The Aero Squadron Lounge – Landscaping

This was my first time landscaping in earnest, and I enjoyed the process so much! The feel I went for was manicured rustic. This is a vintage bar in a more modern setting, so I tried to bridge the gap between farmhouse natural and tidy grounds.

I started with a sheet of builders foam for the base, and used a carving knife to slope the edges. Out the front door, I carved (ok…butchered, whatever) a pathway out of the foam. I sealed the foam with grey gesso.

I made the front stone step in the same manner as I had for the fireplace. It’s a scrap of white styrofoam covered with spackling, sanded and painted to look like stone. The crack in it was a happy accident. It didn’t quite fit into its allotted space, and when I bent it to make it fit, the surface popped. I love the cracked detail and wish I had thought of it myself. I added further paint washes to really accentuate it. That front chip is also a happy accident. :D

To make the walkway less treacherous, I first used some stucco patch to even out the surface. Once that had set, I applied a thick layer of Aleene’s Quick Dry glue, shown here before I spread the glue with a brush.

The gravel is Woodland Scenics Ballast left over from Baslow Ranch. I poured it on generously, pressed it gently and let it dry overnight.

I brushed off the excess back into my bowl for later use in another project. I then added some paint washes to make the gravel look more natural.

I had originally planned to have the plane and dogwood trees switched, but when I did the layout, it didn’t work out so well. The tree blocked too much of the tower, and the plane was lost in the larger space on the right. Here you can see I painted the landscape portion black just in case the ground might show through in areas.

After determining the amount of mulch I would need on either side of the pathway and around the tower, I cut pieces of newspaper to make patterns for the Woodland Meadow Field Grass sheets by Heki, from Scenic Express. I marked the outlines on the landscaping board.

The shrubs and smaller trees I used for the final layout are Squeeze Me trees from Model Builders Supply. While I was awaiting their arrival, I was reduced to using aluminum foil stand-ins. ;D

It was messy cutting the grass sheets, so I made all of my cuts on the counter and shook the excess from them there as well.

I used newspaper scraps to make templates for ease in cutting.

I saved all of the clippings for filling in later on where needed.

I spread glue evenly over the landscaping board with a brush.

I pressed the grass pieces in place and kept an eye on them until the glue set a little, continuing to press the edges down. The sheets measured 15 3/4″ x 9 1/2″, so there was some piecing required to cover the entire lawn. For the henhouse side, I cut a curve along each piece since I thought it would make for a less noticeable seam. I cut the back piece and applied glue just as I had before.

This time I applied glue to the edge of the back piece where it would meet the front piece.

It turned out very well.

With the henhouse in place, you can barely see it at all.

The back seam worked out very well, too.

I carefully applied glue to where the mulch would be.

I applied mulch from A Little More in Miniatures with a spoon.

I added generous amounts of mulch.

I lightly pressed it into the glue with my fingertips. While the glue was still wet, I removed any obviously out of scale pieces with tweezers.

I then mowed the lawn and raked the mulch with…my vacuum cleaner. :D

In this close-up, you can see where I dirtied up the lower edge of the building all the way around using a very diluted black and brown paint wash. This was done prior to all landscaping applications.

The materials turned out so realistic!

The dogwood tree has been detailed previously, and it had its own raised base created during the assembly phase.

I had the scary task of removing the tree from its base in order to apply the grass first. I used stucco patch to even out the ground around the raised tree base after gluing it to the landscaping board. Once that dried, I sealed the new surface with gesso and painted it black.

I cut a rough circle in the grass to surround the dogwood.

I had to patch the area behind this piece, so I cut a pattern to fit. Oh, don’t let the hens see the grocery ads! :O

After planting the tree, I applied glue inside the circle and to the remaining edge of the pathway and added mulch.

I love the way it looks with the bench in front of the tree.

The rustic planter filled in the remaining area and helps disguise the front lawn seam, which is slightly visible from some angles.

Once all of the grass was in, I planted the Squeeze-Me trees with a dab of glue on the bottoms. The lovely birdhouse was made from a kit by Twilla’s Tiny Treasures, the bird is from A Little More in Miniatures.

