The Roofing for Kate's Cottage

Hello everyone,

So how is your week? So far I have been busy as ever. Extra house cleaning, changing every room into our winter curtains, bedding, carpeting. Well let's say in November I always tend to have everything ready before I start decorating for Christmas. This year flew so fast. Gilbert is getting better everyday but still have a long way to fully recover so I try not to let him over do it. I am also busy with my everyday work, family, kids and yes I almost forgot busy with My Miniature World like always. A few would ask how you do it all? How do you mange with a house and 3 kids? Yes believe it or not I do it. Real house, family and duties are always my number one priority but I always manage to fit in my passion in between. There is always a different pattern as long as I do everything.

So I have worked a bit more on my lovely little Tudor Cottage called Kate's Cottage. Now I am working on it's outside before I really start concentrating on decorating the inside.

The Roof for Kate's Cottage

After finishing the beam work for the inside I started working on the roof. I really tried hard to make it look realistic both from the inside and the outside. I started working firstly on the inside of the roof. Being a small cottage I wanted to give it a thatched effect roof so the inside had to be adapted for it too.

Painting the inside of the roof

I first started by painting the inside of the roof with a very dark brown. I have painted it in a way that there were areas where it is really dark and others lighter.

Adding sack cloth

To give it a textured effect, using pva glue diluted with a little water I pasted sack cloth strips to the inside of the roof on top of the painted ceiling using a thick paint brush.

painting the sack cloth ceiling

When the ceiling was fully dried it was and just right, I started shading it with a mixture of browns. Some light, medium and darker brown.

Finishing the painting of the ceiling

When all that was done I added some camel like color as basically the thatched roof used to be made out of straw and similar material. Finally I placed the roof in it's place and started adding the beams inside.

When the thick beams where fixed in place I started working on the more narrow ones and placed them between the beams.

I was thrilled how the room looked with the new ceiling. It gives it more character and just right for this cottage and style.

The ceiling inside 

Then the headache started as I didn't know how I was going to make the roof from the outside. The instructions of the kit suggested to use plaster which I didn't like at all. I thought of getting the miniature hay that they use to make thatched roof for miniatures but still I didn't like it. I came across this sheep wool like fabric in a dark color and an idea just came to my head.

I decided to use it for the roof. So I used pva glue to glue the fabric to the roof panels. I have turned the edges around so I could bring out the curves at the trim of the roof and it looks much more realistic.

Brushing down the fabric

As the wool of the fabric is like sheep wool with that curly texture I had to brush down the wool with one of those metal hard brushes. When the fabric was brushed down I used a backcombing comb to make the streaks in the fabric and in the mean time I sprayed the fabric until it was soaked with matt acrylic varnish. This will keep the fabric stiff with the pattern of the streaks and quite solid.

The roof of the cottage using fabric

And this is how the roof looks like so far. 

I still need to add the top trimming and the chimney pots and so on. The trimming will have the same fabric affect.

Hope you liked what I have done so far with the inside and outside of the roof and maybe you will also find it  useful.

Keep tuned for the next update on Kate's Cottage. Hopefully I will be finishing the outside very soon.

Take Care and See you Soon.

Hugs,

Rebecca xxx