Catching Up

I haven't done much miniature work for the past few days, so when I took a look at my dollhouse - it was a mess!

George's room was especially messy - I hadn't done much work there for a few weeks, so I figured, there's no better time then the present!

So I emptied it, and decided to get right down to business. The first step, of course, was to fix the stained glass in the window.

Here it is from quite a few posts ago. As you can see, I left the stained glass messy and unfinished - an error I needed to fix right away! The first thing I did were quite a few experiments - I wanted to make a window valance. My only problem was that I didn't know how, so it became a little bit messy.

I picked a pretty fabric that I assumed would match with the blue-green color scheme of the room.

All of those images you see are a quick succession of making the window valence (or, what was supposed to be the window valance.

When I was about halfway done, I taped it up to the window to get the general effect, and I didn't like it at all. Back to the square one!

I decided to go back to my original idea - bamboo window blinds. Above where the two choices I had: plain blinds, and a sort of green-distressed blind. I chose the plain blinds, and we were off again!

I held it up and liked it, but you didn't get the effect I wanted - that is, it was a bit unhospitable, and it covered up to much of the window to see out of, and after all, I just needed enough for it to cover up the stained glass window. I thought that it was a bit unnecessarily long.

So I cut it in half. It looked swell, but I disliked the long white string that was danling from it - it was needed to pull the blinds up (if they worked), but I thought it needed to be attached to something, so I made a tiny piece of fake tape.

You can see the fake tape in the photo above - I made it stick using my sticker machine from Paper Source.

With that sorted, I took that oppurtunity to photograph the little outlet I had promised to show a photo of. There are actually two in the room.

And with a penny for scale.

Then I positioned two rugs on the floor and liked the effect. I especially like the green colors - they are both fabric samples.

There is also a little hole in the wall to thread any wires through when I add the electric lights.

Luckily, even with the blinds up, you can still see light shining through the stained glass windows.

I added a bit of knick-knacks on the shelves. I still need some toys for the top shelf.

The entire room - you can see that on the middle shelf I added some kind of horn - apparently George plays an instrument!

I made some little pencils and stuck them in a little jar with a label - there is an eraser next to them.

With sun streaming through the windows, it makes George's room look very cosy! All I need to do now are fill up the top shelf and reattach the airplane that felt down! See you next week! Signing off with a old fashioned-looking photo of George's fireplace - I think it looks very 1930s!

Bits of This and That

I haven't much to show in the way of progress, but I do have some things to show you, such as George's Bathroom. I don't recall if I mentioned it before, but I figured if George's room will be on the third or second floor, whereas his siblings will inhabit the fourth floor, he might need his own bathroom.

Yes, above is George's bathroom. . . hopefully I will be able to show some progress in it soon! I find it difficult to locate good bathroom sets for dollhouses, they're either too expensive or not the style I would prefer. And they're also never custom fit - very difficult to find ones that will fit your specific dollhouse bathroom! So, against my better judgement, I decided to make my own. If I had a 3d printer, I'd print them, and if I had a Cricut Maker, I'd find a way to make them using that. Having neither, I decided it was a hit-and-miss situation, so what can go wrong? A lot will, probably, so bear with me. So far I just have a placeholder in place for the bathtub - it's a little short, I think, and not long enough, but what's your opinion?

I decided to have an orange theme, to go with the green bedroom. . . but I might change my mind, I'll have to see.

And here are three adorable turtles that are making their way across George's room. I'm trying to get some ideas to fill up the shelves in his room, and I do have some very nice 1930s magazines that I got for my birthday, but a ten year old having 'Vogue' or 'Good Housekeeping' in his bedroom seems a bit odd. But I'm sure their some other (older) inhabitant in my dollhouse will be thrilled to have them! :-) Maybe a few strewn around the reception room, so guests can pick them up while waiting for the Lockwoods to make their way to them!

And here is where I decided to pull the wall forward a bit, to create a space for more windows. The room with white walls is the scullery, and above it is the Billiard's room. The two rooms that were pulled forward are the Butler's Pantry and George's bathroom, which are not where they will end up. (Now that I write that, I think George's bathroom might possibly.)

Here is an image of the Grand Staircase. The "carpet" on it is just paper, I'm waiting until I find a more suitable fabric. I will need to have some paintings around it, I'm thinking on basing it off of the Entrance of Hillwood Estate. (For those who don't know, Hillwood is a beautiful house in Washington D.C.).

I also made a couple more trunks for the Trunk room. I'm going to have to make quite a few more before it starts to fill up!

And here is the beginning of the Music Room in Lockwood Manor. It's located next to the Reception room. I made the pianos myself, which was quite a fun job. I made the light colored one first, so there are a few defects in it, but I had so much fun making it I decided to make the second.

And there is the north end of Lockwood Manor, with the Servant's Entrance at the very bottom, George's Room on top, an unidentified room on top of that, and then the Nursery. Have a good day! Signing off with an interesting sepia photo of my dollhouse that I took a while ago. . .

