Dark academia

 

When my daughter suggested that I make a Dark Academia room box, I had no idea what she was talking about, but after some research on the web I thought it was an interesting challenge. And of course the suitable format was a book nook rather than a room box. I had only made one book nook before, and I find it a fascinating format, but it has its special demands. A scholar's study would be just right. 

I made the crime scene book nook in a large cat sand box, but this project would be smaller, so a cat food box felt the right size. I covered it with wrapping paper. 

 

I wanted the front of the box to be a french window, and I had a frame from another project. I added a valve extending from the roof. 

I cut off a small bit of the beautiful floor I had from an earlier, dismantled project, and I printed out an old-fashioned wallpaper from the web. In accordance with the style, I made dark wooden wainscoting. For the ceiling, I used some leftovers of the magnificent Robert Adam paper.  Obviously, a book nook like this needs display lights, and it took me some time to figure out how to make and hide them. 

All the time I was testing different furniture and accessories. Some things I tried proved too bulky; some didn't quite fit in. I played with it for some time. But here is what it looked like just before I inserted the window: 

The writing desk is a Chippendale piece made from kit, with plenty of correct and interesting details that will never be seen in the final project. There are for instance small objects hidden in drawers. The armchair is likewise a Chippendale kit. I made the books from cardboard using book spine printies, but recombining them for individual look. Books on the floor are also made with printies, as are newspapers and maps. The chandelier is a fishing hook with some jewellery bits - I made it many years ago for my very first dollhouse. The clock comes from my clockmaker's room box; it's a large button with a printed clock face (I tried a grandfather clock, but it was too large). Just a couple of commercial minis: wine jar and glass, a candlestick, and of course a cat. A few more, and it would feel cluttered. 

Here is the finished nook. As I always do, I left my secret signature, like Hitchcock has a vignette of himself in all his movies. But I am not telling you where it is. 

 

Step by step: rear corridor

In the posts about bathroom and front corridor you could see glimpses of the rear corridor, which is one of the most interesting features of this house. As I have said many times, rear corridors and fake doors create a wonderful sense of extra space where anything can be hidden. This is what it looks like today:

But the way there was long.

Obviously, I couldn't start doing anything properly before I glued the shell, and I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do. As you see, there are two doors leading into the corridor, one from the bathroom and one from the front corridor. At each end of the corridor there is a door as well: on the left, into the master bedroom and on the right, to the hidden corridor behind the study. There is actually no door there because nobody will ever see it, but if there is light in the hidden corridor it can be seen through the opening.

In the picture of the glued assembly, you can see the back wall of the corridor:

This blog post describes the rationale and the process well, so I won't repeat it. Just note that the post is from April 2015, more than half a year since I started. Things take time. I believe this step was among the most difficult. The next post describes all the decisions I had to make because once the rear partition was inserted I couldn't do much behind it. This is one of the few places in the house where objects are permanently attached.

And in the next post, I explain how I made lights in the corridor - which was the beginning of my lighting revolution and resulted in this:

 

Which is more or less what it has been since then. You can see a bit of the corridor through the side window of the master bedroom:

 

Therefore I made a point of having some objects there that cannot be seen from the front. I didn't bother to do the same on the right because it cannot be seen at all. But as I said, the light from the corridor behind the study comes through the opening.

Step by step: upper hall

Like the grand entrance hall I described yesterday, upper hall has no predecessors in any earlier projects, and, also like the grand hall, I had no other options than to build it as designed. (I guess I could have closed the stairwell and make a different room, but then the grand staircase would not lead anywhere, and that wouldn't make sense).

This is the most recent view:



Similarly to the grand hall, it took me a long time to plan, and, for instance, I knew that I needed to finish the floors before I could attach the railings.

I knew from the beginning that the hall would be yellow, so when I tentatively painted the back of the house, the back wall of the hall was yellow and has remained so.

 

This is the first picture of the hall - the shell not glued yet, and it stayed the same for a very long time. I put some objects in so that  it didn't feel totally empty - as I did with all other rooms, but at this point I didn't know at all what else might be here. I made a chandelier to hang over the stairwell, but it was too heavy to attach with tack, and it would be some time before I could attach it permanently.