I had originally considered making them flowering shrubs, and below I’ve placed some impatiens from Small Talk (no web address) in mockup. I thought the white and peach competed with the building and the dogwood. The dark crimson was so dark that it was hardly worth the effort to add them. I really liked the bluish purple, but I didn’t think they added so much that it would be worth taking the time to shape and add centers to the amount I would need to cover twenty shrubs. The dogwood had exhausted me!

I added plain wood trim around the baseboard to finish, and here is the end result. :D

And from the other side…

That should do it for the Lounge posts. If there is anything I’ve missed or there is something you want to see closer, just leave a comment.

Categories: The Aero Squadron Lounge
September 22, 2012 | 0 comments

The Aero Squadron Lounge – structure, part 3

Continued from structural details, part 2 for The Aero Squadron Lounge.

The beams are made from balsa, marred and painted to look like slightly burned and weathered wood. I didn’t go overboard on the weathering, because I didn’t think it needed to look like it was still smoking. This photo shows the base color…more aging was added later after shingling.

I originally wanted vertical beams to rise up from the floor to hold the ceiling beams in place. I would have been able to hang pictures and other items related to my theme there. Even with the added floor space, though, there was not enough room to have them without messing up the furniture floor plan.

One of the ceiling beams terminates at the fireplace and serves to keep the fireplace unit from tipping into the room.

I completed the wiring for the hanging lamps for the tables as well as the front door carriage lamp. All the wiring for this build is detailed in a separate post.

Roof planning was next, and I used a scrap of the Cellfoam 88 I had used on the tower to determine just how much roof decay I could have.

I determined the amount of strip wood I would need to cover this space, then cut sixteen strips of wood measuring 3/8″ x 12″ from 1/16″ thick bass wood. I stained these boards, front and back, with a wash of black and brown acrylic.

I glued the strip wood planks to complete the partial roof structure, breaking the ends where it opens into the main room.

To create a front eave, I left excess hanging over the front wall.

I shingled the roof with Greenleaf speed shingles – love these! :D I first covered the roof with loose shingle strips to determine how many I would need.

I stained these before applying, and this is my shingle drying apparatus. Rather fitting for a Lounge.

I followed the bass wood planks and broke the shingles to form the jagged bombed edge and a few holes.

Here is the view from inside.

I touched up the paint toward the end of the build, and here is the finished product.

Finishing the roof essentially completed the main room build, and the rest of the time was dedicated to the tower. Those posts begin here. The conical roof for the tower was another math challenge, and its detailed post is here.

Categories: The Aero Squadron Lounge
September 22, 2012 | 0 comments

The Aero Squadron Lounge – wiring

Nothing brings a miniature build together quite like lights, but wiring a structure always has challenges.

This was my first time working with builders foam for landscaping and building walls, but it won’t be my last. It was a great material for hard wiring the lighting, too.

Before I glued the base of The Aero Squadron Lounge onto the landscaping board, I cut wire channels that would run underneath. I draped twine inside the channels so I could tie the wires to it and then pull the wires through the channels later in the build. You’ve probably noticed these strings in the posts I’ve been writing about the tower and main room construction.

The front door carriage lamp was the first light to be installed but I don’t have good photos of what I did.

I poked a bamboo skewer into the foam to make a wire channel and pulled the wire up toward the roof. I used the skewer to then make a channel toward the join with the tower. On the side of the front wall, I cut a channel into the foam so the wires would run toward the ground and through the baseboard channel.

Fortunately, I did take better pictures when I wired the three hanging lights over the three tables inside. For the one over the pub table by the front door, I cut a channel into the balsa wood beam and pulled the wire through the front wall. I then painted the wire to match the beam. This was the only wire that might possibly be noticeable if left white.

For the other two hanging lights, the roof rafters covered the channels made in their respective beams.

I cut a channel into the builders foam all along the top edge leading toward the earlier channel made for the front door carriage lamp.

I used a length of tubing to feed the wires through the channel.

I taped all the wires to the twine and pulled the twine through the channel.

Once I cut the twine from the wires, I fed them into the side baseboard channel toward the back and to the power strip. The remaining length of twine here is for the tower light.

I pressed the wires into the side wall channel on the front wall. Once the tower was attached, this would be sealed up with stucco.

The front spotlight was fairly straightforward as well. I bought a pack of two Scene Master spotlights on amazon.com but used only one of the pair included in the package.

