Chair disasters

Of all miniature furniture, chairs are my least favourite. I am simply not good at chairs. I bought several sets of chairs for my early project because I didn't believe I would ever be able to make them myself. I did change the fabric.

That said, I made a very clumsy kitchen chair within the first month after I started miniature-making, when I had neither proper tools nor skills. I used lolly sticks, toothpicks and chopsticks.

Like many of my earliest pieces, this one has sentimental value, so I have kept it, and it is now in my van Hoogstraten room box.

Of course I made champagne chairs at one point. 

I was quite pleased with my cabriole leg chairs, and perhaps because they somehow turned out well I thought it would always go well. Hubris. From there, it went downward all the way. The lyre-back chairs were a pain and didn't look nice. I have problems with tucking in and gluing fabric, it just never looks neat. I showed two more chairs in a recent post that I am totally unhappy with. I will work further on them soon.

Meanwhile, I wanted to make a slightly unusual chair, a slat back chair.

 

My miniature friends had warned me that it was tricky, and it isn't that I hadn't listened, but it felt it was time to tackle this kit.

 

It looked very straightforward. I used antique pine stain, and when it was dry, I enlarged the holes just a tiny bit with a pin vise and sanded the square pegs of the slats to make them round. Yes, you got it right, square pegs in round holes. Precision work.

 

The frame was relatively easy to assemble, although there were three different spreaders, with half a millimetre difference, I am still not sure I did it correctly. The layout sheet wasn't too helpful when the scale is so small. The spreaders did come off all the time, but it was just a matter of letting the glue set a little on one side before inserting the other, so I must admit that some bad language went through my mind if not my mouth.

The supplied cord was very white and new, so I dyed it with tea. My miniature group supported me whole-heartedly. I left the frame to dry overnight, anticipating tons of problems the next day.

But not THAT many problems.

To begin with, the cord was very, very long, and you cannot work with such a long thread as it will get tangled all the time. I cut a manageable length and started threading it according to instructions, praising myself for my patience. When I ran out of cord, I tied a neat knot on the bottom side that wouldn't be visible. Several times I had to go back, taking off the needle, upon which the cord kept untwining. But I persisted.

 

Yet deep inside I knew it was too good to be true. And it was.

My whole attention was on the cord, and I didn't notice when a spreader came off. I was almost finished, although I saw that something wasn't quite right with the pattern. I had very carefully sewn one of the spreaders inside the seat. As I tried to glue it back, several other spreaders came off.

 

Now what? It took me a couple of hours to get that far. I could try to mend the frame without ripping the seat - in the picture you see that I caught it with another thread. Or I could rip up the seat, re-glue the frame and start all over again. Usually, when things go epically wrong with a project, I put it aside for a while. I did something else that day and looked again the day after. I am sorry to admit that I gave up. The frame was pretty, and I knew that I would hate this chair unless I could think of another, easier way to finish it. I cut up the failed seat ruthlessly and threw it away, which is very unlike me. Luckily, I remembered that I has a piece of embroidery canvas that I had bought many years ago in a hobby shop and never used. I tested with a paper template and then made the seat, tucking flaps beneath. 

 

Isn't it lovely? I wish I had more of this kit. 

Chippendale miniatures, update

I have made quite a few new Chippendale pieces since last year, testing various finishes and even making some bold decisions. I will not show all of these projects step by step, unless there is something special to comment on.

This bookcase was almost as difficult as the breakfront, with a lot of precision work, inserting hinges, making the doors symmetrical - in this scale, the tiniest fault is fatal. I don't have space for this beautiful piece anywhere in my large house, unless I sacrifice the old bookcase in the rear corridor of the smoking room, which I don't want to do for two reasons: it's pretty, and I like it; and it also has space for more books. Since I have made 60+ real miniature books now, I need a large bookcase. So this one just sits on a shelf until I find use for it or perhaps build a room box around it. I used dark oak stain for it, several coats.

Another magnificent piece is the broken bonnet highboy.

It looks more complicated than it actually was; it was mostly a matter of making these endless drawers that, unexpectedly after many projects involving drawers, all fitted nicely. I used mahogany stain. Sadly, in moving between rooms it lost its finials, and these are very hard to replace. This piece is now in the Pride and Prejudice room box. I have a similar kit, flat top highboy, but at the moment I don't know where to put it, so it will have to wait. Another new piece you can see in the Pride and Prejudice box is a tall case clock. It was relatively easy to make because it is similar to another clock I had made before.

I made several tables, using different finishes, for instance:

Tavern table. Easy to make. I used antique pine stain for it. It went nicely into best kitchen which I will show in due time.

Connecticut tavern table. Interestingly, I used exactly the same stain, and it turned out completely different. So this table is in the working kitchen, which you will also see soon on the continued tour of Womble Hall.

