Climbing, Creeping, Clinging Things

December was a busy month, but I did get all the work done that I'd planned to do on Villa del Vigneto. (I hadn't planned to do much!) When I started work on the villa two years ago, part of my vision was to have a grape arbor covering the loggia. That was one of the things that I did get done in December, and I felt as though I had reached a major milestone! I also adopted three cats and a dog to live in the villa, and I had fun giving them all names. (To Robert's embarrassment.) Robert, although very supportive of my miniature work, doesn't immerse himself in that world to the same extent that I do. He is not quite comfortable, for instance, if I begin to rattle off the names, occupations, and  family history of the various occupants of my miniature houses whenever anyone expresses the least bit of interest. He definitely prefers a subtle generic reference - "cat" or "dog" - to my choices of names for Luca, Tosca, Rosabella, and Momi. I've promised Robert a glass of wine beneath the grape arbor if he'll learn the names of the villa's animal residents and address them accordingly.

 RUSTIC GRAPE ARBOR

These construction components don't look like much, but then it doesn't take much to build a very old and rustic framework for grape vines to climb.

I wanted the arbor located just outside the kitchen door and above the loggia. The basic framework has been glued together, then wired for extra support.

The arbor framework shown from the southeast corner.

I added supports across the top of the framework as well.

(If you look closely, you can see Momi, the resident mouser, just inside the kitchen door. He is very protective of the villa and allows no trespassing by pesky mice.)

OLD VINES AND LEAVES

I found these twisted grape-vine looking pieces in my stash; I think I used the same thing for the wisteria vine that's growing at the French Farmhouse. I wove them among the supports that run across the top of the arbor frame.

Now all I need are some leaves growing on the vines. A few months ago, I summoned all my courage and bought a kit to make some grape leaves. (I've never made plants from a kit, but I persuaded myself to try it once, just to see what would happen.) The kit had been packed away for a long time, and when I brought it out as I started work on the arbor, I was hit forcefully by a true fact: the kit would make fewer than one hundred grape leaves! Judging from the size of the arbor, I was going to need about a million more.

So I searched Hobby Lobby's fake plant section and found a stem of an unknown leaf that sort of resembles a grape leaf. But - there were hundreds and hundreds of leaves on the stem.

I separated the main stem of leaves into small sections and started painting. The paint provided a better color, but mostly it helped cover the shiny green plastic look of the leaves.

I painted and painted and painted and painted. I painted both sides of every leaf, using a dark green paint for the base coat. Obviously, spray paint would have been ideal - except that it was 18 degrees outside, and I had no place to use spray paint inside. 

 I randomly highlighted the leaves with various lighter paint colors. (Yes, I am a very patient and persevering person!)

This is the finished pile of painted "grape" leaves, ready to be glued onto the vines.

Using both Tacky Glue and hot glue, I secured all the leaves to the vines.

 GREAT BIG GRAPES

Back to Hobby Lobby to buy grapes. Everything that I found was either too large or too tiny for a realistic grape; I finally decided that this was my best option, even though they're a little large. No, I did not try to make my own grapes. I needed about a million of those, too.

I chose some likely clusters of berries from the branch...

...and sorted those into miniature clusters, ready to paint.

These are a few of the painted grape clusters, although some of them look a bit like blackberries!

When I expressed concern about the size of the grapes, my granddaughter suggested that they could be globe grapes. That sounded like a good idea, until I researched globe grapes and found that they were developed in a California breeding program in the late 1950s. My current villa setting is probably very early twentieth century, about fifty years too early for realistic globe grapes. But we're all going to pretend that we don't know that, aren't we? One of my favorite new quotations says that "a little artistic freedom to get the right effect is not a bad thing." Thank you, Giac. Globe grapes they are!

Above are some views of the completed grape arbor. I needed to relax after all that work, so I brought out some furnishings for the loggia and opened a bottle of wine. ("From the vine comes the grape, from the grape comes the wine.") I found two glasses in the kitchen cupboard and poured the wine, just in case a friend happens to come along to join me. Friends are always welcome here!

