Additional Work: The Back of the House, Shrubbery and Such....Nee.

10th April - May 15th 2015

Cutting up the foam block.

I had started thinking about the back of the house and how I wanted the area behind to be finished off.  First I thought just grass and overgrown areas with a fence to hold out the wild growth but then, I decided to try and enhance the environment behind the house as much as I did in the front.  So, I opted for overgrown wild grass and shrubbery and without a fence.
I bought some florist’s green blocks and started to cut them a bit to size.

Plastic grass elements.

Granuled brown stuff for filling.

I had bought some plastic grass elements and leaves in the USA on my last trip there (more or less to scale) and using the green and brown filler from my son’s train decorating kits I covered the florist blocks somewhat.  I also had some leftover greenish stuff (I don’t know the actual name for it) that are like dried out mosslike growth and used those as bushes to fill out some areas.  I pulled out the iris blossoms I had bought ages ago and used some green “grass” that is normally used in Japanese food presentation.  They are plastic sheets which when cut to size and folded fit in and around the stem of the iris quite nicely.  So I made a small garden of irises by slitting a bunch of these plastic sheets, rolling them and then inserting them into the grass base.  When I checked out the irises at the end of my street, I noticed that they usually grow in a large bush-like cluster.  Then they flowers die.  But the greenery remains for a while.  So I made some clusters of greenery too.  The back of the garden will be the least visible so I had to be sure to make the areas as if you were viewing them when you step outside the back storage area gate.  Plus I didn’t want the grass to block the back of the house too much otherwise you really can’t see the woodshed or the garbage bin.  So with that in mind, I made the next section flat.  Just glue and covering with more green and brown material and some static grass.

Filling the first foam section.

Adding an iris and some "leaves"

The plastic food separator.

Slitting the sections into leaves and adding the tape for binding.

Creating bushes with the plastic rolls.

First two sections pretty much complete.

Incorporating the aquarium flower to the base.

The next few sections I decided to incorporate the foam and the aquarium plastic flowers I had bought years ago.  I just continued to adopt the leftover materials from my son’s train table and the extra pieces of plastic flowers and bushes to cover the surfaces.  I made a small tree from one of the plastic branches (covering it in some florist’s tape and painting it brown) and then for the final section I just cut some of the foliage sheet and inserted plastic grass sections underneath.  The grass is all the same height but irregular enough to be acceptable.  

Adding the tree.

Adding the last section with grass filler.

Afterwards, I made a few more bunches of wild flowers for the back of the house and to be used as filler around the edges.  I made them the same way I did before by pooling some glue on an acetate sheet and spreading the flowers on the glue and letting it harden.  Then the flowers just peel off the sheet ready to be glued in place.

Finished flower "beds", just peel and glue.

In the meantime, a friend of mine had posted a picture of a bottle for saké named “Demon Slayer” and I knew I had to have some in the inn.  So I searched out some images, pulled out the remaining bottles (out of scale but usable) and labeled them accordingly.  At this point, you can drink beer, saké and Coke but no water at my inn. 

Demon Slayer!

And finally, the last section was finishing off some of the area around the trash bin.  I wanted some papers coming out of the bin and some trash bags carelessly discarded next to it (too lazy to put the bags in the bin...) so I followed a neat and easy little tutorial for making mini trash bags and made a few.  I also had some leftover printed newspapers which I bound up and deposited there as well.  The inn’s cleaning personnel are not so diligent in reality I guess.  If I get hold of some empty Coke bottles I may add them in. 

Cutting the strips of trash bag.

Tying up the bag.

Placing the bags and the discarded newspapers.

Detail of the trash bin area.  I may add some dust bits around here.

And so, the house is around 99% done.  Only because I don’t think I’ll ever finish it.  I have a few more silly objects to add to it but now I can be selective in what I want to add or change.  Just embellishing at this point.

Looking down past the woodshed.

Looking into the kitchen from the back garden.

Back view including Bansky graffiti

Looking out the spa windows.  You can see the tree.

Through the storage area and out the back gate....

Thanks again for your continued feedback and for following me.   

Intermediate Work - The Bamboo Shades, An Iris Plant

Shibuya Town Feed - inspiration for the bamboo shades.

October 1st - 4th 2012

I had seen on a feed some nice fotos of Shibuya in Japan and in one of these fotos, there were these lovely bamboo shades which were hung on the outside of the terraces in many of the two story houses.  It reminded me of the same shading process here in Italy but here they use fabric curtains that just serve to block out the sun and heat during the day.  Most have these rolling full window shades but if you want to move in and out of a door, you need one of these curtains.  So, I decided my ryokan would have some bamboo shades to keep out the heat and sun.

I did some searching on the internet and came across a tutorial where you can use a bamboo placemat as a bamboo shade.  The bamboo slats are the correct scale so all I needed to do was find some bamboo placemats.  Years ago I found a ton and now all of a sudden I couldn’t find any!  As luck would have it, one day at Ikea, in the discount section (where they dump opened packages or the stuff they use in display) there was a nice bamboo placemat for a Euro 1.50.  Can’t go wrong with that! So I picked it up.

Ikea E 1.50 place mat!! Yoohoo!

Glueing the edges where I plan to cut thru

The first thing to do was to glue the slats where I would be cutting since we didn’t want the threads to unravel.  So, after taking some measurements, I glued the top and bottom and waited overnite to be sure the string was hardened and set.  Then I cut using my exacto-knife.  The bottom of the matt was perfect as a support to hang the shade.  I then measured out some black DMC thread, tied one end, threaded it round the back and up the front again and back thru.  The whole ordeal was because I wanted my shades to actually open and close.  I had to find a way to fix the threads across the top and I did that with some bugle beads.  Threading through those was a pain (I had to glue the tip of the floss to a fine point to thread it thru) but eventually I got both threaded and secured.  I used a small orange bead to weight the end of the pull.

Cutring the matts to size for the shade

Threading the bugle beads...

...and glueing them in place so the string would slide.

Glueing the back support (bottom piece of the placemat)

The next part was a little more difficult.  I had to figure out a way to weather the bamboo shades on one side.  I really didn’t like the new look to them.  I generally do not like the whole ryokan looking brand spanking new so the shades had to look a little sun faded.  I tried using household bleach and a paintbrush but it just isn’t concentrated enough.  Neither was hydrogen peroxide.  Only solution was to put some bleach soaked paper towels on the sun bleached side and let them sit on there for around 5 hours.  That did the trick enough to please me.  I then added a little graphite colored paint (has a bit of a blue hue) to make the shades look weathered. 

Top side now slightly weathered, underneath still fairly clean.

Attaching the shades was great since the bottom piece of the placemat was actually almost the exact same width as the space between the top window sill and the under roof beam.  Just a bit of sanding and those fit in perfectly. 

And the shades do go up and down! Fun!

Funky little flower petals - also a find.

The finished vase....

...in situ.

I also found some small terracotta vases which were a good size for the house.  I aged one with some brown and green and then stuffed it with some of the pink flowers I had purchased.  I also found a package of blue purple flowers and used the same method as making the geranium petals - squishing them on the mousepad - then glueing them to a green wire support.  I then inserted an iris that I had purchased from DHE UK site.  I think it looks quite nice on the porch! 

Next will tackle the magnetic closure of the first floor porches.