Mosaic table

I have recently invested in another huge bundle of Chippendale/House of Miniatures kits, 35 pieces all in all. I still had some from previous purchases, but it was a good deal, and who knows how much longer these kits are available since they were discontinued since 1980s. I wonder how many of each kit was produced and how many can still be in circulation. It is expensive to get them over from the USA, but it's the only way, and if you split shipping costs by the number of kits, it's tolerable. I have only bought kits I know I want to make again - I am never again in my life making the breakfront or wardrobe. Or maybe I will some time in the future. What I am saying is that, once I have made all existing kits and have now started on duplicates, I want to experiment with different finishes and decorations, and I will also be bold.

While I was waiting for my parcels from the US, I kept thinking of possible variations of kits I had made before, like I have already done with Adam furniture. One idea I had was to make a table with mosaic tabletop, and the best kit for this was doubtless Queen Anne tea table. When I first made it, I failed spectacularly with mouldings, so this time I was very careful. I am worthless at mitring mouldings, even after all these years.

I will not show the project step by step, because it was exactly like the previous one (except that I did somewhat better with moulding). I used three coats of stain: brown mahogany, red mahogany and more brown mahogany until I was happy with the tone.

Before I glued on the legs, I made the mosaic tabletop. I learned to make egg-shell mosaic some years ago,  and I also made a tabletop then, although it doesn't feel as perfect as I thought then. But the technique is the same, and I again used two paints, gold and bronze. They are only slightly different, but the two shades create a nice effect.

 

Yes, I glued every single bit separately, no cheating. Tweezers and toothpicks and patience. I didn't clock the work, but estimate two to two and a half hours. I certainly feel it was worth the trouble. It's definitely OOAK, and while it probably is not good enough for Kensington Dollhouse Festival, I am really proud of it.

Adam furniture

Before I continue my tour of Womble Hall I will show how I made a couple of unusual miniatures and explain why.

In my report from Kensington dollhouse festival, I mentioned that I saw some magnificent tables with Robert Adam tops. I have used Adam wrapping paper for ceilings - if you haven't seen them look here. I have plenty of paper left, and I thought that it could possibly be used for table tops as well (although they were originally ceiling designs, never implemented).

Although I have now been experimenting with House of Miniatures kits for a while, I still felt reluctant to use a kit without having tried out first. It isn't a rare kit, and I had a duplicate, and yet I thought I would run a test. First, I found a pattern, semicircle, in more or less the right scale. It didn't quite fit, but it didn't matter for my specific purpose. For furniture I have made from scratch, I have used various kinds of wood: pieces of wooden venetian blinds (pretty, but hard to cut), balsa (easy to cut, but crumbly) and cheese boxes. Obviously, a cheesebox lid already has the suitable semicircular shape, so that was helpful, although it was slightly bigger than the HoM kit. I worked with the top first, sanding it smooth, painting gold and then gluing the paper semicircle onto the top and trimming carefully. I needed to seal the edge so that the seam between the wood and paper would be next to invisible, and the only way I could think of was decoupage - I am sure there are other and probably better ways. What I did was varnish the edges and then sand them, repeating a couple of times until the edge was smooth. You could still see the white edge of the paper, so I painted it over, very carefully. The paper is glossy so it did not need any further varnish.

Now the top was ready, and I started thinking about the base. Once upon a time I would probably just glue on the legs that would keep going off, to my irritation. But I had the HoM instruction sheet, and what I needed was a semicircle about half a centimetre thick, and this is not the kind of material I have easily available. I have no tool that can cut circles (wish list for next Christmas?), and when I tried to cut a trapeze it didn't look neat. Usually when I get into a dead end with a project, I put it aside and do something else. I was rummaging my stashes for something completely different when I saw a wooden circle that was a part of a kit to make a piglet. I hadn't bought it to make a piglet, but for all the parts and fabrics included (it was in a charity shop, for 30p). So I cut the circle in two, and then everything was straightforward. I used chopsticks for legs and managed to cut exactly the same length so the table was, to my amazement, absolutely steady.

