Locking the door

When I finished repairing the front door, I knew that I still had a challenge to face.

The door opens inside. I have two wild beasts who are curious about what is going on in this box that I of course put there exclusively for their pleasure. They have no problems pushing the door open, and it is incredible that a large tom cat can squeeze through this tiny door. But he can, and has done so on several occasions. Now that I have restored the interior I don't want it to be ruined again by a naughty feline.

So I must think of a way to lock the door from the inside.

A hook like the one I used for the fronts is far too large for this delicate door. But I don't think there are locks available in this size either. After long contemplation of various options I decided on a simple bar. It is not historically correct, but for once I need to consider practical details rather than authenticity.

For brackets, I used the metal-enforced tape that they fasten paper bags. Cut small bits and bent into shape. Glued with the strongest glue I have.

Again, I admit that it doesn't look authentic, but I need to protect the house from invasion of monsters.

If I can think of a better solution later I can remove it. But for now it's just what I need, and I don't have to put a piece of cardboard in front of the door.

House restoration: front doors

The two front doors were totally smashed.

In the past few weeks I had to protect them with cardboard to stop my cats from getting inside. Don't ask me how a large tomcat can squeeze through this tiny door, but he can.

The lower entrance door was the least intimidating. I had to remove the threshold to insert the hinges back into their holes and then glue it back carefully so that the door could open. It opens inward so I will need to think how to prevent the clever felines from pushing it and getting in.

Anyway, this door was straightforward. In the fully restored house, it will be under the front stairs.

The main front double door was more problematic. It was expensive so I definitely didn't want to buy a new one, but the front door is a feature people see first so it was important that it looked good.

One part of the surround was broken, and since it was the easiest thing to fix that's where I started.

I waited several days before I ventured to deal with the rest, and when I did it was surprisingly simple. Two hinges were missing, but easy to replace.

The door knocker is a bit of an earring, but I cannot find the thingies I used for handles. I will think of something.

So - after all the anguish, the front is done!

Now, either back to interior, or maybe mend the roof? And the front stairs.

To be continued.

Barbecue, part 2

Read the first post about this project.

Following from where I stopped: I painted the fence green, let it dry, painted over white and wiped it off with a cloth.

I remember a comment from a facebook friend about aging miniature objects. Why are people so obsessed with aging, they said. When things were first used, they were new. That's absolutely right, but a perfectly painted mini-fence just doesn't look natural. Or maybe you need a different kind of paint. Chalk paint? I need to learn how to use it.

Anyway, here is the fence, and it's time to make a backdrop. Since the focus is on the outdoor scene, I won't bother to make a whole house, just a front, but it doesn't mean omitting details.

I started with a piece of cardboard, matching the size with the yard.
  

  

The door and window will be fake, so when I painted the wall, I wasn't very particular.

 
However, I didn't like the smooth surface. I didn't have sand paint, but if you use coffee grounds the effect will be similar.

I had some left-over slates from an old project. I have since then learned how to make roof slates, but at some point I need to use these left-overs, and there isn't enough for a larger house, so I decided to use them.

 

I painted them rusty red.

 

As you see, I have also started making a door. I cut it from a cheese box and painted in the same technique as the fence. For the little window, I used a lid from a spice jar, cutting half of it and inserting "frosted glass" (plastic file holder) and a dark background behind it. The door knob is a paper clip.

This is as far as I got today, and I will save some fun for tomorrow. I have an idea about how to make the window. Come back soon!

Yes, there is a lizard under the swing.

Roman turret, part 7, in which the legion arrives and a wall is built

Read the previous posts about this project: part 1, part 2,  part 3, part 4 and part 5 and part 6.

I have never used action figures in my projects, I believe mainly because they are smaller than 1:12, which is my preferred scale, and also they tend to be rather ugly. But I knew I would never be able to make Roman soldiers from the kind of cheap dolls I purchase for upcycling, and these are wrong scale anyway. So I bought a set of Roman figures from ebay, trusting the seller's information about them being four inches tall. They were.

Apparently they are collectibles, randomly packed to encourage children to beg for more. So not all of them are Roman soldiers, some are gladiators, but I will have to live with it. I will do some research into who they really are. But I already have a favourite. Can you guess which?

The project became much more interesting with figures.

But their presence immediately made me realise that they needed more space. I had thought from start that I might add a bit of wall on both sides of the turret, since a turret is by definition not a solitary structure. Just a little bit of wall. Just enough for a warrior to be on it.

A fortification wall,  whether Roman or medieval, consists of two elements: wall walk on which soldiers can stand and shoot at the attackers, and parapet, a narrow structure that protects the soldiers from attackers' arrows or projectiles. The wall walk should be on the level of the upper floor so that the doors lead onto it. In short, quite sophisticated engineering.

