I'm a full time college student in Mortuary Science and this last week was my first round of exams. I had Thanatochemistry, Jurisprudence, and Management II. There were times late at night that I just needed to relax and put the books down. I started to work on my Haunted Mansion renovation project again! This is my own personal dollhouse and not for sale. It's a 1:12 scale cedar kit that I purchased for about $40. It was in terrible shape, water damaged, dusty, pieces put on upside down or backwards... I had a lot of fun tearing it apart and rebuilding it! It has 3 floors with no room partitions. It did have 2 horrible flights of stairs right in the center cutting through the space- I took a hammer and pair of plyers to that. While smoothing over some of the joints and dings with filler, I did leave many of the imperfections because it is after all, a spooky home for odd residents.My color scheme was inspired initially by a Martha Stewart article on incorporating subtle greens into a Halloween scheme. I want a haunted mansion that I can decorate year round rather than something that was strictly a black and orange Halloween theme.
I bought several used books on Victorian and Gothic style and Painted Ladies. Some pictures that were inspirational are below:
Above a delapidated entry way of a once grand Victorian home.
Subtle greens...
Intense purple with odd lemon creme and sage accents...
So the ideas of color are floating around in my head as I glue all the spooky do-dadds and edging onto the exterior of the house. I used plastic bats over the windows, repurposed Christmas ornaments as spires, jewelry findings, felt web cutouts, plastic garden gating, and disarticulated bits of plastic skeletons... and whatever else I could glue to it!
Next, I spray painted the whole exterior with a flat black and then touched it all up with a gloss black. The windows are covered in tape at this point to protect them.
Then the crackle medium was applied over the wood panelling and wood edging. Next I painted the base color coat of pale lilac with the black showing through the crackle, giving it an aged appearence.
Now the detail colors: an olive green for the majority of edgin with areas of lime green and periwinkle. All the green areas are also coated with a glow in the dark paint that is not noticeable in the light. All of the fencing and bone details are painted in a cream color. Everything is inked in black and then drybrushed in pale sage green. Each panel is also shaded with a magenta ink. This might seem labor intensive but it didn't take too long actually. I put wear marks on raised surfaces, made rusted and water damage trails from underneath raised details like the flower beds, and simulated grime accumulation in corners.
I'll be basing the piece on a large circular board so I can build a yard with trees and a cemetary. I'll also be adding greenery and moss to the house itself, as if its overgrown with ivy. There's more on the way!