During the Christmas party in 2014, that I have referred to several times, the hall looks just as three months earlier, but my guests didn't notice that there were no floors nor railings. Just tells you how much people pay attention.




I thought I would have long vertical panels on the back wall that I cut from old postcards, but then I found a set of magnets in a museum shop. This was still before I glued the shell.

When I finally did glue the shell, I was busy making floors and hanging wallpaper, and anyway, I didn't quite know yet what I wanted to do with the hall. I would put in some objects and then move them away as they found their place elsewhere. It wasn't until April 2015 that I finally decorated the ceiling as I had planned for a while and attached the chandelier, but only because I was sealing off the rear corridor from the floor of which the chandelier was to hang.

At some point I must have inserted the window, but not registered it. It is a slightly stupid window because as my house stands by the wall, there is no view and not even any light coming in,although I have ideas about what to do with it.

In the pictures from late November 2015, when my son-in-law made lights, you can still see that the upper hall is a mess.





No floors, no railings, and even the doors are not inserted yet. But all other rooms were sort of finished, so it was high time to deal with the hall.

I finished the floor, which was a laborious task, but truly rewarding.

 

I say it in the linked blog post, but I will say it again: I estimate that it took me 50 hours to make this floor. Talk patience!

Then I finally tackled the small back stairs and the railings, and if you have ever made railings you know that they just won't stay. Again, I could have discarded the railings that came with the kit and built my own with individual spindles, but this will be in my next life.

 

Looking back at the process, like this, makes me realise again how much time and effort lies behind every part of this project. I am glad I have documented it in detail, for instance, finally inserting doors,  adding mouldings and making the Adam ceiling.

And that's it, really. All that has changed - or has been constantly changing - is new Chippendale chests and side tables moving in and out.



There is only so much you can have even in a Victorian room, so I am not sure what else may happen here. It is doubtless a very grand room and probably the first you see because it is exactly at eye level. I am pleased that it has turned out so well.

Step by step: smoking room

In my step-by-step tour, that so far has included the reception room, music room, drawing room and dining room and master bedroom,  I have come to the gentlemen's smoking room, which is on the second floor, to the right. The smoking room, that I have also frequently referred to as study has a long history. It started in my very first house in the bookshelf. There is very little left from that study, except the concept and the tile stove. But I started by making a chest of drawers and a writing desk from jenga blocks. Then I made a book case. It survived until quite recently. I added many interesting objects in the study. This is a picture from maybe a month after I began my hobby:

 

At this stage, I used Christmas lights.

When we moved, and when I re-created my house in a cabinet, I didn't put up any walls between the drawing room and the study so it was just one large room. 

But you recognise the tile stove, the book case at the back, the desk in front of it, and the chest of drawers is by the left wall, obscured by the clothes hanger.

I added, removed and replaced some objects, but the room remained the same until I started Womble Hall. Then I knew that the drawing room and the study would be separated, and although it made sense to have the study next to the dining room, it didn't work, so from the dining room the gentlemen have to go into the corridor and up the (non-existing) stairs to the second floor.

Like dining room, this room has a rear corridor and a pretty valve opening. I didn't make a chimney breast for this room because I was going to use the tile stove. It may be a wrong feature in a Victorian house, but I wouldn't part with this stove. I knew more or less how I wanted to decorate the room, so I tested it early, with low-resolution printed wallpaper. 

The partition is simply inserted, the floor is paper, the door leaned to, and so on. I had by that time made the Chippendale desk and cabinet, but the other desk is the same, and in the corridor you can see the old book case.

Before I started assembling and gluing the shell, I painted the back wall of the rear corridor and hung wallpaper on side walls and partition. It needed some clever calculation because I had to finish the corridor before I could put in the partition. This is also when I added a light in the corridor.



But this is also where I made an epic mistake and had to tear everything down and re-build it. Then I made a proper floor to replace the adhesive shelf lining. In this blog post from late April 2015 I say that the room is finished. But of course is wasn't. Nothing is ever finished. Less than a month later I replaced the old faithful book case. Then I added a rocking chair in the rear corridor. Then I made another Chippendale desk, and the old one was reluctantly removed. By the way, the coffee table in front of the sofa is a genuine Carin Backlund. And there is real whisky in the bottle!

