Faerie Home Week 3

Faerie Home Week 3 Update!

 This week I got started on design and construction of my faerie home! First I drew up a rough floor plan, section, and rendering of the outside of the house. Something I only realized after beginning on construction is that I hadn’t put dimensions on my plans, which definitely would have made building my home a lot easier. Things I wanted to include in my faerie home are: a fireplace and pipe chimney, a bathtub, a bookshelf, and a chair. On my plans, these things seemed plausible, however in reality I think I will only have space for the fireplace and chair, bathtub and chair, or bookshelf and chair.

Then there was the decision of materials. Ideally I would use stones and mortar/concrete to build the walls, with the potential for some wood framing. However, I felt that faeries would not realistically have access to concrete, and decided to use the leftover clay from my ceramics class. For the rocks, I went to my grandmother’s house in Marshfield, MA for Easter and collected a large bag of small beach rocks. I assessed as I went along whether or not I thought a faerie would be able to carry each rock, though some of them would likely take two or three faeries. Additionally, I wanted to include some homemade stained-glass windows, so I took some plastic containers, laid down a layer of clear Elmer’s glue, then put pieces of sea glass and crystals in it and let it dry.

I laid an oval of clay on a board and began to press the rocks into it, smoothing and molding the clay around each rock as I went along. I put two flatter rocks where I wanted to install a door, and did a few more layers of rocks, alternating like you would a brick wall for stability. I had broken a glass bottle a wee while ago and saved the pieces for a project, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to use them! I took the two biggest pieces and built them into the walls.

Once I had built up to the height I wanted the door, it was time to actually make the door. I sketched out roughly how I wanted the door to look, then made some measurements. I took several sticks that I had found from my last trip to NH and marked where I needed to cut them. However, I do not have a saw, and was unable to go out and purchase one, so I had to be resourceful: I carved into the markings I made with my exacto knife as deep as I could, and then I used my pliers to snap the stick. This process took a considerable amount of time and effort, and I can only imagine how long it might have taken a faerie to do the same task. I then laid the pieces of wood out and began to tie them together with embroidery string. Once they were assembled, I glued the stained glass panel into its opening and wove string around it to keep it in place. I then attached a small silver heart that I had received from the tooth faerie as a child as the handle, and a small hinge to the other side (this is the first purchased, or non-found item of the project). I hammered the tiny nails into the door with a particularly sturdy beach rock that I had collected, and I hammered the other side of the hinge into an a extra stick. I then built the whole contraption into the wall, covering the stick in clay and continuing the rock wall for another two layers.