In dangerous territory!

image from Freepik.com

I mentioned over on MCOH that Adrian and I have been south to visit family and friends.  As we most often do we travelled off the island by ferry and continued our journey by train, stopping off overnight in Inverness both on the outward and return journeys.  As you can imagine this takes a number of hours by train and after all these years of taking this journey, we both have a cosy routine of watching the passing scenery, reading, and of course napping 😉  Like me, no doubt Adrian does a fair bit of thinking about "stuff" and whilst I have no idea what thoughts were occupying his mind, my own little brain was mulling over what's to be done in the garden and also what to do about the stair situation in Augusta Lodge.

Now this is where the "dangerous territory" comes into play ~ not regarding the garden, I hasten to add, as that's all pretty straightforward.  No, the danger is that I had plenty of time on my hands to think about those bloody stairs!  Which wouldn't be quite so bad if it wasn't for the fact that I can't even make a start on the Lodge until I've got my craft room sorted out 😏

Still, that didn't stop my butterfly brain (BB) having another long think about the situation 😄 I had previously come to the conclusion that dog-leg staircases were the only way to move forward but this was a very reluctant conclusion, to be honest, as I really wanted nice straight runs of stairs.  Unfortunately for me and my "wants" Augusta Lodge just isn't deep enough to properly accommodate such staircases, hence the dog-leg solution.  I was getting rather annoyed with BB for bringing up the thorny subject yet again, when in plopped another thought.....why not make the house deeper 😲

As I'm sure you can imagine, BB was very excited by this new thought ~ I confess that I was somewhat less so!  Still, the idea has been growing on me and could well be the solution I've been looking for.  I already had it in mind to attach a shallow false back to the house to cover the lighting wires, more to keep them all tidy, and hopefully less susceptible to damage, than anything else.  It's a tad unfortunate that BB didn't have this brainwave before I reattached the back to the bloody house 😒

If I do decide to take this route, then I have to decide on whether to remove the back of both the house and the basement or made the addition at the front.  The basement wouldn't be such an issue as I haven't yet glued anything in place.  However the main body of the house would be rather more problematic.  Now that I have re-glued the back I really don't think it would be so easy to remove without causing a lot of damage, which means I would have to cut it off somehow.

It would be fairly straightforward, I think, to add to the depth from the front though.  If I were to build out the house as far as the point where the basement garden wall meets the "pavement", I think that this would give me the extra depth needed.  Of course, all this will need to be carefully measured and planned out, but I really do think it is a possibility.  

The only downside to this is that I would have to scrap my ideas for a courtyard garden, unless I extend the base.  It's not an ideal option, to be honest, as I don't want to make the footprint of Augusta Lodge too big for the position I had in mind for it in the porch.  So now I will have to decide whether I still want that courtyard garden, in which case Augusta Lodge will have to be displayed in my craft room with one of the smaller dolls' houses, yet to be built, put out in the porch instead.

Uh-oh, BB is now floating the thought that if I leave the Lodge in my craft room, then I could probably make that courtyard garden a tad larger than it was originally going to be 😲

Well that's given me plenty to mull over ~ who knows, though, by the time I'm ready to actually start working on Augusta Lodge again BB may well have thought up other stuff to throw in the mix!