Then I started making Adam ceilings, and the smoking room was among the first.



I added curtains. I changed the chandelier. I added some more objects.

Here is what it looks like now:

Maybe looking at the pictures only, you might say that this room has changed least of all. But if you read the blog posts you will see how much work happened between each stage.

All over again

Did I ever mention that a dollhouse project is never finished? I did? Yes, I did. Many times.

When I finished my Adam ceilings, I was pretty sure that I was done with ceilings and ceiling lights. All mouldings and ceiling roses in place, nothing more to add. And then I go to this wonderful shop and buy three fabulous chandeliers. And I see that one of them will be perfect in the smoking room where I so far had a light that I was absolutely happy with.

 

Smoking room ceiling was one of the first Adam ceilings I made, and it involved removing the ceiling light and then putting it back. Of course I won't replace the ceiling this time, but I still need to remove the floor in the room above, remove the tape that is holding the wire from the light, feed the wire down through the hole, remove the light and the ceiling rose. Then, in reverse: feed the wire of the new chandelier through the ceiling rose (which by the way is a scrapbooking embellishment) and the hole, fix the wire with the tape and put back the floor. Luckily, the floor in the room above - guest bedroom - is still paper and can be removed without breaking up the skirting boards. (I won't get away so easily in other rooms).

Judge for yourself:

It's always like this: once you have made an improvement you wonder how on earth it could have been anything else. 

The light in the chandelier is a battery tea light. The fabric of the chandelier is a bit torn, and I first thought that I would replace it, but I will never manage to do it neatly, and after all, people did have torn and worn objects. Maybe it even looks more natural.

I have two more exquisite new chandeliers to put up, so do come back soon. It will be a much greater challenge.

Plumbing

Today I finished plumbing.

 

Let me remind you that the drain pipes - which are of course drinking straws - conceal electric wires connecting the floors into a single LED strip. I am very proud of this solution. The alternative would be simply to have wires held by cable clips. Not very realistic. Here the pipes are probably not hugely decorative, but at least they look plausible. Just a couple are held by cable clips - these proved to be clumsy, hard to get into the walls, and when they did get through there would be a couple of millimetres of nail on the inside. Instead I used duct tape, almost deliberately cutting it uneven. Some places are where the wires go in and out, others just hold the pipe in place.

With this, I believe that the major exterior features of the house are complete!

As a contrast, look where I was a year ago.

Tudor illumination, continued

As planned, I went on to make display lights in the Tudor house. Once again, the purpose of display lights is to illuminate the scene, regardless of what kind of lights would be used in the period you are re-creating. You can add what filmmakers call realistic lights, including fake lamps and chandeliers, or electric lights, but display lights allow the viewer to see details that wouldn't be visible in "authentic" light. For instance, if you have been to Museum of Childhood in London, where they have a huge collection of dollhouses, some have realistic lights, some don't, but all have display lights.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I had some issues with battery holders because they are hard to hide. In the solar, I did as I had planned: made a slit in the roof and led the battery into the attic. At the moment it is just there, but I will disguise it as a chest.



The LED strip is attached behind the front beam, and although it looks far too bright in the picture, it is a soft and even light, and you can see well into the room.

For the great hall, on the middle floor, I had several options. I could lead the battery outside and attach it to the wall, disguising it as something. I would have to make a slit in a cross-beam. I didn't much fancy it. I considered hiding the battery behind the stairs of the room above. It would fit, but I have tried several ideas about how to attach it, and it didn't work. So finally - or perhaps temporarily until I find a better solution - I simply hid it behind a beam, which I initially didn't want to do because it would be too conspicuous. However - can you see it?


Of course you cannot see it because I have cropped the picture. If you look very carefully, you can see a bit of it under the second beam, on the left. Believe me, it's not bad at all. (I may change my mind tomorrow).

I did  the same in the kitchen, and because it's below eye-level, you cannot see it at all, unless you look from below, and why would you?



