The chocolate-box cottage

When the Mini House first arrived at Chez Pearly Jones, it was covered in brick effect paper, which for some inexplicable reason had been printed in a rather unhealthy and very un-brick like shade of bile green.

The picture does not really do the colour justice...

It is difficult to describe the exact colour, but as Mr Pearly Jones is also a designer, who has worked in the world of Pantone colours for the last 20 years, I turned to him for a second opinion.

"What colour would you say that was?" I asked,  pointing at the new arrival sitting on our dining room table.  He took one look, and with the air of a true professional said "Snot", before wandering off to watch TV.

He did have a point. The paper could have come straight out of someone's hanky, and so it had to go.

Having looked into brick slips and discounted them at an early stage due to price and my lack of patience, I realised I had to go for paper, but with something looking more like the London Stock bricks which No 1. Heatherside Corner is built with.

Having found dolls house brick paper online, it dawned on me, as I went to check-out, that I didn't actually need to buy any.  As mentioned in earlier posts, it can be very handy to be working at the family printing business. And handier still, if you remember this fact before making unnecessary purchases!

So instead, I paid a single use licence for a photograph of an old wall, from an online image bank, and then persuaded Mr PJ to run me off some sheets of it at SRA3 onto very thin card.

The basic brick image printed onto thin card for a more durable finish. 

As it was never part of the plan to make the outside of the Mini House look like the real thing, it allowed me a big dollop of artistic license when it came to the brickwork.  I have always loved those old adverts or ghost signs, which were painted on the sides of shops and houses before advertising hoardings took over.

The Mini House seemed to be the perfect canvas for a couple of my own. 

While having a loft clear-out our neighbours had unearthed an old Fry's Chocolate box and kindly lent it to me to scan.  Along with a favourite vintage image, I used Photoshop to add them both to the brick wall paper, and to make them look weathered and worn away in parts.

The inspiration found in our neighbours loft. The Mini House can now truly be described as a chocolate-box cottage!

And as it looks once "painted" on the side wall of the Mini House.

Once the Mini House was entirely covered,  I painted it with watered down acrylic in browns and a moss green to emulate the damp patches,  algae and general accumulated grime, which is in keeping with a Victorian house. Or at least, it is, in No 1. Heatherside Corner's case.

It looks a bit run-down and slightly neglected. As if it has been hidden behind a very overgrown hedge or tree for a long time... which is not so much like No 1. Heatherside Corner. 

But I'm pretty pleased with the general effect.  

And not least, because himself has finally stopped referring to it as Mucus Mansions.