Seeing that it worked as I had thought, I could now with confidence replicate the miniature with the Chippendale kit. I have promised some miniature friends to post a detailed description, so I took step by step pictures - feel free to skip them if you only want to see the result. 

This is the paper I used; as you see, I had just scraps of it. But then I only needed a semicircle.

Once again, I started by painting the parts with gold. Then I glued the paper onto the top, leaving a margin that I then trimmed carefully.

Then I sealed the edge with varnish.

When the varnish had dried, I sanded the edge. The white paper edge was clearly visible so I painted it very carefully. 

The tool I am using is called "a third hand". If you haven't got it, give yourself a belated Christmas gift. 

The rest was easy: first glue on the base and let it dry under press. The instruction said clamp, but I was anxious not to damage the paper so I just put a heavy box on top. Then glue on the legs. It is probably the easiest kit of all.

Here is the result. 

And here are both tables, for comparison.

Since the handmade table is slightly larger, it is really a semicircle that looks more natural in the middle, but there is not much I can do about it. I cannot put them together to make a round table, which would be fun. But there are two lessons learned. First, I need not be scared to do something radical with the kits. Second, I can make a nice miniature from scratch, particularly if I have a pattern. It means I can try more.

Meanwhile, I got so bold that I decided to try a more sophisticated kit. Again, I only used it because I had a duplicate, and the bold part was making the table top. This is the paper I used.

 

Obviously, I wanted the medallion in the centre, and the pattern is large so I could only use a bit of it. When it was done I of course saw that it wasn't very well centred, but it was too late.

The challenge was to mix a paint that would match as closely as possible. I am not good at mixing paint, and it is difficult to match perfectly, but close enough.

 

I am not showing step by step assembly, because I have made this or a very similar kit before. I also had trouble matching paint then.

To make it look more natural, I have "aged" it. And of course I have put some stuff in drawers.

I have no space for any of these pieces in Womble Hall, short of replacing something else, so at the moment I don't know what to do with them. Maybe I will make a special room box. Or maybe I can simply display them as they are. (Although they always look better in a proper environment). 

Reflections from a dollhouse festival

I have lived in the UK for ten years, and I remember very well when, ten years ago, I told myself that I would now be able to go to the Kensington Dollhouse Festival. It's just an hour by train from Cambridge. But for some reason or other it never happened – until last weekend. And it only happened because I already was in London and had some spare time.

I had consulted my miniature friends on Facebook, asking for advice on how to make the most of it. The advice I received was: Go early and bring plenty of money. On the former, I had not much choice because I had something else in the morning; on the latter I asked whether credit cards were accepted, and they were. So against the advice, I arrived at Kensington Town Hall about 3pm.

I had no expectations. I had seen pictures from previous events in dollhouse magazines and on the web, but things are different in real world. I knew it was on three levels and there were hundreds of stands. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do at a dollhouse festival. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to buy anything or just look. I am easy to tempt, so I decided that I would only buy something if I fell in love with it at first glance.

I spent two hours browsing. I went around two or three times, returning to stands where I had noticed something interesting.

It was a lot like being at a book fair.

Here are my reflections as a novice dollhouse festival attendee.

Firstly, it's amazing. So many stunning, fantastic things. Most of them unique, one of a kind. Handmade. It means that mortal humans have actually made them. They have probably been doing it for decades, and they obviously have appropriate tools. And today's tools are helpful. Precision laser cutters, 3D printers. You still need your skills, and it takes years of practice, but all these wonderful things were made by passionate, imaginative, creative people. I don't have time to develop the necessary skills, so I will never be nearly as good, but I can try. In a year and a half I will be free. I will get myself a laser cutter and a 3D printer. I will make miniatures full-time and try to be as good as I can. So it was highly inspirational.

