"At last" I hear you say!

Firstly, a very warm welcome to all of you who have chosen to follow this new project.   I'm very pleased to have you here and hope you like what you see.

Yes, I know - it took long enough!    Progress on this has been slower than I would have liked but I'll explain on the way.

The RL property I'm inspired by has two basement rooms.    It may also have a cellar but that isn't shown on any tour so, because I have cellar space to deal with in the model I have chosen to use, I'm having to invent the spaces.    This has given me untold grief and the reason why it has taken so long to put up the first progress report!    The basics are fine - bricks, crumbly bricks which in itself is ok but I'm afraid my mini style isn't "crumbly" and I struggle a bit with that.   I'm also having to put my Dennis Sever head on to adopt his style and try to imagine how he would have furnished a beer cellar, coal cellar and wood store.    The space is only seen from above, once the pavement has been lifted, so I decided not to put doors on the allotted spaces - ok, so the staff will be able to help themselves to the odd snifter but that's to just too bad.

My crumbly brickwork.

The servant's eye view.

The RL building doesn't really show much wear/smoke/distress so I've done what I can with it but I'm not 100% sure I'm completely happy with the finish.    You can see (through the windows) that I've been playing with walls.    That's not a good look and will have to be changed.   I still also have to decide whether to include the staircase or not which will make the two rooms on each floor smaller.

Since that last photo was taken I've done a bit more work on the front and cellars.    I've painted all the roughcast and added the front door.    The door was a plastic one which came with the kit but I adapted it a little to match the original.    I've also had another play with the internal walls and decided that I will be doing away with the staircases and using the space for the two rooms on each floor.    I decided that, while the RL house has really interesting staircases, for my purposes I can use the space better by doing away with them.   The visible walls on each floor will be suitably disguised and hopefully not noticed.   I will however keep the stairs in the vicinity of the attic as that space has excellent detail right at the top of the house.

The other decision I've taken is with regard to the main door.   It isn't fixed yet as it was easier to work with it on a flat surface but I intend using magnets for this one as it's not a divided door and when it's open and I'm working away, anyone coming into my hobby room would risk giving it a whack!