 

Trestle stand, painted with white wash, to match the cabinet in the best kitchen. It was very straightforward, and a lovely piece.

Duncan Phyfe library table was a bit more complicated, but no major problems. The stain is dark oak, and this piece is also in the Pride and Prejudice room box. The room also features a fireplace and mirror. I think I will write a separate post about the fireplace, but the mirror was a lot of work, but no trouble, and no parts were broken, as with the other mirror.

I also made a very complicated dining table with an extra central leaf and an intricate mechanism to insert it. It was by far one of the most difficult kits ever. I always have issues with tripod tables because I can never get those 120 degrees right, and the legs tend to fall off. So I got the difficult bit done and then spent ages on the legs. Right now they are off again, but there is no space for this table anywhere in Womble Hall so I will have to make an environment for it. Perhaps together with the bookcase above. And I'll need some chairs.

Speaking of chairs, I didn't do very well with some of those, and I am going to improve them one day. Chairs are not my forte. I can never tuck in the fabric neatly. But I need more chairs, and I have several kits waiting.

Someone in my miniature group showed a picture of a chess table, and I thought I could make one. I printed out a chess board, resizing it several times to fit, and then decoupaged it on the table top. I had never worked with decoupage before, and I am not sure I got it quite right, but I like it, and it's certainly unusual. It joins an array of occasional tables in the music room.

I made a double settee to replace the one I had before, bought from an online shop.  You can buy a lot of furniture that claims to be Chippendale, but you can tell the difference.

I made a hooded cradle that I am really pleased with. It would fit best in my Tudor house, but I have one already so I am not sure what I might do with another. I have a swinging cradle in the master bedroom.

Last but not least I have re-upholstered the Queen Anne settee that I was dissatisfied with because I didn't have suitable fabric. I bought some fabric at the Kensington dollhouse fair, and now I am really pleased. Just shows that you cannot compromise. As you know, I am recycler and prefer not to buy anything, but in this case I have to admit that the difference is striking. I have tried to use one of my husband's ties before, but it didn't work. This is perfect. I will never be stingy again.

Yet I am particularly proud of two pieces where I allowed myself to be bold. There kits are so delicate and I have had such respect for them, to begin with just staining them with mahogany, while now I am experimenting with various stains and paints. But it does take some courage - and probably imagination - to step outside the predictable. I wanted to make a particular kind of chest, and I was going to make it from scratch, but then I saw a kit, and it was a duplicate, so I felt better using it for something different. Please judge for yourself:

Finally, I took another duplicate kit to make another attempt with Adam top, and I have already shown it, but will show again:

I will write a special post on Adam furniture explaining how I made them and why, but at the moment I just wanted to show off.

I hope you enjoyed this quick walk through my most recent projects.  I enjoy making them, and I still have quite a stash. Come back soon.

Dower chest

This is once again a project that I did with my miniature group. It was fun to make together, and there are always some small bits of advice you can share.

 

I will not show all the sixteen steps I shared with my group since they were mostly technical, but this was an interesting kit, not like any other I had made before.

I used the light teak stain that I had used on some other recent miniatures, and I stained all parts first. The front, back and sides then had trimming to be glued on, preferably aligned.

 

Assembling the chest itself was easy, and assembling the frame proved easier than I had anticipated.

 

Then I had to glue the chest onto the frame, and the frame had to go into the notches in the corners of the chest. I hadn't done anything like this before.

 

Up to this, it was smooth, and even though the drawer didn't fit and I had to sand it down, it all went well.

But then I had to make and hinge the lid, and for this I had recently bought a wonderful new tool:

 

Another tool I didn't know I needed badly. It is called pin vise, and it can drill the tiniest holes imaginable. Why didn't anyone introduce me to this marvel nine years ago!

With it, it was easy to drill holes for the hinge pins, and while I did make several mistakes, in the end it all went fine.

The final result was stunning, I think.

 

Then something went terribly wrong. When I varnished the chest it all went gray. Can varnish have a use-before-date? Or maybe I hadn't cleaned the brush properly. It took me hours to polish the gray away, and after that I took no further risks, so it is still unvarnished. 

I haven't yet decided where I will put it, because the house is getting crammed. So far I have put it into lower entrance. 

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.

Dower chest

I was looking forward to making this kit, and this weekend our group made it together. I wanted it to go into the guest bedroom where the bed, the chest of drawers, the night stand stand and the mirror have red mahogany finish so I used it again. About ten coats before I was satisfied. But I wanted the inside of the chest to be dark green, so it took some time to figure out which would be inside and which outside. I made one mistake and had to paint over the green with a dark brown paint and then stain on top of that. As it turned out, it was unnecessary because this bit was later covered with moulding.

I will not show step-by-step pictures, but just as with the cellarette I didn't trust myself with hinges and used ribbon to hold the lid.

 

I like the piece, and it fits nicely in the guest bedroom. I will have to fill it with bed linen.