I obviously used cardboard, making a square box and attaching it to the side wall of the turret.  I considered stripping the turret wall of stone masonry where the wall was to be attached and decided against it. Too much trouble, and the stones would certainly be damaged. The inner door, as I have made it, is in the wrong place in relation to the outer door, but I will leave it for the time being.

The parapet will be built, stone by stone, from craft cubes, just as I built the stone steps.

  
I started building the parapet first because I still haven't got enough egg cartons for the wall. I cut each cube in two, as uneven as possible, distressing them further and then painting, one by one, for colour variations.

To anticipate questions - yes, it took a long time. A very long time. Occasionally I get comments on my piece-by-piece work: "If you do it this way it will be quicker". But I don't want it to be quicker. I am not in a hurry. My marking is done, and it is far too hot for gardening. My room is cool and nice. Cutting and painting wooden cubes is peaceful and relaxing.

This obviously does not look natural, so once again, mock mortar.

That's better, isn't it? And better still after adding figures.

I think the figures really make a difference as they emphasise scale and generally make the scene livelier.

I won't show building the left wall step by step, because it was exactly the same.

In a close-up picture, you can see some details of stone masonry that, again, make it all look more natural. 

And here are the warriors:

Now, while I am waiting for us to consume all those omelets and scrambled eggs to finish the side and back walls, I will resume interior decoration. Googling "Roman material culture" yields hundreds of hits.

Come back soon.

Roman turret, part 6, in which woodwork is put in place

Read the previous posts about this project: part 1, part 2,  part 3, part 4 and part 5.

Now I can finally return to inserting the horizontal partition and the ladder. But first I need to build the stone steps. For these, I used wooden craft cubes, taking a long time to turn perfect blocks into uneven stones. Then I built the steps, stone by stone, leaving gaps that I then filled with mock mortar.

 After many trials and errors, I glued the ladder into the partition.

This turned out to be another, really big error, which just shows how even a tiny miscalculation is fatal in this scale. The bottom of the ladder came too close to the side wall, which did not look natural. So I had to detach it (and after drying overnight, it was a challenge). To move it, I had to detach one of the beams. It took three more attempts before I got it right, and not quite right anyway, but no one except myself will know.

While things were drying over and over again, I made a second door.

 

I haven't got exactly the same knob, but it doesn't matter. I don't think the Romans were too particular about the aesthetic bit.

With doors glued on and some utensils added: 

I am not happy with the fire: it doesn't look right, so I will have to think about it. There are other details I will be adding, particularly on the upper floor which at the moment looks rather bare. And of course it will be weeks before I have enough egg cartons to finish the walls. But the main part of the project is completed. I am really proud of it.

Roman turret, part 3, in which flagstones are cut

I finished my Roman turret project yesterday with rough estimates of how to insert the horizontal partition, add ladder and other woodwork.

But first of all I had to "whitewash" the interior walls again, and I also decided that at one place, whitewash has come off and some of the stone masonry is visible behind. Details like this add the sense of authenticity.

Remember that I had run out of egg cartons, and once again, I don't go shopping exclusively for something that will be recycled. But I still wanted to move on with the project, and the next step had to be the flagstone floor. In the absence of egg cartons I had to do with what I had, and yet another way to imitate flagstones (apart from clay and egg cartons) is a specially treated card. I think it used to be the back of an old college notebook.

 So first, obviously, cut strips of card and distress edges, as I did with the outside "stones".  Then moisten them between two layers of kitchen towel. Wrinkle up, then flatten and let dry. They will dry almost flat, but the surface will be slightly uneven.

I very deliberately left gaps between flagstones that I then filled with filler.

The dirt in front is real dirt from my garden. Just experimenting.

While things were drying, I started on some woodwork.

I showed the ladder yesterday, but I now I aged it by staining. I used Rustine's antique pine wood dye. The door is, like the ladder, made of coffee stirrers and stained. The floor was a bit more complicated with the opening in the middle, but it is so much smaller than the floors in my large house so it was quick to make. The simple rule is: sand until you drop dead.

I haven't even considered what scale it is because the shoe box was my point of departure. It is definitely smaller than 1:12, but larger than half-scale, so something in between, like Lundby or Playmobile. I will adjust all details as I add them.

The door must of course have hinges and a knob.

It will be a fake door, at least for the moment. Technically it leads out to the wall. If I add a bit of wall I may make a real, opening door. There should be two doors leading in both directions, but I will start with one and see how crammed the upstairs will look.