Once I knew where I wanted the spotlight, I cut a further channel to it from the other baseboard channel. I ran a length of wire underneath the house and left a small bit exposed to wire the light. I had to plant the grass before I could install it.

I filled in the channel with leftover stucco when I added the dogwood tree base, where I used stucco to sculpt the hill. I filled in the other front baseboard channel with stucco after attaching the tower. You can see where I adjusted the channel at the front of the board.

Once the grass was planted, I was able to wire the spotlight. I cut the spotlight wires short and then spliced them to the exposed wire from the ground.

I made a small hole in the ground to sink the spliced wires into.

I glued the spotlight to the grass over the hole.

As noted in a previous post, the bar lights are operated by a 9V battery.

To keep the bar removable, I wired the two lamps to a 9V battery adapter with an on/off switch from Evan Designs. Ingenious, right? Ha! There are two main issues with this idea. First, the bar is definitely removable, but it is hard to get it back into place without the wires sticking out…very fiddly. More importantly, the battery doesn’t last long and the candlesticks are very dim. I tried wiring each lamp to its own battery but the difference in brightness was negligible and it doubled the fiddly nature of trying to get the bar in place with two battery assemblies fighting for freedom. What I should have done was made a plug in the floor.

The lit fire is an acrylic log piece with a red bulb. I drilled a hole for the bulb to fit through the bottom of the egg carton hearth, and its wire runs inside a channel through the baseboard foam along the back.

Since the fireplace is removable, I have a small recess where the wire and bulb can curl into when the fireplace is removed.

However, now I see Minimum World has a battery operated flickering fire light that would certainly make removing the fireplace less of a hassle. (Update: I installed the Minimum World battery light here.)

Close-up of the recess and fireplace wire.

The most challenging light to wire was the tower light.

Even if I hadn’t made the tower roof removable in the end, I wanted exposed rafters and holes in the roof. That meant you would be able to see the wire, even if I cut a channel into the balsa beam and painted it.

I opted to hide the wire in plain sight with conduit made from 3/32″ aluminum tubing from my local hobby shop. I eliminated the chain on this light and made it a ceiling fixture. The wire goes up through the beam, through the conduit and out the side of the tower. The end wire runs between the tower and side wall, eventually to be covered with stucco.

To disguise the end of the wire inside, I used a round wooden bead. I painted the conduit on the beam brown to match the wood. I painted the conduit along the wall and the wooden bead warm white to make it blend in with the wall color. I have seen conduit done like this in real life many times. I added a metal doorbell from Sussex Crafts to act as a vintage light switch. Now the illusion is complete. The whole process is detailed in the tower construction post, part 3.

Here is the faux switch for the tower light.

I started to fill in the side baseboard channel with stucco but realized the moisture from the stucco might mess with the spliced wires and I didn’t want to take any chances. Instead, I cut a sliver of builders foam to plug the channel. These channels don’t have to be pretty, they just need to work and be hidden in the end.

Categories: The Aero Squadron Lounge
September 20, 2012 | 0 comments

The Aero Squadron Lounge – removable fireplace

Or, turning stryofoam into stone. For the initial structure, I used regular white stryofoam for the side walls since it was easy to cut and shape with sandpaper.

I added builders foam across the front only because I had the perfect sized scrap for the opening. The back and upper sides are foam core board and the upper front is balsa…a little bit of everything from the scrap box.

The back of the fireplace is made from egg carton bricks placed in a herringbone pattern. As I had done for the Heritage chimney, I used a printed grid to help keep the pattern consistent.

The fireplace is actually bricked all the way up inside as you can see in this work-in-progress shot. I changed to regular brick pattern from the upper edge of the stone fireplace through to the top of the chimney opening.

I had to do this in two sections, the back and sides first and then the top front, which wasn’t glued in place until after all the painting and grouting was complete. Below, you can see the brick on the back and sides in progress as well as the initial coat of spackling on the stone portion of the fireplace.

I painted the bricks with Camel by Americana using a stencil brush to stipple on the paint. I did the same thing with Desert Sand by Americana, leaving some of the Camel underlayer showing here and there. I sealed the bricks with Delta Ceramcoat satin varnish and then used spackling for grout. I followed that with washes of browns and black to reach this coloration.

