Tudor Apothecary Shop Further Progress

OK, the small set of steps is done, and the lavabo has been installed. As well, the roof is cut out and ready for the openings to be cut for the dormer windows on the front (right side in this photo) wall.
The original design has the dormers flush with the edge of the roof; however, my carpenter-in-chief would prefer them to be a little higher on the roof. Well, he is the one who has to do that cutting, so that's what we'll try!

That's it for right now, I went to a Pipe & Drum Corps ceilidh this evening and my head is kind of dull; bagpipes in an enclosed space can be quite deafening!

(When I went to preview this post, the computer had created a paragraph break that I didn't want. Why do computers do that? Is this thing trying out for Artificial Intelligence status?)

Tudor Apothecary Shop Pretty Much Done...

...and the construction of the roof has begun. Today I spent aging and dirtying the plaster and bricks. We are in the middle of a blizzard, on top of the 320 cm (nearly 10 ft) of snow we've already had this winter, we are expecting 20-40 cm (8-16") more today and overnight, along with very high winds. So I am doing this post before the inevitable power outages.

It's looking as I hoped. Next I have to put the stone on both sets of steps. I am trying to figure out how to do that, as my instructions are for paper clay and I am using cellulose clay. They are basically the same thing, but the clay I use doesn't adhere to itself as the paper clay apparently does. This means glue. This means I have to be very careful as wood glue will affect the paint washes. So I have to think about it a little. The chimney cap worked out, which means the chimneys are also in place now. But I have to dirty the chimney a bit, all that wood smoke and soot is bound to create stains.

The shelf and slab for the lavabo are ready to install; again, something to think about. The slab will sit level with the brick foundation course, while the little shelf for the barrel will be on the wooden beam above that. Glue alone won't do, I think I will have to use a couple of nails.

The lavabo components are sitting on the steps. This was supposed to be a better shot of the end wall, but I guess I shifted too much! Adding beaming to the end wall has meant adding onto the roof as well; it needs to overhang the wall to be realistic, so although it was cut to size as per instructions, we are adding strips to it to expand the size. All the additions should be well hidden under the terra-cotta tiles, eventually. Cans of stewed tomatoes are weighing down the addition to the roof, just to the right of the shop box. Heavy cans make the best weights!

Tudor Apothecary Shop Brick Foundations Are In

Well, that went faster than I expected! The foundations are bricked, with voids where the two sets of steps will fit. Once the clay is completely dry, these voids will be painted terra-cotta. The small set of steps screws on to the foundation, but the larger one will just sit in the base. Once dry, the clay will be trimmed to fit the steps.

Here's hoping the corners don't crack too badly, there is always a little bit of shrinkage with cellulose or paper clay. It was well below freezing today, which meant the heating was working away, and that meant that the clay dried out faster than I wanted while I was working on it. The foundations went well, but the chimney cap for the workshop needs to dry to see if I will keep it - I had to texture the bricks with the Xacto knife as the clay was really drying out. It's the first time I tried to brick a chimney cap, and I am not sure if I did it correctly; there just aren't any photos that show a bird's eye view of the tops of chimneys!

Next is making the stone finishes for the steps, which means digging through magazines; that sometimes leads to my attention being diverted.... However, I need to start on the roof construction, my carpenter-in-chief is really looking forward (NOT!) to making two dormer windows. It is now less than two weeks until the April show in Halifax-Dartmouth, and I would really like this building as nearly finished as possible.

Tudor Apothecary Shop - Third Wall

Just finished plastering the third wall, the one the apothecary garden will eventually be set against. In the original design, this wall is left unfinished, so out came a wonderful book a friend of my parents gave me, called Synthese, a four-language pictorial encyclopedia of the area of The Netherlands I grew up in. Many ideas for my Tudor structures have come from this book.

There are Tudor-style 500-year old farmhouses in the south of the province of Limburg, which I was able to visit as a child; in fact, one year my Brownie pack camped in one of these. Maybe that is another reason why I enjoy Tudor so much (besides not having to worry so much about straight lines and 90 degree corners). This wall design is roughly based on one of them. I hope to have some espaliered fruit trees along this wall, or tall plants like mullein or hollyhocks. That is why the detailing is in the second row of timbering rather than the first.

On to the brickwork, along three sides as the foundations, and the cap of the workshop chimney. If my shoulders relax, I will start that on Monday.

Tudor Apothecary Shop Further Progress Report

It's been a good couple of days for getting things done. The door is in, and the shutters are complete with their ropes and cleat.

In the closed position, all you see are a couple of knots in the inside corners. The cleat is the top of a decorative toothpick, so I don't know how long it will last! If it breaks too easily, I will re-think the cleat system I picked. To open the shutters, I just insert my hand in the side door opening and take the loops off the cleat.

My daughter suggested putting a snoozing cat on one of the shutters; great idea, now I have to find just the right sleeping cat. I think there is one available out there that would have its paw hanging over the edge, kind of like our family cat likes to do.

And here is the side door, the one that opens into the workshop from the shop. It is just a door opening, it won't get a real door. The cleat holding the ropes of the shutters is visible on the front edge, through the open doorway. The plaster has been applied, it is quite wet in this photo and looks gray.

Next I have to build the lavabo; this is a shelf with a barrel with a stop-cock on it, which would be filled with fresh water. Below that will be a little shelf, on which my apothecary can set the jar or bowl being filled. From the workshop, this little water fountain would be easily accessible to the apothecary to mix into medicines. I am trying to decide whether my apothecary should be male or female....

Then there is the outer wall to beam and plaster, the one that will at some point be the end of the eventual apothecary garden, and following that I will do the brick foundations. In my stash of stuff I found a bundle of orange roof tiles, hopefully there will be enough to at least cover the front roof of the shop. I need to find more cardboard for ridge tiles for at least four of my buildings that have never had their ridges covered, because I just wasn't sure how it was done, as well as for finishing the remainder of the shop roof.

Tudor Apothecary Shop: Progress Report

The front façade is done except for the door; I am hoping to start that on Monday. It needs to be built out of thin slices of wood, and I have to find them first.

The shutters were a bit of serendipitous luck. My white paint seems to be in poor shape, which means that when I taped the shutters off to paint the red areas, some of the white paint came off. It looks like the shutters need some work, but the miniature inhabitant is too busy to repaint. In the photo above, the shutters are both in the closed position.

When the shutters are down, they double as display space. No glass in these windows; this type of display area used to be seen in England well into the 19th century. And for those with inquiring minds, the word "window" comes from old English "wind eyes", the name given to glass-less windows. However, in the case of this shop, the shutters are too high off the "street" to actually work as display areas. I will probably put some herbs to dry on them when the shop is filled, and hope that no miniature shoppers clout their heads on the corners. There will be a rope in each inner corner of the shutters, which loops onto a cleat inside,  when the shop is closed. I used leather for hinges in this shop, and the door will probably also have leather hinges, as was quite common in the Tudor era. Poor people's cottages often had a leather hide in place of a door; just imagine the drafts that would create, not to mention all the critters that could sneak in at night....

The two halves of the shops side by side; the bottom of the shop box will be bricked. The original design has a blank right side wall, but I am going to timber, brick and plaster it, as it would be a good place to put the eventual apothecary garden. I saw a very old wall in Arnhem, The Netherlands, a couple of years ago, with a small diamond-shaped opening in it, which I am going to try to duplicate in miniature as the street-side garden wall. The roof for this half of the Apothecary setting is not as high as the workshop roof, and will have two dormer windows in it, living quarters for the apothecary. This was a job that could be done by women, except in London;  his/her apprentices would make do with the workshop or shop floor as their bedrooms, unless the apothecary was a very nice person and treated the apprentices as family.

Tudor Apothecary Shop Progress Report

The beams and window and door linings are in place; the shutters are glued and clamped and ready to stain and paint on Friday. We are having a serious winter storm; the whole city pretty much shut down today, including the universities and the art school. It was unsafe to travel to Kings Landing for my volunteer job today, they shut down as well as their employees come from all over the country areas hereabouts. Tomorrow it is supposed to clear. Then we have a few days of good weather, but beginning Monday another winter storm is on the way.

One good thing is that I can get lots of building work done! After the shutters and door are ready to install, I can do the plaster work. I just hope I have enough, and don't have to head into the city to buy more before the roads are cleared for driving....