A Big Step (Quite Literally)

First of all, I apologize in advance: the reason you see bold yellow dates at the bottom of the photos is becaue of a camera setting I have since turned off. But for now, on with the show. It all started when I took a good, long look at the Servant's Staircase.

My first thought? Instant dislike. Oh, it's not that I can't tolerate it; I think I could, but there are some aspects of it I just hate and know I could do better. And I know I won't be satisfied and won't be able to move on to bigger, grander rooms in the dollhouse unless I fix these problems, which are: The Skinny, Skinny, Wall

There's no place on earth you'd find a wall this thin except for this servant's entrance and a house made of cards. The Ginormous Step

It may not look that bad in the photo, and I couldn't find my little dolls to compare the step with, but our tiny people are going to have to take a big, big, leap to hop up this step. (Which is probably not the best idea when you're carrying ashes from the fireplaces you've just swept to empty in the rubbish bin outside.) The Ugly Floor

I seriously don't know what I was thinking when I laid this. Well, in all, I don't think I can live with it. Before you freak out, yes, I'm keeping the room (I could never part with the beautiful exterior, but I'm going to redo the interior. Our first step (no pun intended), will be to fix the staircase.

There's the enourmous step with a standard dollhouse-sized riser. I can't get to the ugly staircase without pulling out a wall, so I put that on hold for a minute to work on a brand-new staircase. The first thing was the layout. I think I'll stick with the original staircase layout, but a problem soon arose: I want to inclose it in a wall (like the previous version of the room had), to make it look narrow, but the staircase from the previous version didn't lead anywhere, so the question is: Should this staircase lead nowhere, or shall I cut a doorway for it to lead to? Well, I'm lazy, so I decided to have it lean nowhere. It is, after all, just a roombox. . . And so began the demolition.

I ripped out the false back door and the bells for the servants (never fear, these will be salvaged!), figuring that if I freaked out, I would be able to glue them back without any fuss.

Then I pulled the skinny section of the wall forward, bringing another wall with it, and revealed the rest of the stairs. (I constructed these myself a long time ago, which is why they were so clumsy looking).

I started to rip sections of the staircase apart. . . I wonder what nasty critters are hiding under there? Pint-sized mice?

It was very dark under that staircase!

Here you can really see what I mean about the other staircase being too large: three steps of my new staircase that I constructed out of coffee stirrers equals two steps of the old staircase.

It's even clearer on the higher stairs.

At this point, I freaked out and abandonded the project for about an hour. An hour later of I Love Lucy, I regained my courage and began ripping out the staircase.

After I ripped out the top stairs (which came out very easily 😯), I still had a mess of debris to work with.

From above. I'm not sure if I would trust this staircase any more. . .

I ripped out the top riser. It looks even messier 😨.

And the wall I pulled back. I sure hope nobody wanted to go through that door at that moment!

I was a bit weary of all the hot glue that had been used to hold the landing in place (made from a children's block), so I watched a bit more of I Love Lucy before I continued. Boosting your morale is important, you know! :D

I'm not sure if I'll keep the wallpaper. I like the pattern, but it doesn't photograph well, and servant's halls wouldn't have had wallpaper, which was quite expensive back in the Victorian Times. Not to mention, this is the 1930s, they were more weary about arsenic poisoning, probably!

The whole room. It looks like an earthquake occured! Let's pretend this photo is from the 1920s. On with the restoration!

The state of this landing is definitely against building codes.

Meanwhile, four stories up, in the attic, all of this shaking from the restoration of the servant's stairs had caused quite the gap between the roomboxes.

So I safely moved the Nursery and part of the attic to another wing of the house, away from all of the dust and shaking.

George's Room and another empty roombox were moved to another part of the shelving that houses the dollhouse.

I ripped out the landing, which came out quite easily without any fuss and muss, but it left the trim behind. You can sort of make out an invisible landing there.