It was interesting to see the prices. I have seen fancy prices on Etsy, and since I know how much time and effort it takes to make a miniature, irrespective of the result, I am not surprised. But I do wonder what kind of people buy tremendously expensive things at a fair. Maybe you need to see them in real life, touch, feel. I did fall in love with a marquetry cabinet, but I am not yet prepared to invest half of my monthly salary in a trinket. On the other hand, why not? It's like buying expensive jewellery or art.

There were lots of things that were lovely, and I told myself: some day I will make these. Again, with some practice and with better tools. And some things I will never be able to make, like ironwork.

Miniature food was prominent; it's fun to make, and given some practice I will get good at it.

There were many 1:24 and 1:48 scale things, but I have never been particularly interested in them. There were no 1:18 scale things! It must be almost exclusively Swedish. 

There was a lot of kitch too.

There were tons of supplies: fabrics, wallpaper – tempting, but I am a recycler. I believe this is my foremost lesson from this visit: I am a recycler, and I am interested in making miniatures from rubbish rather than from expensive supplies. (I did, however, buy a piece of fabric to re-upholster a sofa I am not happy with). But it is good to know that if I need something special, it's available. 

Anyway, next time I go - which I think I will - I'll know what it is like and what to look for 

I had told myself that I wanted to buy at least one thing (fabric doesn't count). So when I saw this one thing I made up my mind quickly. Actually, I asked the seller to keep it for me for ten minutes because I needed to sit down and breathe for a while. I know it's silly to go to an artisan fair and buy an antique, but it just so happened. I am not telling you how much I paid. It's Christmas soon.

 

I didn't think it was appropriate to take pictures, although some people did. But I made lots of mental notes. One thing in particular caught my attention: Adam tables. They were either House of Miniature kits or very similar: lovely half-moon side tables with Adam pattern on tops. I don't know how that seller made the tops, but I immediately thought that I had some Adam paper left from my ceilings, and I also had a duplicate HoM kit that I could experiment with. Back home, though, I didn't want to use the kit before I knew that my idea would work. I used a cheese box for the top. The trick was to sand the edges so that wood and paper were seamless. I used decoupage technique, varnishing and sanding, then painted the edge with gold. It took me a long time to figure out how to make the base because I didn't have a suitable round piece of wood, but finally I found one when I was looking for something else. I used chopsticks for legs and even managed to cut them equally long which has always been my problem. 

 

Of course it is not good enough to be displayed at Kensington Dollhouse Festival, but I am really pleased. 

Chair table

When I share my blog posts on Facebook, once upon a time I could choose the image I wanted to be visible as a link, but now FB just picks the first image in the post, and it is not necessarily the most interesting or relevant. Therefore I begin with a image of the finished piece and then tell you how I made it.

 

This is a chair table, and as I now know, is also called hutch table. They were popular because they could be folded away to save space when not in use, but, I guess, easier to set when needed than earlier trestle tables with fully removable boards.

This is a difficult piece, with several aspects I hadn't done before so I was a bit intimidated, but I was making it together with a friend, somewhere over the ocean, but in real time.

The layout sheet was, as usual, helpful, for instance, to identify drawers, but this model has a drawer and a drawer case that is glued below the seat.

 

I used antique pine stain, but very light because I wanted this piece to match the furniture in my "best kitchen".

The instructions were good, at least for the first stage, but when I assembled the chair frame it was wobbly and not quite square.

I needed advice from more experiences people, and meanwhile I made the drawer and drawer case, which was straightforward, except of course the drawer did not fit. It was too deep. My friend had the same difficulty so it wasn't just me making a mistake.

Then I glued together the three bits of the table top. You would imagine that it was easy to cut a whole table top in miniature scale, but these kits are very particular about authenticity. In full scale, there wasn't a piece of timber large enough to make a table top. (I remember discovering this when I made a Tudor table).

I had sanded the surfaces nice and smooth. The grain came out pretty.

