A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That...

How I Spent My Vacation.....

I Wish I could say I had a Fancy Vacation, Dear Readers, but it was really a stay at home and have work done on my RL house kind of Vacation.... which made it not as Restful as one would wish! But because I knew it would be a bit chaotic, I decided to use the available time to work on some of those uninspiring mindless sorts of tasks that otherwise Never seem to get done... and here I refer first to making egg-carton bricks! So while the workers tromped through my house and interrupted me with necessary questions... I made bricks! I managed to complete the remainder of the Conservatory walls inside and out... No, you are Not seeing Double..... I decided I needed the "Conservatory" to be double length... and stand-alone, not attached to a House!

Here you can see the two halves set end to end.....

but I am going to be making some modifications to the design....

and have not glued anything together yet...

nor have I completed the glass roof on this side. But I made the bricks!!!

And I even made a good start on the bricks for the Folly chimney....

The one that tops the roofline in the middle of the house....

But before I can finish it, I need to remove the shingles

so I can be sure the bricks are cut at the correct angle.

And another of the little projects I had put off for Ages....

was to construct the "brownstone" railing

that goes over the Door on the Cupboard House!

You can see the "before" shot here....

If you look carefully... that morning sun sure is blinding!

And the "after" shot.....

I'm sorry the pictures aren't clearer.....

it seemed like such a trifling detail that I didn't take good pictures!

But I think it gives the proper emphasis to the Door!

And Another small thing I made a Start on was the ceiling for the Tree House Bathroom...

I hope you can forgive me if I don't show you More....

because I decided I needed to get the rest of the bathroom walls and floor completed

and Glued down before I could work on the ceiling!

And before I could do that, I needed to make the Extra doors for those Extra rooms....

Here you can see them on the side of the Tree.... with No Doors!

And I decided to make things Difficult for myself.....

because I wanted each room to have its Own door....

Which meant I needed to add Another Sturdy Post on the side to attach hinges to....

Which is why I am Glad that nothing is Glued down yet....

and this floor is still removable!

Here you can see the additional "Post" being added between the floors...

Just like for the Doors into the Spiral Stairs on the Other side...

which meant drilling into the floor and the post and carefully aligning it all....

Here you can see the two rooms with the inner door frames

just fitted and propped in place....

(because nothing is glued down yet!)

Here you can see it more from the back side...

where the new post can now have a door added....

But Before we get to that....

I had to add the Lights to these rooms....

And I am trying to make One light work for both rooms.....

I know.... it doesn't seem to be lighting them Both equally!

I might have to re-think this!

Here you can see the LED light is just in a slot in the wall between the rooms...

I might have to add another light to the Dressing Room side....

I need to order more lights!

Here you can see I have stained the Door Frames....

(still not attached)

And built the door for the Toilet Room....

I added a marble window.....

and here below you can see the not yet finished Door for the Dressing Room....

Just being held in place....

And all the not-yet-attached door frames starting to Fall Down...!!

I wanted to be able to open each room individually...

Especially when I thought about how the painted doors would look

if they were NOT adjacent to the room they belong to!

So while all those pieces are Falling Down again and Again....

I have been Trying to piece together the next little Installment of Daphne's Story!

And so I must tell you about...

Hiring The Nanny!

Many of you, Dear Readers might not be surprised, but Yvonne was a bit disconcerted to discover that it was not so easy to hire reputable child care on short notice! What passed for "Nannies" these days was just not acceptable! They were either too young, or too old or only spoke foreign languages, or worse, could not accept a "live-in" position! She was eventually relieved to find Madame Durant, who was willing to live in and came with good references, and maybe she was not still in her prime, but neither was she doddering! So she was hired.

Raymond was not as sure that she was the best one for the child,

But nobody had asked him, and it was not his place to say.

He was a bit bothered by the fact that he cared so much...

but he told himself it was because this was Andre's child and he had been a friend of Andre's.

Yvonne took them to inspect the Nursery.

It looked as though it had not been used in many years! In fact all the toys were still left as they had been when Andre was a child....

Yvonne waved vaguely at the room and said "It has been waiting.... " but she didn't know how to say what she felt in her heart.... the longing for time to turn back.... how she couldn't ever bear to put all the toys of Andre's childhood away... even when he was still with them.... and now... now it was somehow all wrong! She waved her hand again and said "you can arrange things however you need..."

(Antique Cradle made by Ewa)

Sensing her discomfort, Madame Durant stepped forward and began to take charge. It would be her domain, after all, and it was good that she make it clear who was in charge in the Nursery! She looked around the room and her gaze fell on a cradle that was clearly a beloved and much used antique. "This will have to be stored somewhere else" she declared. "It is clearly too old and frail to be reliable to keep the child safe!"
Yvonne could only remember how carefully she had laid Andre in that cradle when he was a newborn babe... and how she had rocked him in the evening.... she fought back the tears burning in her eyes. How quickly he had outgrown that cradle! But all she said was "of course..."
"I suppose the rest of it will clean up pretty well" added Madame Durant, "but I will need a separate room myself. I will not be sleeping in the baby's room."
Yvonne was only too willing to leave all these decisions to Madame Durant.... it was too exhausting to even think about them. "You must let us know what you need...." was all she said.

It did not take long for Madame Durant to have the room arranged to her liking. She was not unhappy with the basic furnishings. She was not Modern enough to feel the need to have all the latest fashionable equipment. She was not one to believe in the need to pamper children.... on the contrary, she believed that a little Spartan strictness was much superior in developing a child of good "character". She put the baby down in the crib to go to sleep... and if at first the child cried... she would soon adjust. It was not good discipline to be always picking the child up just because it was crying.
I hope none of you will be surprised to learn that Raymond was not able to leave the child completely behind! The very next day, after work he found himself going to check in and see how she was adjusting. It turns out that it was the Nanny's dinner hour and she was nowhere in sight when Raymond arrived and found the child crying in the crib. He wasted no time in picking her up!

She quieted at once in his arms as he walked her back and forth.

Seeing the small cot in the corner, he stretched out upon it and they were both asleep in minutes.

So it was that when Madame Durant returned and looked in to the Nursery to check on the child she was faced with a dilemma. Should she assert her position as head of the Nursery and risk waking the child.... or should she let everyone have some blessed sleep... for however long it lasted... and deal with the young man later....

Well, she certainly had her principles.... but even she was no fool... she would let them sleep for now. There would be time soon enough to make the necessary rules clear to everybody. And after all, she was feeling the stress of the new position and was tired herself.... It would feel good to be able to get some sleep!

(To be Continued....)

So, before I leave you all, Dear Readers, I want to show you just one more tiny detail that I was able to make while on my non-vacation Vacation... I know that at least One of you was concerned that I might leave out some necessary supplies for the Tiny Toilet Room.....