Now you can see all the details at the back of the kitchen: the inglenook, the utensils, the hanging meats; and it doesn't matter that there were no LED lights in the Tudor era because there are no realistic lights (except candles and oil lamps), only display lights.

If you are curious about how furniture and other objects are made, search my blog with the tag "Tudor". 

Tudor illumination

This weekend I have traveled three hundred years back in time from my Victorian house to my Tudor house. If you want to see my Tudor house you will need to travel four years back in time of my blog, to the post when I last did some major work on it, and move backwards, to the day my husband brought home the shell he found at a recycling station. In between, you can read about how I decorated the house, added timber, made an inglenook and many other details. I have done some more work on the house since then, mostly adding objects I found at flea markets; but largely the Tudor house has been neglected, obscured by its more splendid Victorian neighbour.

The reason I went back to Tudor is that I want to install display lights. A dilemma with period houses is that you cannot have electricity in older houses, but you may still want some lights to show the details inside. The Tudor house is deep, and you cannot see very well even by daylight. I am with Brian Long, the author of The Authentic Tudor and Stuart Dolls' House, who says that even though there would of course be no electricity in a Tudor house it is still legitimate to have display lights. And in a Tudor house it is easy to hide display lights behind beams.

So I thought.

I bought 10cm LED strips with batteries and planned to attach the strips behind beams and hide the battery holders somewhere. The somewhere proved to be problematic. The holders are larger than you think, and they are very conspicuous in a miniature environment. I have several solutions. In the solar - which is the upper floor with the great bed - I can drill a hole behind the beam and hide the battery in the attic. I can disguise it as a treasure chest. On the ground and first floors, I can let the batteries sit on the outside. It won't be tremendously decorative, but it might work. I can also hide them behind stairs, but so far I haven't figured out how to attach them. I will sleep on it and go on tomorrow.

But while I was at it, I removed all objects from the house and dusted them, and also dusted floors and stairs and inspected all things that needed attention. For instance, last time I worked on this house, I inserted window panes in the solar, but never fixed them properly. Now was the right moment.

The original shell just had openings, but I added "leaded" window panes made from bottle protection mesh (the kind you get at taxfree shops in airports) which I glued onto a piece of old plastic folder. Looking at it now, I wonder how I could ever think that it was satisfactory. But I have had so much practice since then. So now I added a window frame, properly mitred, to match the timbers.

This looks so much neater. And from the outside, it looks like this:

I also hinged the back shutter in the kitchen that I had been postponing ever since, because it was such an awkward space to work in. But now I had no excuses, so I fixed that. And I mended the front door that had been broken from start. Now it can be opened and closed properly. This is what the kitchen will be like, with light (the battery holder just outside the picture edge, to the right.

Hopefully, tomorrow I will finish all the lights and have something to show. Come back!

New phase in lighting, technicalities explained

I have received several questions from my miniature groups about how exactly LED strips work and how we did the lighting. I can again refer to my very first attempt with LED strips, but I can also try to explain the technical bit of it in a non-technical language, just as my son-in-law explained it to me as we were working together.

To reiterate: I had been looking for easier ways of lighting than the traditional wiring, and my youngest son, who is a filmmaker and knows everything about light, suggested LEDs. Actually, he first suggested smart-touch spots, which I used in a roombox. But you cannot easily hide rather large kitchen spots in a dollhouse so it wasn't a universal solution. His next idea was LED strips, and that's when I bought the 5 meter long strip with transformer that you can find in many varieties on ebay. You can also find instructions on how to fix them on Youtube, and as all instruction videos on Youtube it looks very simple until you try. LED strips are primarily used to install under kitchen wall units, which is so straightforward that I believe even I could do it. To make the desirable length, you cut the strip in indicated places and insert into a snap connector provided with the transformer. (Am I sufficiently non-technical?)

It becomes slightly more complicated if you need to divide a strip between two or more units, because then you need to cut it and use a bit of wire to lead from one strip to the next. To do so, you need double snap connectors that look like this:

 

The idea is that when you have cut your strip you insert it into a connector and snap it. It took me a few ebay purchases before I got it right. They aren't expensive. I had everything prepared for P's visit, including a dimmer on remote control that didn't work, but it's another story. But P is a perfectionist, so rather than using the snaps he decided to solder the wires directly onto the strips. He used the wires from snap connectors.