Before I move on I need to cut out a window in the back wall because it will be very awkward to do after I have added the partition. That's what keeps happening: I discover that I cannot move on until I have done something else. This is why instructions are helpful, taking you through the project step by step. And this is why I describe my project in so much detail.

But for now, with all the faults and incompleteness, here it is.

 

To be continued.

Step by step: reception room

As I have been making and sharing Chippendale furniture recently I have realised that I have no good pictures of Womble Hall room by room. When I post something saying that this particular piece will go into this or that room I have no pictures to link to.

I have also been planning to write blog posts following the progress of one and the same room over two years. Yes, it has been two years, and I am not finished (depends of course on how you define "finished").

It will take me some time to write these posts, but I think it will be interesting for myself, and for you, dear reader. Occasionally, when I look at some old picture I can't believe what it once looked like.

I will start with the reception room, and I will both insert pictures and links to earlier relevant posts.

So: the main kit arrived just about two years ago, and I started priming and painting, but I made a dry assembly at an early stage, to see what the various rooms might be. In this post, for instance you can already see that I put in a fireplace, a mirror and Chippendale chairs, and they have remained in the same place.

I had not remembered, when I started writing this post, that I actually began with the reception room, testing the walls and the paneling. So here is the very first picture of the reception room:

 

The wallpaper is not the same as in the final decoration, the upper rail is cut from a 1:1 wallpaper, the floor is from the old Victorian house and now in a different room. But the white panel with golden squares is still there.

The next thing I made in this room was a chimney breast. I didn't have chimney breasts in the old house, but here I wanted to do everything properly. This is what it looked like when I was finished:

Note that I had some objects in the room all the time, even though the walls were bare. I thought it was important to have the details for overall effect.

In the next step, I removed the back and painted and wallpapered it while it was flat, which I still, after many mistakes and failures, recommend rather than decorating a fully assembled house. In this picture you can see the back wall of the reception room, now with the final wallpaper and beginning of paneling.

It took almost three months before I moved on with this room because I was working on the basement. But when I went back to reception room it was time to decorate the side walls. And I made a daring attempt.

Here is what I ended up with. It was grand, but eventually I had to tear it down. The seams didn't look neat, and I couldn't think of a good way to fix them. Pity, because it does look fabulous. But I know I would have gone crazy after a while.

By Christmas 2014 I had made significant progress, but had still not glued the shell together. At my Christmas party, people admired the house, but they didn't see that it wasn't glued together, that the wallpaper was white-tacked, that the stairs were not attached at all, or that the windows and doors weren't properly inserted.

By the end of January, I made the ceiling decoration:

I haven't got a detailed description of how I made this one, but a similar.

Mid-February, I was prepared to start gluing, but that's when I noticed a lot of small mistakes, including the reception room walls. This is what it looked like when I made the correction. Note that I had given up on the previous upper rail and instead used edges of a paper placemat.

Mid-March I finally glued the shell together, and the reception room, or what would become the reception room, can be seen in the left bottom corner:

 Of course you can see it as a step back, but at some point the shell had to be glued. As soon as I had managed, with huge effort, to force in all floor dividers, I put back as many objects as I could. So at the end of March the reception room looked like this:

And on the whole it still looks like this. The Greek statues are souvenirs from Greece. The chandelier is a Christmas ornament. The white pedestals are wedding cake decorations. The vases are from charity shops. But of course it didn't end here. For instance, I added fire to the fireplace. Not huge progress, but anyway. The old floor has been moved elsewhere so it's just bare primed surface.

 

In June 2015, I made a new floor for the reception room. It was a long project that took weeks. By that time, I had finally got mitre shears, and cutting crafts sticks became easier. After that, the room looked like this:

I believe by this time I had glued in the windows, but I had to wait with the doors until both this floor and the floor in the adjacent room were finished.

At the end of November 2015, my son-in-law helped me install lights. The reception room looked grand for Christmas.

Here, the door is properly set in, a Chippendale daybed has joined the chairs, and there are pictures on the walls. All small details, but make a huge difference.

In December, I made curtains for most of the rooms, including the reception room. And I also made new ceilings for all rooms, using the Adam gift wrapping paper. And added expensive Georgian cornices. After which the room looked like this (the cornice on the left looks a bit untidy, but that's because there is a wire clip in that corner):



You would think that was it. Well, maybe some more pictures, some more ornaments, but no major alterations. But a dollhouse project is never finished. I found a new chandelier. After that, the room looked like this:



Not a big deal, you say? Come and visit me and let's hear what you say then.

So this is how long I have come, two years after I started. 




As you see, there is now a doll, and I think she fits perfectly in this environment. Of the details, there is a Chippendale corner chair, window seat and fire screen. But don't ask me whether it is finished. It will never be.