Back to Work!

The minions had a greeting party waiting for me when I entered the shop today. They said, "Enough fooling around, you need to finish this thing!" They wouldn't listen to my whining and just pointed to my chair. So, what to do first....Ha! That's right, I was looking for a scrap of foam core board! I thought of one more spot to check....guess where it was.

So after moving things and digging around up there, voila! I had just one small piece left.

I put that aside and started measuring the roof. You remember that I had shortened this building, so that meant I had to trim the roof pieces too. The minions were glad I was finally getting to this as we have been having some rain lately and they were getting tired of taking shifts holding down the blue tarp over the roof. I only had to trim off 7/8", that gave me enough for the overhang.

I stained and glued two of the roof supports in place and cut the piece for the front of the overhang.

I bet you know what I did next....let's see how it looks! LOL!

I really should have painted the front gold before gluing it on....well, at least I won't have to be so careful on one side anyway.

I was going to leave the inside of the overhang plain but the minions complained that they could see the old writing on the back when they stood on the porch. And I thought I was a perfectionist! While all the roof pieces were drying, I added some trim around the outside of the building. I wanted to cover the edges of the stone fabric, but the stripwood I have just looks too bulky so went with the same trim as the inside.

I have a few more pieces to add to the inside and then that will be done and ready to glue down the furniture. Just as I was finishing up, I went to add (still) more nail polish to the bucket of wood pieces for the smoker. Next time, remind me to just bite the bullet and buy some envirotex....this poor minion has passed out from the nail polish fumes!

I took him outside to get some fresh air and apologized for all the stinky stuff. I won't be able to glue the roof on completely as I need a light fixture. Haven't been able to find one locally so since I am going to be visiting my mom this week, I will look up there for one or two. I need some plywood bases too...I have five of these left to go! Must make a list. Also wanted to say thank-you to all of you who read my blog, it is very encouraging to me. Please feel free to comment and follow me! More fun to come! Enjoy the fall weather, have a great day!

Smoker Accessories and the Staff!

As I was going to sleep last night, I realized that the minions have that nice new smoker but no fuel! So this morning, I started by brushing white glue all over the stonework on the restaurant. Since I have to wait for the glue to dry, I started looking around on the internet for a printie of a charcoal bag. It didn't take long to find one and I moved it onto Microsoft Word to make it smaller. Printed it out and gave it a light spray of matte sealer....(I love that stuff!)

I cut it out and put it together but one problem...it's empty! I knew there was a stray charcoal briquet laying around outside so I brought out my hammer and gave it a few whacks.

I have no clue what the neighbors are thinking as I'm outside with tweezers filling a teeny bag with broken pieces, but hey, if they want to come over and ask, I'll gladly share! I used some of the really smashed bits to rub around the edges of the bag and we now have a bag of real charcoal!

Another thing that my husband uses when he smokes meat is a bucket of water with bits of wood in it. He uses cherry wood which works really well, but the minions are just going to have to do with the stripwood I have on hand. I sawed a few pieces off and then split them into slivers with my utility knife.

Be careful when you do this, don't want any split fingers out there. I thought a tiny beach pail, yellow of course, would make a funny container so I put in the wood and poured clear nail polish in for water. I know that's going to take awhile to dry and it will shrink too, but don't want to run out and buy a whole set of envirotex for a few drops of water. Arranged everything for a look see and was tickled with how it looks.

Looks like our crominion has some good smoke going there! S asked about our staff and I have been working on that too. As you can see, the crominions are happily at work smoking meat for the grand opening. If you have ever been to a Brazilian Grill, you know how the waiters come around and shave off nice chunks of meat however much you want. Well, our pirate minion fancies himself as one of the waiters there and is even ready with his very large knife.

Since our restaurant is small, he's the bartender too. No one gives him any grief for sure. That's all for today, I hear the laundry pile trying to crawl out of the hamper, so have to get to work. Have a great day!