Beach House Part 12: The beach and the garden

**Progress in the next few posts didn't happen in the order I'll be talking about them but I grouped events together so you can see how it all came together.

Structurally, the roof needed extra support if that heavy, battery powered lamp was going to hang from it, so I glued on a beam along the front of the house (matching the one along the back) and added strips to the roof along both sides to hold the roof in place.  I also glued on the lamp base.  This way the roof was still removable but more secure.

Here you can see the lamp hanging from the ceiling and the white structural beam along with one of the brown strips that hold the roof in place.

The outside of the beach house needed to be finished.  The best souvenir Mom and I brought home from our little May vacation was a few handfuls of flat, small rocks.  I knew I needed them as stepping stones outside the door so we enjoyed collecting them as we walked the beaches.

Now I could finish my beach.  After testing to see which stones fit so the doors could still open, I cut the foam so the stone would sit nice and deep in the "sand". 

      

 

Ta-da!  The doors open without touching the stones and you can now shake off some of that sand before coming in!

And what would be better than having a nice, woven mat to wipe your sandy feet on?  

So I made one:

I found colored hemp cord a while ago at a thrift store and it was perfect!!  Even the colors were beachy!  So I slowly glued and rolled, glued and rolled until I had a nice sized mat.

Somehow it got a little uneven but hey, it was a first try.

And it looks great!

How about the garden side?  I decided to use a leftover piece of floor tile to make a step into the garden, the reverse side just didn't look finished and there was no room for real stones.  

Then I played with the grass along the house and glued wee bits in the cracks of the flagstone here and there.

A patio set?  Of course!  Who wouldn't want to sit out by the pond, smelling all those lovely roses?  

Also from the Toronto miniature shop I bought this Bistro kit and used my Sharpie to color it red... at least one side, the other came colored black.  The chairs were a little tricky to assemble as the back pieces are very delicate; luckily the mdf was strong enough.  From Miniatures by Vio this is the third table/desk, also a kit, which I saw as a potting table in the garden.

I had planned the windows to be high enough for the table to stand leaning against the outside wall and there's enough room to open the doors.

And so here is the garden up to this point, a lovely spot to relax and listen to the birds and the waves on the sand.

Next:  making a few tables from scratch