New bedroom

I start with the bedroom. I was stingy and recycled the old wallpaper, but I didn't have enough for the bedroom, so this is from the old drawing room. The top rooms have quite high ceilings that go well beyond the front of the cabinet (and were terribly uncomfortable to paint), so I decided to leave the upper part of the walls white, which was not uncommon at the time. I used furniture ribbon for cornice. I also recycled the old paper floors, but one day I will make real floors as I have done in the other rooms. The door opens into the bathroom, just as in the old house. The new detail in the bedroom is the wardrobe, or armoire, a word I didn't know until recently. It was a hard decision to replace my own creation with a more elaborate one, and I only did it because the armoire came as a part of a huge lot I bought from ebay. Since I keep moving things around, perhaps this piece will move elsewhere and the old pretty wardrobe come back. Of the other details, pay attention to the bed warmer. The handle is a little stick you get to stir your coffee on a plane. This one, from Spanair, had a round blade. I saw the form at once. The pan itself is a champagne cap.

I got the hatbox with a tiny bag and gloves from a friend. The Persian carpet is cut from a souvenir pencil case. The boot is possibly from Barbie, and the bootjack is an unidentifiable piece of metal salvaged from a pile of rubbish when we refurbished the 1:1 kitchen. The baby cot is a very recent addition, from the same lot as the wardrobe. I think I will paint it white at some point.

 I bought the mirror in a thrift shop because it would be quite difficult, although not impossible to make. I should probably paint it white as well. I am very proud of the new modesty screen which I had been planning for years and only figured out recently how to make. It is a broken fan from a flea market that I simply glued onto a piece of white card. The little sconce of the wall is from Dollhouse Enporium and works. But the chandelier I made myself.

 

The metal bit used to be a part of an ancient lady purse, or ridicule, with a silk bag attached. It belonged to my great-grandmother, and I cherished it for many years. The fabric was falling apart so I finally decided to sacrifice it. I added plastic beads for decoration and used a junk chain. There is a tiny bulb in the lamp. 

I am tremendously proud of this piece that has recently replaced the old dressing table. Not only is it more elegant, it it also much more imaginative. For legs, I used clothes-pegs (after a few failed attempts with chopsticks). The top is still, after all these years, the venetian blind, and I decorated the sides with bits of the same old lacey placemat. The mirror is a miniature frame, and the two drawers are mini building blocks with two pinheads for handles. Because of the size of the clothes-pegs, this piece is slightly larger than 1:12, but you cannot really tell when it is in the room, which now looks like this: 

The new doll has been around for a while, in fact, almost since we moved four years ago. I made her dress, using details from my old embroidered shirt. There still a lot of improvements and additions I can make to the bedroom, but it is complete.