Upper hall

I am meticulously showing the slow progress of decorating because it needs to be emphasised that behind each detail there may be hours of work. After the previous stage in the upper hall, when I glued the railing, I had to do the following.  First, I put in the two side doors, which in the previous pictures I tried to avoid showing. These are the absolutely last doors in this house, and they took just as much effort as all other doors. I don't know whether it is just me or whether doors are evil by nature, but they don't fit the openings. The simple explanation is that the openings have swollen from paint, and no, I didn't paint the inside edges because some merciful person warned me not to. Still, the doors don't fit, and a lot of scratching and sanding is required. There may be an easier way of doing this if you have the right tools, but I am just saying that the uninitiated who think that putting in doors is child's play - like Lego or Playmobil - don't know anything about dollhouses. Anyway, after some hours of huffing and puffing and swearing the doors were in and the surrounds glued. Did it make a difference! It's amazing how you forget what a difference it makes. It has been a very long time since the previous painful door-inserting, but now it feels really finished... almost.

For next, I had to do the skirting which I probably should have done before the railing - but whatever you do, there will always be something you should have done before. The skirting was straightforward, but still laborious, and after gluing, the skirting boards had to be held in place with masking tape. Oh masking tape, dollhouse builder's best friend!

Now, to an uninitiated eye, this picture may seem perfect:

True, it is a huge improvement. Especially compared to what it looked like fifteen months ago. But it isn't quite finished yet. The ceiling will be decorated with Adam paper, which I will have to cut and assemble to match the existing panel. There will be another chandelier in the front of the room.  To hang it, I will have to drill a hole in the ceiling, for which I will have to remove the floor upstairs. I could perhaps attach the chandelier without drilling a hole, but I will need to figure out how to do it neatly. I will add the cornices, for which I probably will need to remove the Victorian tiles because they sit too high. When I attached them I had forgotten about the cornices. I will also add door pediments, and I think I know how I will make them, but I am not sure whether it will work.

Not least, I will need to trim all small faults here and there, round thresholds, in corners. It will most probably take me 10-15 hours to complete this room - but then, a room is never completed, is it?

Drawing room

The last time I showed the ladies' drawing room was when I had just assembled the second floor of the house, more than half a year ago. Since then I have moved the floor from the entrance hall to the drawing room, and I have also shown the antique mirror over the mantelpiece (you need to scroll down the post to see it). 

The trouble with the floor was that it wasn't deep enough for this room, and before I moved on, I now had to add about two inches at the back. Thus: remove all objects and take out the floor.

 

It feels strange to see bare floors again, as if going back to the very, very beginning. 

It had been a while since I made floors, and I had forgotten how boring it was. However, I used the new technique I developed when I made the entrance floor: glueing coffee stirrers onto a piece of paper before cutting them. It went quicker, and because the new bit is in the back it does not matter that the colour doesn't quite match. You cannot see the difference, can you?

Then came skirting, and once again I realised that I couldn't finish skirting before inserting the door, and I cannot insert the door before I finish the floor in the adjacent room, and it will take some time. Therefore I only added skirting on the left and in the back, but it shows how neat it will be when everything is in place.

 

Then I put back all the objects.




Seemingly, it is the same picture as half a year ago, but a lot of improvement has taken place, as you can clearly see if you look carefully. There is still the door to be inserted and the skirting fixed, but apart from this, here is another room finished. More paintings here as well; maybe wall sconces, perhaps a couple of side tables. The flower pot should obviously not be on the tea table. I like the way this room has turned out.

Minor corrections

"Minor corrections" is a grade you can get when you are doing a PhD. It means that the thesis is generally acceptable, but there are some small things that need attention before the degree can be awarded. If I were doing a PhD in miniature-making (what a great idea!), my examiners would point out - as I did in my previous post - that the mantelpiece in the guest bedroom didn't look quite right and needed to be improved. Making a whole new chimney breast would be a "major correction", so instead I tore off the skirting board, cut it to measure and put on both sides of the mantelpiece. As I was doing it I realised that the fireplace needed a hearth. And a fireguard. So I made these. For the fireguard I used a piece of fine metal mesh the origin of which I have forgotten. I'd had it for ages hoping that one day it would come handy. And it did. It was blue so I painted it with copper paint.

