Read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 of this story.
Once again, I am renovating this house for a specific purpose, and a true collector would probably be horrified, because many authentic details will be lost. I bought this house extremely cheap, and I won't ever sell it as a vintage item so I can do whatever I want with it.
And I want a roof that looks like a house roof, not like a dollhouse roof. It's fine when the house is a toy for a child to play with, but a single-sheet roof does not look natural. So it's not just that the roof was damaged - it needed a new look.
I carefully studied period-correct roofs (there was a very interesting discussion thread, in Swedish, about various options), and I considered using corrugated cardboard for tiles, but finally decided on plain black slates.
I have done this before, and this time I didn't use cereal boxes, but rather recycled binders from my old students' theses that I had been saving for this purpose. They have just the right colour and texture.
I marked the tiles with a bone folder - an indispensable tool that I originally acquired for book binding, but that proved extremely versatile. Then cut the sheet into horisontal strips and glued directly onto the roof, shifting every other strip.
I think this picture very clearly illustrates the difference - and I almost forgot to take it. I turned some of the tiles upward a bit, to make them look more realistic. I may also sand them slightly to age them.
It took the time it took, but I am very pleased with the result. I will probably paint the ridge black, but will keep the wooden beams. I don't like the look of the chimney but haven't yet decided what to do with it.
Next, and as a little side project before embarking on floors, I made curtains for the living room. I wanted something unusual, and I remembered that my mother-in-law, who was very much into modern design, had curtains matching wallpaper, and this felt exactly the kind of thing a functionalist designer would do.
It took some thinking and a few trials-and-errors, but finally I figured out how to do it.
First, I printed out the Jacobsen wallpaper in very thin, 45-gram paper. Then I cut two bits of corrugated cardboard (the one I had discarded for roof tiles) and glued on the wallpaper to emulate folds. For rod I used a skewer, hung the curtains into jewellery jump rings and attached with eye screws.
Of course you cannot fully draw these curtains, but they look much more realistic than most dollhouse courtains I have seen, including those in museums.
Well, now I have no further pretexts to avoid dealing with floors and the ground-floor wallpaper, but it is a serious decision, and I need to think it through. Meanwhile, I will focus in some details, like period-correct ceiling lights. I can also make some kitchen items. Come back soon!
