I didn't get too much done on the building front today; it was clean and organize day instead. I did do a little research about Victorian wood trim. The information I go was all over the place. I know a lot of it was very dark and one resource said that often it was pine with a walnut stain and artificial woodgraining. I picked up a little can of walnut stain to try, decided it was too dark, and tried a couple of other stains I have around the house. Here they are laid out on my 'maple' kitchen table:
From left to right; walnut, Early American, mahogany. At first I found myself preferring the mahogany.
Then I placed the staircase and samples on some wallpaper. It wasn't the best way to tell, because I am not at all certain these particular papers will go in the house.
In the end, I think I actually like the walnut best after all; it gives a nice contrast. Perhaps a softer, warmer brown? Pecan?
There's still time to figure it out. Selecting colors always seems harder than it should. Why is that? Yeesh!
On the real-life mini front, the baby mockingbirds are starting to feather out nicely. They hardly fit in their nest any more!
Hi Chris! Just a heads up! The wood will look a whole lot darker once you install it in that smaller space, where the light will be considerably less. Your papers are charming and you have some good selections but I would suggest that you do as you would in a Real House and sample them in each space to see how they respond to the lighting. I began papering 2 walls in the evening and also painted. By morning everything looked totally different and I had to start all over again! I should have learned by now that not just the scale shrinks but so does the light!
ReplyDeleteelizabeth
Great suggestion, Elizabeth. Thank you! I end up doing a lot of my prep work in the evening, but save my construction work for daylight. One of the first steps in the instructions are to start building the stairs, so I'm going to need to figure out the stain colors. I love having multiple scraps of wood to play with so I can get it right before committing a color to the actual woodwork. I love having the house temporarily constructed so I can play with ideas before construction.
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