I was very heavy handed with the spackling on the fireplace.

After sanding, it really did start to look like real stone.

I then layered on paint washes, rubbing the surface with my fingers to make sure there were no brush marks left. I used an X-Acto knife to draw lines on the stone. I wanted it to appear to be made from stone slabs. Going over the lines with an awl chipped the stone and made the seam lines more realistic.

The fine detail is something I didn’t expect but just love about it. It now even feels cool to the touch like real stone.

I bricked, painted and grouted the interior of the front top piece (no photo unfortunately) and glued it in place. I then cut builders foam pieces to make the back wall that the fireplace would have been attached to at some point, with some extra broken bits to fill in the space.

This was painted and covered with stucco to match the rest of the building.

On the inside of the back foam piece, I scored the surface to mimic the egg carton brick on the interior. It was then painted to match. Here it is still wet from the paint washes.

I made the top front and sides of the broken chimney from scraps of builders foam, finishing in the same manner. Here they are before painting.

I then covered the front and sides with stucco to make a complete unit.

The lit fire is an acrylic log piece with a red bulb. I drilled the hole for the bulb through the bottom and later made a channel in the floor for it to curl out of sight when the fireplace is removed. More about that later.

The fireplace screen is by Jeannetta Kendall and purchased from lacyhome4boys on eBay. Here’s the shiny new screen in place; it looks like I built the fireplace around it but that’s just coincidence. :D I bought this as a last minute addition.

I used black acrylic paint to age it and tone down the shine. Much better.

The medallion above the fireplace is a jewelry finding. Overall, the fireplace is not that easily seen in the final layout, but I love it and think it adds so much.

Categories: The Aero Squadron Lounge
September 19, 2012 | 0 comments

The Aero Squadron Lounge – structure, part 2

Continued from structural details, part 1 for The Aero Squadron Lounge.

I used regular household stucco patch from Home Depot to cover the walls inside and out. I eventually painted the stucco surfaces Warm White by Americana. In the photos for this post, you’ll see a lot of back and forth with painted and unpainted stucco. I applied most of the stucco while the walls were flat and left the areas where the walls would join clear.

I cut out a recess in the foam above the front door to leave room for a cross beam. As I had done for the window, I painted the area around the door opening green, applied the stucco and painted it before gluing the foam outer wall to the wood inner wall.

The original kit wall leading to the greenhouse had a square opening, but I cut the foam padding with an arch. I filled in the gap between the two layers with stucco so you couldn’t see where the square points had been. I later broke apart this wall’s back edge (right side in this photo) but I wasn’t sure how much I would need to keep the building complete…so I left it intact during the first part of construction.

I’ve detailed the tower construction, including its stonework, in separate posts starting here.

The spiral stairs inside the tower were added after the floor was secured to the base board but before the tower was attached. I have a more extensive blog post on the stairs here; these required a good amount of math and planning. :D

The front door from the kit originally had a window. I opted to make a solid door from balsa, scored to look like it was made from planks. I added a Z support structure on the inside.

I painted the door Clover by Folk Art with a light sanding afterward. The working hinges are from Olde Mountain Miniatures.

The flooring is made from 5/8″ x 1″ egg carton tiles. The fireplace hearth is a solid piece of egg carton material as well.  It is attached to the fireplace but not to the main floor.

I painted and sealed the tiles before grouting with spackling, then added multiple washes to add depth to the coloration. The recess in the back is where the fireplace sits; I later painted it to blend in.

The fireplace unit is situated in the open back. To make this a 360° build, I added rubble walls to the back wall that tied in with the back edges of the side walls and the back of the fireplace. I was able to do this only because I planned for part of the roof to be open. This and the bombed out condition of the back wall would allow access inside the structure even when the fireplace is in.

Here you can see what is permanent to the building when the fireplace is removed.

And with the fireplace in.

Here you can see the broken side back wall near the greenhouse. I used flat nose pliers to rip pieces away at random before painting and grouting. This wasn’t easy as the builders foam was rather resistant to tearing. You can also see that when I joined the greenhouse to the main room, I applied stucco over the seams and around the base of the walls.

Continued in part 3.

Categories: The Aero Squadron Lounge
September 18, 2012 | 0 comments