Then my miniature friend shared her experience of making the chair frame. The secret was, as I had suspected, to enlarge the pre-drilled holes. In addition, I used the seat - also made from two pieces - and the arms to align and square the whole assembly.

This was the end of day 1, and I left the assembly to dry overnight.

Next morning I glued on the drawer case, after having sanded away the back of the drawer to fit. As I always do, I attached the knob before gluing on the front. In this kit, the drawer front is twice the size of the drawer edges because it covers the drawer case as well. This is a very clever design!

The table top brackets had to be adjusted to the chair. It took me some time to figure out, and the brackets were longer than required and had to be sanded away. In fact, I bit off two centimeters with scissors and then sanded.

 

The next set of instructions was scary because it involved drilling holes in the frame. I don't understand why they couldn't have pre-drilled them as every other hole, but I guess there is a reason. The instruction was confusing, and I learned a new word, shim. You had to use shims to lift the frame a bit from the top. I am afraid I didn't do it quite right. And I didn't have the right tool to drill those holes (I have just ordered one, but it won't arrive until next week). So I had to use what was at hand.

It wasn't the most efficient way, but I did it, and the hinges fit into the holes, and the table really matched the environment in my best kitchen.

Here I just put in in front of the room, for display. But it will most probably be placed against a wall, folded.

I will have to re-organise some things in the kitchen, but this happens also in the 1:1 world when a new piece of furniture is added.

I am very pleased with this project. It was a challenge, because there was so much new and some tricky things. But I feel I getting more and more confident with these miniatures.

Tilt-top table

This was a quick project that literally took no more than a couple of hours. Tilt-top tables were popular as occasional tables because they could be folded when not in use, taking less space.

The only difference in technique between this one and the various candle stands I have made is that there is a tiny mechanism for tilting. It was easy to make.

I used a new stain for this piece, antique pine, and I applied at least ten coats before I was satisfied. I used gold paint on the edge, just for variation. At the moment, the table is in the drawing room. You cannot have too many tables in a Victorian drawing room.

Queen Anne serving table

While I was in the table mood, I also made another Queen Anne piece, a serving table with a marble top. The same kind of marble top as on the corner table. According to description, the marble top was for placing hot pots and pans without damaging the wooden surface.

 

This is a very interesting kit because it has a completely different design from other tables. In addition to the round table and the corner table, I have also made the three piece table, a side table, a serving table, and a tea table. But this kit was very special. Here are the parts:

 

This is my usual brown mahogany stain, but there is very little left, and probably I hadn't shaken the jar properly, because it looks darker. More like dark oak. Which is also pretty.

The instruction was very good and easy to follow:

 

The trick was to square the assembly very, very carefully and let it dry properly. The rest was easy:

 

But as you see, the construction is different, because the marble top has to be glued directly to the frame. Prior to that, the frame had to be varnished.

 

I think it's a beautiful piece. I think I am better at tables than sofas.

I placed it in the front of the dining room, which meant that I moved the lovely side table to the back. I guess I will be moving furniture around again and again.

Queen Anne table

This weekend my group is making tables. There are three very elegant Queen Anne tables in the collection, and I have already made one.

This one was different, although after I had made it, I realised that it is very hard to judge from the cover picture just what the finished piece would be, size-wise. For instance, it is only after I had made it that I realised that the bachelor's chest was smaller than other chests.

 

You cannot tell from the picture that this table is higher than the tea table. Or maybe you can. Maybe I don't look carefully.

Anyway, after I had conscientiously sanded and stained the kit I suddenly felt that I had enough of mahogany tables, but could perhaps make something different. There isn't much room left in the house for more occasional tables, but what if I made a dressing table for the bathroom? The description says that these tables were sometimes used as dressing tables. A bathroom piece also allowed a shabby look.

I painted the bits on top of stain, and as it turned out, I didn't even have to paint over and wipe, but the stain showed through the paint in a most artistic way. I did wipe away the white a bit.

