Step by step: bathroom

Bathrooms are very interesting to make, just like kitchens, because there are many tiny details that you can add more and more of.

This is what the bathroom in Womble Hall looks like at the moment. It is on the upper floor, next to the master bedroom. There isn't a direct door from the bedroom to the bathroom, but you must go through a corridor. Maybe it's not correct, but there wasn't any other natural place for the bathroom.

 

The very first bathroom I made was in my old Victorian house in a bookshelf, which I keep referring to. I still have the bathtub, and I keep changing my mind between it and the current sugar-bowl with lion feet (you can see a glimpse of it in the picture).

In the next step, I added a washbasin and other stuff. I was a beginner then and didn't know what materials and tools to use, but I had fun. As you see, the tiles have found their way into Womble Hall after all these years.

When I moved the house into a cabinet, I kept the bathroom, but it became very small. Yet the concept is the same, and has remained so.

When I started planning Womble Hall I wasn't sure where the bathroom would go. I first thought in the attic, but it would be very uncomfortable for people in the bedroom if they had to run upstairs in the middle of the night. I also considered the large right-hand room on the upper floor, that eventually become the study.

But already on the very first picture of the shell, long before it was glued, you can see the bathroom in its current place.



I made the first attempts decorating the bathroom early in the project, precisely because I simply copied it from the previous house. Maybe it was my lack of imagination, but I really liked the old bathroom, and even though not a lot has survived, the general sense has. As I explain in that early blog post, I have seen pictures of bathrooms in people's dollhouses where they have just pasted the whole sheet of tiles on the wall, and it doesn't look natural. So here I pasted the tiny tiles one by one. Yes, it did take some time. But I am never in a hurry with my mini projects. The floor is also a commercial sheet that I bought very early in my mini-making days, today I would have made in myself. But the sheet was not large enough, so the back part of it is a photocopy. Can you tell?

In the picture below you see a door in the back wall. Behind the door is a corridor, and in the next picture you can see what I made there.

 

As with all other rooms, it took a long time before I could make any final arrangements. In this case particularly, I had to finish the rear corridor (which I will show in due time), but as soon as that was done, the basic work on the bathroom was done as well.

After that, I added some objects, and the final touch came with Adam ceilings.

Since then, I made the Chippendale dressing table and two small tables - you cannot have too many tables in a Victorian house. I may add another mirror over the dressing table, and the hooks keep falling off, as you see, I must fix them better.I also want to make a proper Victorian water cistern over the toilet. Once again, a project is never ever finished.

Tudor bathtub

Among many small details I have wanted and never got round to in my Tudor house is a bathtub. The excellent book by Brian Long explains how to make an authentic-looking bathtub, but for some reason it just hasn't happened.

Yesterday I had another successful round of charity shops. (They are all in the area where I have my hairdresser and my dentist). This is what I found:

Not sure yet what I will do with the metal things, most probably candlesticks. The glass jar will join other jars in the larder. The handbag I will give to my friend the happy shoe shop owner. Every now and then I give her something to add to the shop.

But can you see what the napkin rings will be?

I think they look very, very authentic.

But do I really need two bathtubs in the Tudor house?

One can go into Victorian kitchen. Among many other things.

In any case, two very nice objects that took me about five minutes to make.

Modern bathroom

I built the bathroom on th same floor as the bedroom, with a little hall in between. It took me a long time to decide how to make the bathroom walls because solid walls would make the whole floor too heavy and crammed. Finally I used a CD box, which became quite an interesting solution.

Just as I started on the bathroom I found this marble bathtub in a thrift shop. The wash stand is a makeup box glued onto a plastic tube. On the right you can see that I have started tiling the floor, the tiles cut from a fancy shopping bag.

 

The tiling is similar on the floor and the wall. I made the shower from two spice-jar lids (the lid for peppar has small holes in it, just right), and the taps are plastic beads. I later moved the tub and the shower into my Victorian house because I found a fabulous bathroom set in a shop on Portobello Road in London.

It is an original Barton set (which means it is wrong scale, since Barton is 1:16, but all scales are slightly wrong in this house). It was in porr shape and I strongly dislike the 1980s green so I painted it a bit more daring - but also authentic: I have seen exactly this colour combination on Barton bathrooms. It was a very delicate job since I didn't want to remove the taps and the toilet seat.

Some further details in this bathroom: the little dressing table is made from an unidentifable plastic object, the same I used for the kitchen table. The scissors, razor and comb come from party crackers. I made the mirror holders from clothes hooks. The toothbrush mug is a ballpoint pen cap, and the brushes are made with tiny bits of Velcro. The toilet brush, which you cannot see very well behind the tub, is a makeup brush in a plastic medicine-bottle cap. The towel rings are made from the sealing rings in cooking-oil bottles.

New bathroom

I lost quite a lot of space for the bathroom as compared to the old one. On the other hand, I gained depth. Yet it meant that I needed to display things in a certain way to make the most of them. The linen cupboard must be facing the viewer, while the bathtub can be placed by the wall. I re-tiled the bathroom and re-used the self-adhesive marbly shelf film. There wasn't much else I could do. There is, hovewer, a new recent feature in the bathroom: the bathtub.

There was nothing wrong with the old bathtub, and this one comes from another dollhouse that has got another bathtub... Anyway, I found this gorgeous marble bathtub in a thrift shop while I was looking for something to make a bathtub of. The shower is made with two caps from spice bottles. The taps are beads. The shaving set is of course from ebay.

Bathroom

Bathrooms are more prominent in dollhouses than in real life, again because they are fun to make. My bathroom started with this bathtub

Coleslaw container that I painted in metallic and used buttons for legs.

Then I made a cupboard in the same manner I made the book case: from a photo frame

The sheets are old handkerchiefs with lace, and the towels are cut from towels. The big pitcher on top is my own creation in a pottery class. The tap on the bathtub comes from a Barbie house. The little mirror is from a flea market.The marble floor is self-adhesive shelf paper.