 

In the master bedroom, I had a similar problem because I needed to cut the skirting around the fireplace. I hadn't done it wrong in the first place, so I didn't have to make minor corrections, but I learned from the other room. It was slightly more complicated because I had to cut the skirting board to fit the hearth. But it looks nice and neat.

 

Still better when I have put back the dressing table and the chair. Yes, it is a genuine Carin Backlund chair. Don't ask me how much I gave for it.  But the dressing table is a makeover from Poundland.

Attic finished (almost)

I promised not to show every step in my finishing touches, but now I have added mouldings to all the three rooms in the attic and put most of the objects back. The three attic rooms are nursery, servant room and guest bedroom. I know that a guest room would most likely not be on the same floor as a nursery or still less a servant room, but it just couldn't be done otherwise.

Last time I showed the nursery was six months ago here. (Scroll down the post to see pictures). Here is the fninshed room:

 

You may think there isn't much difference, but there is. Firstly, the door is now properly fixed, which took hours (as doors do; they never fit the opening). The skirting and coving have been added. The former is proper wooden skirting boards, but the coving is made from my ubiquitous 1:1 wallpaper. It still took a lot of work. There is not much left to be done in this room. Fix the curtain, which at the moment is white-tacked. Possibly add some pictures, then just make and collect more toys. I also have twin boys who will live in this room when I have made clothes for them. Perhaps I will have a nanny.

The last time I showed the servant room was four months ago when I built the upper stairs. It involved inserting a door (grrrr!), but now all mouldings are in place.

 

This room is more or less finished, but I can of course add pictures, rugs, objects, maybe another servant asleep in bed (I removed the doll to take the picture because she obscured the details in the background).

The last time I showed the guest bedroom was six months ago, when I was still wallpapering the attic rooms. This is what it looks like now.

 

I made a new floor for this room. Well, not exactly new: I finished the floor that I tried and discarded for the grand entrance hall. Since the floors in the two other attic rooms are made from adhesive shelf-lining, a hardwood floor in the guest room looked too conspicuous, while the two other shelf-lining floors I had were too bright. This floor looks good in this room, and it is sufficiently far away from the entrance hall hardwood floor inspired by it. Only a very keen eye will spot the similarity.

There is some work remaining to be done in this room. For instance, the mantelpiece doesn't look right with the skirting, so I will need either to build a chimey breast or remove skirting and make it in two pieces on both sides of the mantelpiece. I also need to think about curtains.

The work remaining for the whole attic is paint skirting edges, likely grey to match the sloping edges. I am also considering adding dark roof beams - fake, again, made of full-size wallpaper - but they may be too distracting.

I have not decided whether I will have display lights in the attic or just add tea lights here and there when I come to that.

At the moment I am really pleased that the attic is as complete as a dollhouse project can be.

Imaginative use of full-size wallpaper

I went to get more paint the other day and took home samples of embossed wallpaper. I have already used it for various purposes, from fireplaces to wall panels. This time I needed it to make mouldings on the inside of the fronts. I wanted paper rather than real mouldings so that the front doesn't get too heavy. And frankly, it's much easier. The right front was straightforward: just cut a strip and glue on. But you can imnediately see the difference.

 

The left front was a bit more complicated. For some reason, the large front doors came without inside surrounds. It said so on the package so it's wasn't a mistake. And you may remember that I had to massacre the front in order to get in the door, and it didn't look good after that. I thought I would make surrounds of dado rails, but again, it would make the front heavier, and... anyway, I just used the same wallpaper strip, and if you ask me, I would never notice it was fake.

 

You will have to imagine the floor that the man is just about to step on from the balcony. When the front is closed he will be stepping into the upper hall.

I haven't yet decided what I will have on the walls - probably pictures, mirrors, book shelves, sconces. And I haven't decided what kind of curtains I will have.

A side effect of my playing with embossed wallpaper was that I found exactly the kind of ornamental plastering I wanted on the outside. A tiny detail that adds a finishing touch and makes my house unique.

 

I now have to abandon the exterior for a while and go back to floors, panels, stairs and mouldings. But it feels good to have pretty fronts.

A Swedish kitchen, part 3

When I finally got round to doing some more work on this box, I decided to make wooden floor. It is made of lolly sticks and takes some patience.

Then I painted the floor with diluted white paint. 

I also added proper skirting and cornices. This was a part of my ongoing project of making proper skirting in all rooms and houses - a separate story.

After this, it felt better to start putting in things. Wallpaper and floors make a huge difference in a project.