FIRST ONE THING AND THEN ANOTHER

Perhaps you remember my dilemma last month when I accidentally planted moss on the villa's low front wall, forgetting that moss wouldn't grow in such a dry, sunny spot. You can see the mossy wall in some of the above photos. Some friends from blogland, who know much more about gardening than I, came to my rescue and suggested that the sunny wall would be an ideal place for creeping thyme, which will thrive in just such an environment. So I had to do a bit of restructuring on the moss. I started at Hobby Lobby. (Why yes, Hobby Lobby IS my home away from home! Why do you ask?)

I found purple flowers that could be separated into tiny segments for the flowers on the creeping thyme. And they needed no painting!

The flowers are ready to transform moss into creeping thyme.

Although I forgot to take a photo, I increased the thickness and height of the moss by adding bits of Light Green Coarse Foliage, a miniature landscaping material, to all the clusters of moss on the wall. After adding a bright green paint to the foliage, I glued on the tiny purple flowers - and now thyme is creeping all over the wall - the mossy transformation was a success!

Tosca may prefer catmint, but she hasn't complained about the creeping thyme. A sunny wall is a sunny wall to a sun-loving cat!

More creeping thyme all along the wall. You may notice that I've filled a copper grape pot with  grapes from the vines. The pot hangs on a hook by its leather strap.

This is a view of the loggia and grape arbor from the east end of the wall.

And here is Villa del Vigneto in its present entirety.

 CLINGING VINES

When I put the false back wall onto the villa to hide all the electrical wires, I had to design it so that it would pull away from the original structure easily. My design works well, but there are some gaps in the back corners of the villa walls, because the walls are rough and not quite plumb. I decided that the easiest way to remedy that was to grow vines up the end walls to cover the gaps. I needed a lot of vines - millions of vines - so I made another trip to YOU KNOW WHERE and found some viny-looking plastic plants that had leaves of pretty much the right size.

History repeats. I separated, sorted, and painted, painted, painted.

The vines are ready to glue onto the walls. I used Tacky Glue for longevity and hot glue along with it for instant hold.

I randomly glued on some thin trunks for the vines; they can just be glimpsed here and there through the vine cover. You can see the gap in the corner wall that I'm trying to hide with the vines. The first branches of vines have been glued on.

The vines are growing and reaching around to the back of the villa.

A view of the west end of the villa with vines.

Another view from the southwest corner.

I've completed gluing more vines on the east end of the villa; these also reach around to the back wall. 

Here is a longer view of the east end of the villa, showing all the climbing, creeping, and clinging things that I've created for Villa del Vigneto.


That brings to a close the work that I completed in December. The Old Year has also come to a close, ringing itself out in Nebraska with high style and low temperatures. Next up, to celebrate the top of a new year, I'll finally begin work on the top of the villa - laying all those hundreds (millions?) of clay roof tiles!

I wish all of you a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year.

2018 - WELCOME!

All Walled In

I didn't get as much done in November as I had thought I would, but I did finish one thing, and it was a good stopping point. I hope I'll have time in December to finish another thing. Do I sound as though I'm trying to drag this thing out as long as possible? That's because there isn't much more to do before I'll have to start the roof work. So - yes - I'm dragging and dragging and dragging!

When I was ready to start building the low wall in front of Villa del Vigneto, I searched through my huge stash of styrofoam to find pieces of the right size. And Lo and Behold! I found the original wall pieces that I had measured, cut, and stuccoed exactly two years ago. I was working in the garage at that time, racing to get all the villa pieces prepared before the weather grew too cold. I knew that I wouldn't need the wall pieces for many months, so I set them aside to save time. And I forgot all about them. It was a great surprise to come across the pieces; they were finished except for requiring a light sanding.