 

Assembly was easy, the drawer fitted fine (unlike the latest chest I had so much trouble with), and I found interesting knobs.

 

I replaced a small table I had had in the bathroom for ever. Nothing wrong with it, but this one is much nicer.

Hepplewhite serving table

This was a very easy piece to make, but I put a lot of effort in the finish. I used fifteen coats of stain (brown mahogany) before I was quite happy, then two coats of varnish. I think it is a magnificent piece. The curves make it look delicate and elegant. The drawer can be opened.

The dining room is now so full that there is no room for another table, but for the time being I have replaced the side table you can see in this post with the cellarette. The side table can be anywhere, but the serving table doubtless belongs in the dining room.

Queen Anne tea table

My next Chippendale project was the tea table.

 

I wanted to replace the plastic Playmobile Victorian tea table that had served me well, but it was now time for something more elegant. It looked easy to make, but turned out really hard, because all moulding had to be mitred, and mitring moulding is my least favourite part of miniature-making, after painting windows.

 

There was enough moulding if you are clever and cut wisely, and that's what I didn't do. Seriously, this is something I can never get right. So I found myself with a too short piece of moulding and no way I could get replacement. What could I do? I just glued on another tiny piece, sanding it as much as I dared. I will pretend a naughty child has broken the edge and a clever cabinet-maker has mended it.

 

After three coats of varnish it looked really neat. And in its environment you might not even notice it was broken.



It is remarkable how every small improvement makes a huge difference.

This and that

I have been working hard all day, but have very little to show. That's because I have been doing small trimmings that an untrained eye wouldn't even notice. For instance, this:

I don't know about other people, but my floors never fit perfectly, because they are handmade, and handmade things aren't perfect. Some defects can be hidden behind mouldings; here, for instance, a gap is covered by skirting boards. But around the threshold it still needs to be trimmed, and I have now done it with several doors. Please say that this looks better:

 

I know it does. Bit it takes quite a lot of time, cutting, fitting, staining, gluing, sanding, varnishing. Just a tiny strip of wood. There are zillions of such tiny details all over the house, and I have now spent hours dealing with them. Also adding more mouldings where necessary, and filling and then painting tiny gaps, and painting moulding edges that I had forgotten to paint before I attached them. Boring things and really nothing to show.

As a reward, I have started making some Chippendale miniatures from my most recent bargain.  They are great fun to make, and if you haven't seen my previous pieces, I have collected them in two posts, here and here. 

I started with a bench because I had never made a bench, and it was relatively easy apart from endless sanding. I wasn't sure what kind of fabric to use because I don't know yet which room the bench will be in, but I can change it later.

Right now the bench is in the music room, and the fabric is the same as the curtain. I am going to replace all chairs in this room, and I can use the same fabric.

Then I made a side table, which was also straightforward. It goes well with the dinner table. But of course I have two problems now. There is no space for it in the dining room. And the old side table suddenly feels crude. So it is possible that the old side table will have to go. I am not particularly attached to it. I bought it cheap at Maple Street. There is nothing wrong with it, and it would look good in another room, but a Hepplewhite dining table demands a Hepplewhite side table.

 

I guess this happens in 1:1 scale too - once you've started buying period furniture everything else feels wrong.

Finally, I have started making chairs. I now have kits for seven pairs of chairs, almost all of different models. I am going to have new chairs in the dining room, to go with the table. Chairs are a challenge to make because it is precision job more than any other.

Most of my old chairs have sides cut from a single piece of plywood. In any case, they aren't as elegant as Chippendale chairs, which you can clearly see if you put them beside:

 

The chair on the left is from the very first pair I bought on ebay three weeks into my miniature hobby. I replaced the original fabric. I don't remember where the chair on the right comes from, but until today I liked it. Interestingly, the Chippendale chair is slightly smaller. 

I have two more of the same lyre-back chairs so there will be four of these around the table and two or four of a different model. The dining room will look great with a proper set of chairs. Come back soon.