do 90% of the exterior. I am leaving the bottom stones and trim but will be grouting the stones. The windows and doors will stay the same except I will be adding some corbels/brackets and toppers to them. There has to be a special name for those but at the moment I can't remember.
The plaster work will be sanded down and I am covering it with red stretcher bricks and re-doing the quoins. I wanted an inexpensive yet realistic looking way to do the bricks and have decided to try the cork shelf liner trick. I have sponged the different colors of paint and have cut them into strips and have started cutting the individual bricks. Surprisingly they look just like little bricks. I am thrilled! The best part is that the liners have 1/2" square gridded paper on the backs so measuring and cutting has been super easy and I have been using a paper cutter so making straight, even cuts is a breeze. There is adhesive on the backs but I will be adding more to makes sure they don't come up after I start grouting them. I got quite a few of them ready to go but many more are needed. I calculated out that I should get approximately 5,100 bricks from one roll. Not sure how many I will need total though. I purchased the first roll from Home Depot and was a little worried that the texture was too big and I wasn't happy with it, but I found the Duck brand at Walmart that was perfect. I think I will use the coarser one for the Quoins and the Duck ones for the stretcher bricks. I am thinking I will need to purchase one more roll from Walmart to have enough to cover everything, unless I cut some of the coarser one and mix them all together. That may give it a more realistic appearance in the end. Any thoughts?
As for the roof I will be touching up the shingles that are already installed, I can see some spots that I missed that look white. Then I STILL have to finish the chimneys, install them and shingle the back roof. The corner covers on the roof I used I am thinking of removing and using something to make the individual caps with. Having them match the colors I used on the roof will be the problem. I saw some curved caps made from a type of card online, but I don't know how that would take to stains or paint. I may try a from scratch way and see how that goes.
The inside still has a bit of work to go. I would like to re-polyurethane the wood floors, re-color the kitchen "flag stone" and grout that. Also, the nursery door needs the rest of the trim installed. The bathroom needs the tiny baseboards put down, the small wall by the bathroom door needs the paneling finished and I have to paint and install the door and it's trim. Otherwise I think I will leave the interior alone and focus on the furnishings and accessories. The house has finally settled on a time period. Turn of the century, around 1902, since I have a reproduction Sears and Roebuck Magazine from that year. I was debating on changing out the lights now but I have had such a bugger of a time with them that I think I should leave well enough alone. The kitchen and parlour fit the time, the dining room is iffy but the nursery, master bedroom and bathroom don't, I don't think anyways. I ordered a hob grate for the fireplace and am excited to see that in place once it arrives. Sorry I don't have any pictures unless you'd like one of painted fingers and lot of unfinished bricks. Off to bed I go, tomorrow comes fast and I have lots to do.
Glad you got to keep working on your house --yay! That brick technique sounds intriguing, too. Hope to see a few pics next time :)
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