When I set up the wall for a dry fit, I realized right away that the wall would be too high. There's only a very narrow space between the house and the wall - due to that ONE very unfortunate mistake that I made in my early measurements. That mistake meant that I had to subtract an inch from the already too narrow space. So the wall that wouldn't have appeared too high in a wider space seemed way too high now. That ONE mistake has come back to haunt me repeatedly! I cut off a strip from the bottom of the wall to lower it a bit. I also added a piece of styrofoam for a gate post. (Although I'm wondering if a gate post is still called a gate post if there's no actual gate. I'm going to refer to them as gate posts for the time being.)

 Both front entrance gate posts are cut.

I hadn't originally planned to have the loggia gate, but I cut it in as an afterthought and added more gate posts.

An overall view with all the wall pieces and the gate posts in place.

I made quite a mess cutting styrofoam for the gate post caps - it was hard to get a size that looked right.

 Finally, I have all the wall, gate post, and cap pieces that I need.

All the wall pieces have been re-stuccoed and sanded and are ready to paint.

 The base coat of paint has been applied. The wall is the same color as the villa walls.

I've done some aging on the wall pieces.

I hammered in the support nails for the wall. I had the nails in place previously, but I kept scratching my hands on them, so I pulled most of them out and covered the remaining ones with protective styrofoam bits.

The wall has been mounted on the glue-covered nails. 

The wall seemed too smooth, so I added some swipes of joint compound for more texture.

I aged the wall a little more. 

I cut thin pieces of styrofoam for the capstones on the wall, then applied a thin layer of joint compound. These pieces are ready for a light sanding.

 I painted on a base coat of Deep Taupe...

...and finished with a "stone" color palette: washes of Cableknit Gray, Bleached Sand, White, and Trail Tan.

I cut 2" lengths of the strips to make individual stones. You may notice that the stones are narrower than the original strips. I had planned for the capstones to have a slight overhang, but I decided that didn't look right and used too much space. I cut down the styrofoam pieces to make the stones the same width as the wall. Of course, then I had to re-touch the paint.

All the stones and capstones have been glued in place.

 A closer view of the stones.

The wall looked so plain that I impulsively decided to embellish the capstones with moss. (Model railroad landscaping material - "Coarse Turf.") I spread glue along some of the crevices and stones, then pressed on the "moss" with my fingers.

 I applied moss to the entire wall...

 ...and to the loggia floor.

 While I waited for the glue to dry for the moss, I spread a liberal layer of glue on the narrow path between the wall and the house in preparation for an application of gravel. 

 Then I sprinkled a generous layer of gravel over the glue on the path and pressed the gravel down firmly. This is a view from the west end of the villa.

This view looks from the loggia toward the west end.

When the glue for the moss had dried, I carefully swept all the excess moss from the wall and the loggia, leaving only the moss that had adhered to the glue.

And only then, when the moss was quite permanently glued on, did I recognize a major oversight. (Not a mistake, mind you; just an oversight!) My impulsiveness was entirely to blame. Before I built the wall, I knew three things about moss: a rolling stone gathers none; it (supposedly) grows on the north side of trees; it grows in shaded, moist areas. Well, the stones on the villa's wall aren't rolling, but the front of the villa faces south - full sun and little moisture. I did some belated research, and now I know a few more things about moss. One encouraging thing that I know is that at least one variety of moss can tolerate almost full sun if it is kept moist enough. Perhaps I can persuade one of the villa's inhabitants to go out and mist the moss on a daily basis. Otherwise, there isn't much that can be done, short of turning the house around to face north, or tearing out all the moss. But I like the moss! So I may do nothing. If all my (belated) research is correct, the moss is likely to die out soon anyway. Bummer! 

Villa del Vigneto with its completed (and temporary?) mossy wall.

Although my experience with the mossy wall left me less than satisfied, I'm going to just let it be for a while and see whether a satisfactory solution presents itself. Meanwhile, some interesting jobs remain to be done, and I'm excited to get on with them, even though "miniature" time will be tight this month. Thank you for visiting Villa del Vigneto!

 WISHING YOU A JOYFUL DECEMBER AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS!