"Immaculate attention to detail"

Every time I wonder why I bother to make all the tiny details of my project as perfect as possible, I keep reminding myself about that newspaper article that made me so angry a year ago. Attention to detail is precisely what those decorators haven't done. But I won't repeat myself - read the post.

This weekend I have been working with details. Some of them I indicated in yesterday's post. When I started making the ceiling in the upper hall, including the ceiling rose for the chandelier, I realised that it would make sense to add the coving first, because the chandelier would be in the way. And before I moved on at all, I should probably fix the candles in the large chandelier. They were just attached with tack, and I removed them when I was working on the railing because they kept falling off. (I cannot take out the chandelier because it is attached in the sealed-off back corridor above). I knew the candles would go on falling off, and I needed to come up with a good idea about how to fix them. Unlike most of my candles, these are real birthday candles - not that I will ever light real candles in a dollhouse, but I had these rather ugly silver ones, so I painted them off-white. I had bought the candles in a charity shop for 30p because of the candle holders: miniature people make cups, goblets and other stuff with them. But after repeated attempts to fix candles upright with sticky dots, I took the holders, cut off the tip and put candles in them, as you normally do with candle holders.

 

My idea was that a holder would stay put better than a candle. But after a while it didn't look all that good.

Since I was multitasking I took down a sconce from a room box that I am dismantling. It goes together with a ceiling lamp I now have in the master bedroom. Let me tell you: it is worth while going through your own creations every now and then. The sconce was very clever, and I saw immediately that it was a solution for my chandelier problem.

Hopefully, gluing metal to metal will do it.

As I said, I was multitasking, and one of the tasks was door pediments. This is what I had in mind.

 

While I was rummaging through my numerous Very Useful Boxes I found another thing from the same shop. Another lesson to self: before embarking on any project, go through all your supplies. I had been saving these filigrees for ages, to make ceiling roses!

Just in time for the small chandelier in the upper hall, but I had completely forgotten them when I made the Adam ceiling in the smoking room! Shall I do it all over again, just to insert the rose? I think I shall. It will look so good.

Meanwhile, the coving I had painted was dry, and it was time to put it into the upper hall (before starting on the ceiling). It isn't proper miniature coving, but a 2 meter rail from B&Q for £1. In most of my rooms so far I have paper mouldings made from 1:1 embossed wallpaper. But for the front hall I wanted wooden coving for better effect.

I had to remove my pretty Victorian tiles because they sat just a couple of millimeters too high. It didn't really matter because I had to rearrange them anyway.

As you could have expected, while I was working on the back wall I happened to ruin a part of the railing. I should have made the mouldings before I made the railings. But then... and so on.

Anyway, here is the result of my immaculate attention to detail today, and I will continue tomorrow, so please come back. 

Lamps and candles

I will not be showing every picture of every room where I have now added mouldings made with full-size wallpaper (I am glad I invested in a whole roll rather than pinching samples). As I show further details of various rooms please pay attention to the mouldings, and I will draw your attention to any particular aspect. I've done all rooms on the upper floor: master bedroom, bathroom, corridor and smoking room. I think it looks nice and neat. I cannot say it was child's play because it was a lot of quite difficult precision work; but it was certainly easier than using proper wooden moulding. If I some time in the future decide to add wooden cornices I can place them on top of paper.

Meanwhile, I have also been doing some other things. I had a miniature shopping binge in Stockholm last month.

Of these lovely objects, I have already shown what I did with the kitchen shelves. Some things went immediately to their natural locations: the rocking horse to the nursery, the cutlery to the kitchen, the chair to join its twin that I bought in the same shop last year; the doll to the music room. Some of the ornaments have also found their right spots.

 

But my favourites are the two magnificent chandeliers.

It took me a long time to consider where they would be best displayed. The grand reception room seemed a natural place, but no, it actually didn't work ar all; the style was wrong. So the reception room will still have a plastic Christmas tree decoration. While I was deciding I added a chain to the chandelier that didn't have one.

 

I have various chains from junk jewellery so it was easy. The hard thing was the candles. The smaller chandelier has candle holders. The shop owner suggested that I use birthday-cake candles, but they are far too large, even cut in two. It doesn't look natural. So I made candles with my usual technique, from dowel. It suddenly struck me that there is a simple way to calculate how tall a candle should be: a real candle divided by 12.  Which is 2 cm. No wonder all my earlier attempts failed. My candles were too tall.

The other chandelier has spikes, and the shop owner wasn't confident with advice. I have tried to put birthday-cake candles on such spikes - let me tell you, it doesn't work. Possibly if you make your own candles and make holes in the bottom while they are still soft, and they will crumble anyway. So I had to think of another way. I won't burn real candles inside a dollhouse so it doesn't matter exactly in what way they are fake.

This is what I did. Painted a drinking straw and cut 2 cm long bits. Put a bit of tacky wax into each end and added tiny bits of thread for wicks. Then put the candles on the spikes, with wax holding them in place.

I still wasn't sure where I wanted the chandeliers. Pieces like this should be foregrounded, and eventually I decided that I will have them foregrounded, literally, on the two levels of the Great Hall. They will match each other and immediately attract attention.

 

Yes, immediately attract attention because the candles are all lopsided! They are temporarily attached with small sticky dots. Of course I only noticed after I had taken the picture. It doesn't matter, however, because I will still need to drill a hole and find a suitable ceiling rose.

The other one looks better - this is the one with candles made of straws, they are more stable.

Mind, both rooms are still under construction - the stais aren't glued yet.  So you need to use your imagination to see what it will be like some time in the future.

As I have now invented this new way of making fake candles I made two more to go with an ancient mirror I bought in the same shop last year. It has candleholders with spikes. I have now put it in place, with candles. 

Candles

It has occurred to me that I have never shown how I make candles, and since I was improving a candlestick I thought I'd share it. Some miniaturists make real candles according to the rules, which is fun, but too messy. You cannot light them in a dollhouse anyway. I make candles from dowel and candleholders mostly from buttons.

I cut a piece of dowel about 2cm and paint it antique white. For wick, I take a tiny bit of black string. Then I light a real candle and hold it over my minicandle letting small drops of stearine run down. It looks quite realistic. You can also let some glue run down the candle, but then you have to paint it over. My improvement of the old candleholders is that I have made handles from bits of broken jewellery.