Then I met my big adversity. You can't see it well in the image, but it was this wooden block glued very strongly to the ground. No amount of jiggling or shaking would remove it. So, I turned on I Love Lucy (yes, I do Love Lucy), and managed to get it out, using a round-about process. It took me about ten minutes to remember that there was a hole in the wooden block (I think they were for necklace making), so I stuck in one end of a pair of broken scissors, and it popped out! Hurray!(As if on cue, the studio audience on I Love Lucy started to clap!)

Look! No obstructions!

I then ripped out the staircase trim, and with it came some wallpaper.

So far, I have built that much of the staircase. Looking good, if I may say so myself!

Here is the wall color I think I have decided on. There will be stained wainscotting up part of the wall.

Or should I have the staircase in this layout? I'll have to see. . .

The nicely lit hallway above. I wish I had spent my Saturday sitting in it instead of inhaling all of the construction dust! :D Well, that's how my Saturday went by. How about yours?

High Flyin'

High Flyin' - like the Jeaneatte MacDonald song from Broadway Serenade. Which is what George is doing - or imaging doing - as I continue to work on his airplane themed room. Or, using the definition Merriam-Webster dictionary gives: marked by excessive ambition. Yes, it was very ambitious of me to try to finish George's Room today. . .

I am still working on George's room - and trying to make it messy. It's easy with real life, but seemingly harder with miniature life. . . And hurray - I have finished the parquet! I actually manged to enjoy gluing in the last pieces quite a bit, mainly because I was watching Lucille Ball's The Lucy Show while doing it.

What an image - I really need to work on my photography skills. The airplane hanging from the ceiling isn't at a particuarly good angle - it looks much better in real life. (I hope!) I have tacked up quite a few paintings and posters - all airplane themed, of course!

And here's the picture of the fireplace - with the grate-y thing I keep referncing. (In case you can't see it, it's inside the fireplace.) I made the little clock - I think it's a cute addition. And there's also a much better picture of the art deco (ish) fender I was trying to show you before!

I love the painting above the fireplace - I love views of fields - and that airplane is gorgeous! Those little shelves were an addition I added to give George more room for books and games. I need to print out and assemble some 1930s board games - hopefully very soon!

This is the ceiling photo I have been promising you for so long! The little hole in the ceiling is where the electric light will go. I added the crown moldings - I've been too lazy to add them to the rest of my dollhouse but I really need to - the rooms look so much more complete with them.

And here's a terrible photo of a little outlet I made for the room - a dollhouse never can be too complete, I think! Also, I should probably add some to the rest of the dollhouse - they are such a cute detail, I think. I tried to copy outlets from the 30s, but there weren't many photos of them.

Here is a little crossword game I made - not scrabble but definitely close. It's very small - about the size of a penny. It took me a very long time to cut up the tiny little pieces of wood and write letters on them!

A little paint set and paintbrush in water for George to paint with - I think he needs some newspaper and a little airplane to paint, too!

Here is a little print out of a 1930s airplane kit that George is cutting up with scissors (which are a charm). Do you think he needs a little desk? It'd have to be very little to fit in the tiny space between the fireplace and the wall.

And here is a not very good, out of focus image of the window and the bedside table with a little lamp (non working, although I did attempt to electrify it, it failed).

Here's a much better photo of the airplane that George has strung from the ceiling, and his bed! The airplane was made from a miniature print out of a 1940s airplane, I believe.

You can see the window much better in this photo, and the fact that I still haven't managed to cover up the stained glass on the interior side - I'm waiting for inspiration to strike!

I cut up a coffee stirrer into a very thin piece to make matchsticks, and then dotted red paint on the tips - for one I colored black on the tip to make it look used.

Here are the shelves on the wall - do you have any ideas on how to fill them? I can't think of a thing! Well, that's it for George's room - sorry for such a long post! I still have a few things I want to show you, however, such as a tiny rotary phone I got for my birthday!

I made the table using a piece of wood and Houseworks spindles.

Here are some vines that magically made their way to the side of the nursery overnight :-)

A little gate I'm working on for the servant's entrance - I added hinges! And, last but not least, a beautiful rug I got for my dollhouse - right now it's in the Grand Entrance Hall. (Sorry that the photo is on it's side!)

Thank you so much for visiting - signing off with a photo of the Master Bathroom in the dollhouse!