Sea Shanty

I have done plenty on my Sea Shanty so there are loads of photos!

Firstly I painted the exterior with a grey/blue colour.

Here is a close up of the shingles pattern, it felt very flat and 2 dimensional.

I asked Judiths advise about the 'flat feel' and this was her advice:

"It needs brushing with some Matt varnish but first put some dark brown in it - enough to get into the cracks to add dimension. Then wipe over with a rag."

So I followed her advice and got just the look I wanted. The depth doesn't show up so well on the photos but trust me it is a whole load better than it was.

The next thing I did was paint and put in the doors and windows.

Here you can see the windows from the inside as well as the internal door that I have put in-between the bedroom and the bathroom.

I glued the internal door slightly open as I felt it looked so much better.

I glued the front door closed, we don't want those sea breezes blowing in on a winters evening!

The bathroom window is a lovely oval shape.

The shutters were the next thing to go on.

I love looking through the windows and seeing the stairs.

I then realised that in my eagerness to get the internal stairs in I had not thought through how I would get the internal window trims in! oops! So I decided that I would be better off building and painting the trims beforehand so that I only had one piece to manoeuvre. I cut the pieces using a mitre box and then glued them together on my lovely little magnetic glue jig.

..and then painted them.

I then very carefully glued them in place using tweezers. Hey presto!

Here is the back with all the trims in.

My thoughts then turned to the roof. So I built the porch, painting the brackets to match the windows and the underside to look like weathered wood.

The roof is corrugated plastic sheeting. I wanted a weathered copper look, so I painted them a bluey green and then dirtied them up by dry brushing some brown over it.

Here is the roof from the back.

And a close up.

I then glued the plastic roof sheeting onto the porch and glued that in place. So here is a photo of how the Sea Shanty stands now. I am really pleased with how it has turned out. It has taken me almost a year of deliberating over colour choices for this project, I really needed it to be right for me. I am so glad that I waited until I knew exactly what I wanted because I am thrilled with the outcome.

Now its onto the Wharf and the sea itself......