Provence house patio with tree

The last project was the garden - and that is now blooming with lavender and has a large plane tree. It turned out just the way I wanted it to :-)

After straightening this branch of wood for a couple of months in the vice, the stem is much straighter now. Glueing some 2500 leaves on the tree was actually very rewarding. Nothing one could really do wrong. I don't think I ever 'heard' so much TV in a long time...

Just spray painting the paper for the leaves had its suprise: one of the cans left lots of dust, which creeped in everywhere in the room! It took me some time to clean up my hobby room and every shelf...Lesson learned: only spray outside!!

'Tree planting' was not about getting the shovel out! The tree needed to be removable. Drilling straight into the stem and getting this alu rod straight was very interesting... 

A bit of lawn in front of the pottery studio - could not find pebbles the right size...

I bought the garden furniture at the Paris fair earlier this year. After a little work on it (it was an awful blueish green and the table top was not in proportion with the bench) I am happy with it. For a moment I fancied the furniture from Catherine Ferouelle but it would have been a bit too shabby-chic for this freshly renovated house ;-)

Basically, this house is now complete!
Video summary to follow...

Marion

Tutorial Mediteranean Roof

After much testing and trying other tutorials, this is what worked best for me.
But mind you: it is a luxury version because of the amount of tiles it needs!!
And I needed to make sure that the house can actually cope with the weight...

I decided NOT to have two layers of tiles (bottom and top) but to fake this only at the endings.
Reasons: the roof would have become too heavy and it is difficult to keep the tiles straight without the guidelines of the cardboard. Because there are no reverse tiles at the bottom, I had to arrange them a little closer than usual. This way, the cardboard is not visible. I covered about 1/2 to 2/3 of the underlaying tile with the next one. I needed 120 tiles for an area of 20x20cm!

The materials I used:
- Packaging cardboard (preferably not 'sandwiched' but open on one side, or peel off one side) with a 1cm wave.
- Clay roof tiles from Indalchess.com. The size I used is: length 3.5cm, width 1.6cm to 0.6cm (narrowest side). Exact description: Arab miniature tiles 35mm long. Ref. 3500771 Keranova.
1:10 scale is too large, I tried that..
- Chalky paints to color the tiles
- Wood strips for the facia, stained
- White glue
- Acrylic terracotta paint

1. I tiled the roofs before glueing them onto the house: glued the packaging cardboard onto 5mm foam board.
IMPORTANT: makes sure that you have an EVEN number of ridges.

2. Glue facia on sides, making sure it is wide enough at the front to add guttering if you want to.
Glue facia on side ensuring that the top is level with the ridges of the cardboard - to make an additional ridge on both sides.
Tip: if you want to attach guttering, the facia must be wide enough...

3. Stain or paint facia boards
4. Color the 'valleys' of the cardboard with terracotta shade crayon, feltpen or acrylic paint.

5. Color the clay tiles. I used white chalky paint, partially watered down or added other shades to create an uneven colored, lively roof.

6. If the underside of the roof is visible, best to now glue the faux roof underneath. Here one to download.

7. Lay roof tiles, using any glue. The white wood glue worked perfectly well for me.
Start at the gutter side and let them protrude minimum 1cm (try and see if the the guttering fits).
I used 17mm spacing laying these tiles.
I waited with attaching the last row of tiles in case I need to trim them.

8. Fake endings: I cut the tiles with my table saw and glued the small pieces under the first row of tiles.

9. Glue roofs onto the building. For added stability I insered wire rods through the roof into the side walls.

10. Then glue the last row of tiles onto roof and add the ridge. Ridge: make sure that both sides are level. In my case, I still could see through the roof top under the ridge - so I inserted painted strip of cardboard or wood before adding the ridge tiles.

I hope that this helps someone interested in Mediteranean mini roofing!

Marion