Slow progress. . .

What would you like, the good news, or the bad news? I'll give you both: the good news is that I am slowly inching my way through the floor in George's room, and the bad news is: I still have to finish half of it! To start us off, I'm going to show you a photo of the back stairs that the servant's entrance leads to - I seem to talk a lot about it! (One thing that really bothers me here is that the wall isn't thick enough - there's no way you'd ever find a wall that thin anywhere!)

Ugh!!!!!!! Now, for the floor! (Drum roll, please)

That's not sunlight - it's my desktop lamp :-) If you are wondering about the floor pattern, I was too lazy to cut the squares in half - but it turns out that that was a good call on my part - I can't even keep the squares themselves square!

A bit worn, but still loved! Now - you may remember the fireplace from a few posts ago:

You can see the wall through the fireplace, but luckily - it's all finished now! (That is, I still have to finish the thingy-ma-bob that lets the smoke out, I know there's some name for it for gas fireplaces).

It's a bit dark, but you may be able to see some coals; they are made out of gravel. Now, I'll show it to you, all lit up! (By the way, for some annoying reason two of the lights in the Manor don't work: the battery for the servant's entrance went out, and the wires for the Egyptian Bedroom are disconnected, because I have quite mustered the courage to fix them.)

It's a lot more subtle in real-life, because I couldn't manage to take a good photo of it. If you can see any white liquid - it's glue, because I was to impatient to have it dry before I took the photo. I was too busy, unfortunately, to get photos of the back while I was constructing it - but I have a shot that will hopefully show you how I made it (ish).

It was constructed of a base made out of wood (elevated on cork board), and five pieces of wood covered in painted sandpaper. I have no idea what the material is supposed to look like - maybe some sort of metal. I'm just glad it lights up!

That's where the fireplace will sit - the firebox will slot into it. I had to glue the wall in at a certain angle, so it would free up more space, so the firebox won't sit flush to the wall, but luckily nobody will see this! The little pieces of wood are all parquet just waiting to be sanded and stained. Now, a couple of posts ago I mentioned the servant's entrance, and because I hadn't taken any photos of it, I had to use an old one. Luckily, I took some photos of it today.

There's a full on shot. A bit over grown and grubby - I suppose the inhabitants of the house are more worried about the war then manicuring the exterior.

Originally, I was going to use a pediment above the door - made out of fancy marble,but it looked too plain and not green enough (not a very good explanation, what I'm trying to say is that it wasn't wild enough for me), so I used an awning - that clearly has seen better days because the mold is creeping up on it!

One of my creamer trash cans in the top photo - I took the idea off of otterine.com (sorry I can't attach a link, you'll have to copy and paste that into your web browser, but my link system on Blogger just doesn't seem to be working). I love Brae's work - she makes everything look so real! I didn't use spray paint (I don't like the smell), so I just used a couple of coats of Metallic Silver paint. And, of course, some rust and dirt spots!

I've been working on some vines for the exterior by the servant's entrance - I want it to be thin and scraggly at the bottom, but lush at the top. So far I have finished the vines for the facade of the nursery, and the one in the picture above is for the exterior of George's Room. Also, I just realized it's almost fall! For some reason, this photo of the scullery in my dollhouse below seemed autumnal to me - so I will use it as my closing photo!

Signing off. . . for now!

Planning - always planning!

Currently my dollhouse and I have been separated - as I have been vacationing in Ireland! I've been blessed with beautiful weather here, I think it has only rained about two times, and I've met up with lots of family and had a fantastic time all in all :-) I finished the plan for my dollhouse, and you can see what it looks like. It is duplicated twice to show the front, and the back. As you can see, lots of the rooms are not named, and therefore unfinished. I have put the rooms that are finished in a different type of blue so you can tell which is which :-) Sorry that the image is so tiny, if you click on it it enlarges! :-)

As you can see, there are so many unfinished rooms! So much more space for imagination and creativity! I also forgot to include the unfinished attic space, which consists currently of two finished spaces, including Jeremy's bedroom, who, following the story I have created for my dollhouse, is obsessed with the movie star Lana Turner, hence the numerous photos of her :-)

My dollhouse, although Victorian, is set in 1940, which allows for some modern conviences and an updated kitchen, and electricity. And because all of my favorite movie stars are from the 1930s and 40s, I can include photos of them :-) Also, in other news, I have finished decorating the facade of the servant's entrance.

I'm quite proud of it! As the story goes, the servant's entrance used to be quite spick-and-span in the Victorian times, but as it's the 1940s, the place has grown dilapitated and is now only used for hanging out laundry and putting out the rubbish.

Yes, that's rust holes in the 'metal' poles supporting the washing line! The poles are actually wooden, but I painted them to (hopefully) resemble metal.

Thank you for reading, and have a splendid day!