So: first he cut the LED strip to fit the breadth of a room. You see very clearly where you can cut, and there are also clear marks of + and -. The wire is bi-coloured so you also know where + and - are. I remember it all vaguely from school physics.

Next he did some magic with the soldering iron that I cannot describe with words, but that you can see in the picture.

I know it's not very helpful, but if you, like me, aren't too confident with soldering you can use the snap connectors. We used two before P decided that it wasn't neat enough for him, but I was perfectly satisfied. The trick is to hide the lights behind something, for instance, a beam or moulding, and then you can just as well hide the snaps. P used a number of snaps of a different format, that he had brought with him, to make connection between floors. This was for several reasons. First, he argued, if I ever wanted to change something it would be easier to disconnect one snap than dismount the whole system. I am sure I will never want to change anything, but he might, because he has already tons of ideas for future development. Second, when we led the wires on the outside we needed to pull them through drinking straws disguised as drain pipes (see previous blog post), and this could only be done if the wires can be disconnected at every floor. Between floors, where the original wires were not long enough, P used bell wire. He told me to specify in this post that bell wire is the right wire to use for this kind of work. However, it wasn't bi-coloured so P had to check it all the time for + and - with a little gadget he had on him, and this is beyond my comprehension.

To sum up: there are seventeen rooms in the house, so there are seventeen strips of various length, all cut from the original 5 meters and connected with soldered wires. The whole strip-wire assembly uses one single transformer, which means that all lights are switched on and off together. A dimmer will be inserted later, if necessary. It is technically possible - and that's P's next project - to make every strip work independently with remote control or even from a computer through wi-fi. Since he has helped me, I feel I will have to allow him to play as much as he wants with my dollhouse, although I am absolutely happy the way it is.

As I have also described before, in my rear corridors I have used short LED strips that are battery-powered.  I have six of these, and at the moment I can only switch them on manually and individually, but P is determined to connect them too and put on remote. He also has ideas about single LED lights for chandeliers and table lamps, as well as light-sensitive LEDs that will switch on automatically when it gets dark. It's not magic - he has all this stuff in his 1:1 house. I promise to share when we get there.

Here is one of the pictures that P took when he saw that the light was good.

New phase in lighting, cont

Here is the next installment of the LED lighting project.

This picture shows how all LED strips are being connected.

To remind you: I had a 5 meter-long LED strip (from ebay) that had to be cut to measure and then reconnected with wire that could go in notches between rooms. I had bought snap connectors, but my son-in-law thought they weren't neat enough so he soldered every connection! And he wasn't at all impressed that I had a soldering iron, as if it's something any household would own.

After we finished the basement, we led out the wire through the right top corner on the outside. Then P prepared the three connected strips: two with three strips for three rooms and one with four strips for four rooms on top floor.

 

Meanwhile I drilled holes, made notches and did other menial work. All the time we checked that the whole assembly worked.


Once we were sure that everything worked, we started attaching the strips to L-shaped plastic mouldings which we then glued on the edges of each ceiling and supported with masking tape. In this picture, two floors are finished and top floor still waiting. As you can see, the rooms are in complete chaos.

There were lots of small unexpected problems, but we dealt with all of them. The connecting wires between floors go on the outside, and after some thinking we decided to hide them within drain pipes:

These are of course drinking straws, and they will run all the way, and nobody will ever guess that they weren't part of the original design.

Yesterday evening we switched on the lights in the three floors and basement.

We saw that the light was good. We opened the fronts.

Then we went to bed, not sure that we would have time to do the attic. I hadn't even planned to do the attic because I didn't think the LED strip would be enough. But because of the wires between the cut strips, the 5 meters turned out to be just enough for the attic.

With the roof open:



As you see, the tape is still there, and there is A LOT of trimming to do, filling and painting seams and notches. But on the whole, we saw that the light was good.

Just two rooms where I've had the time to tidy up a bit. Servant room in the attic:

 

 And finally, warmest season's greetings from the reception room: