Rehab of a VERY TOASTY house

If you have an unusual piece that you have questions about, this is the place to post them. Photos are VERY welcome, though it helps if you reduce them to 800 wide before you upload them. If you can't reduce them yourself, post them anyway and I'll try to reduce them when I have time.
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Tom Hull
Posts: 447
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 11:05 am

Rehab of a VERY TOASTY house

Post by Tom Hull »

This was perhaps the most problematic of rehabs I have had to do. Making a decision on the color of the house and coconut was VERY difficult and am not sure I succeeded even yet. The coconut on this house was SO BADLY DETERIORIATED that it looked more like brown sawdust than the straw coconut we all love. About the worst I have ever had. The finish was SO deteriorated that it was a judgment call as to whether it was yellow or lime green. As far as the color sense of the Japanese either would likely have worked. I have included a before picture from the auction page and a finished photo after the work is all done. THANK YOU PETE! Without his coconut this would have been impossible. The after photo colors are a bit more intense than in real life so will try to get a daylight picture which does better. The base was and is an intense and dark purple which After I took off the remainder of the tree the original protected coconut was a very dark purple. For now the photo looks dark blue but it is purple. Also the house is a lime green and this looks minty! Eh what?
Still a very odd house with an arched dormer and this roof is done in pink! Whereas the rest of the roof is the usual tomato red. The very top was originally a semi-glossy finish with some glass glitter on it. I used some artists acrylic gloss medium with white paint and some glitter but got too much glitter. I may experiment with this more later.
P.S. to Pete. That was the last of that dark purple coconut and I need more of the Tomato Red! Tom
Attachments
Restored Houses Teds Etc 001.JPG
Restored Houses Teds Etc 001.JPG (280.14 KiB) Viewed 11170 times
Restored Houses Teds Etc 004.JPG
Restored Houses Teds Etc 004.JPG (282.87 KiB) Viewed 11170 times
P Toasty odd coconut House.JPG
P Toasty odd coconut House.JPG (141.59 KiB) Viewed 11170 times
Last edited by Tom Hull on Mon Dec 22, 2014 4:52 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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paulrace
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Posts: 1687
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2011 4:27 pm

Re: Rehab of a VERY TOASTY house

Post by paulrace »

Tom, that's great you had the skills and Pete had the materials to fix this guy up. I like the luffa tree, too, as well as your choice of Santa.

For those who don't know Pete, here's a link to his online descriptions of the materials he provides for restoring these old houses: http://cardboardputzhouses.com/marketplace/index.html
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