Funkis house

A couple of weeks ago I found a very lonely dollhouse at a flea market. Alhtough it had obvioulsy been newly painted on the outside, it looked neglected on the inside. It begged to come to me and be converted into something stunning.

My husband and some of my dollhouse group friends noted that it looked like a prison.  I agree that it does, but I don't feel that prison will be a particularly cheerful project. And in fact on the inside it is not that bad, other than being squalid. The bottom floor has interesting features (although the staircase is out of scale and a bit weird). It is a homemade dollhouse and therefore unique. The rooms on the upper floor are narrow and deep. It does feel a bit crammed.

The first thing I did was of course remove the horrible carpet. You cannot use real carpets in a dollhouse, they are far too coarse. And this is what I discovered under the carpet:

 

I wish I knew something about this person. He put a lot of love and care into this house. I imagine that he made it for his granddaughter who spent many happy hours playing with it. In any case, he cared enough to sign it. 

Now I had to put on my thinking cap. I have a Tudor house, a Georgian house, a Victorian house and a modern/retro house. Tudor and Georgian houses are strictly period-correct. Victorian style is eclectic, and there are lots of details, and the owner of my retro house is a writer and artist and collects all kinds of interesting objects. So the question was what style I should choose for the new house that would allow me to try out new ideas, new techniques. Again, some people in my dollhouse group suggested funkis, functionalism. I must admit that I don't know much about this style although there are some remarkable examples of it in the two big cities where I have lived, Moscow and Stockholm. Here was an excellent opportunity to learn about something new. I spent hours on the internet browsing through images, and I now have a vague idea of what this new project will be. Watch this space.

Helen Hall, final

Helen Hall is moving to its new owner soon, and I am putting the finishing touches, such as door handles. You can buy doorhandles on ebay, but I just took some plastic beads. There are three doors, six handles, on the inside and outside.

Not much else to be done, so here are the final pictures.

 

 

And yes, of course it feels a bit sad to part with it, but I never intended to keep it, just wanted to see whether I could make something interesting with it. It's done, and I am pleased.

Helen Hall, part 4

For the previous instalments, see here.

The final room that needed redecoration was the attic, and I left the roof as it was, but because it is so dark I wanted something light for the floor. I had a bit of paper flooring from another project that I copied and patched together, but I don't think it matters because real floors are also made of small bits, and there are so many things in this room that you almost cannot see the floor anyway. I have moved everything from the nursery room box to the attic, and it feels just right.

Mirror frames

This is a very simple project. I always buy small cheap picture frames, and today I found some good ones at a flea market. 

These can be used both for pictures and mirrors, and I needed some mirrrors for my Georgian house. I use tin foil for mirrors, and for a period house it's just as well that they are darkish.

My usual problem with heavy frames is that you cannot fix them with blue tack or sticky dots. But these frames had fixture for standing which I used to attach a piece of wire. 

This is what it looks like in the interior:

.

Window boxes

Helen Hall has window boxes so of course I must have flowers. The flowers that come with the house (I got a set as a bonus when I bought some spares) are hideous.

I learned how to make roses when I made the market stall, so I made some from fimo, the kind of clay you have to bake afterwards. I don't work a lot with fimo so I don't know how to mix it to get the right colour. Most of my roses turned out dark, except when I took plain orange. I used garden wire for stems. When they were baked, I took small plastic beads for flower pots and fixed them with sticky dots.

A whole evening of flower-making, and they were just enough for three windows! But I may want to try some other flowers for the rest.

Bay trees

A very small project: I made two bay trees. The dollhouse books recommend to use green powder (the kind used for model railways), but I didn't have any, so I frayed and cut a bit of green fabric. Then I rolled a green wooden bead covered with glue in the cuttings.

 I think they look nice.

Helen Hall, part 3

For the previous instalment, see here.

I didn't take any step-by-step pictures of the first-floor decoration because it was pretty straighforward. I had practiced on the ground floor so I could avoid some mistakes. I knew, for instance, that I had to paint skirtings and cornices before I put in wallpaper (obvious, isn't it?). I started with the study, which has a door onto the balcony.

The flooring is complicated since there is a stairwell, and everything needs to be in place on the ground floor before I can do anything here.

Then I did the bedroom, which has four windows and a door onto the terrace. The blue curtains would be better here, but there are two sets of blue and four of pink. I may eventually make complete new curtains, but for the time beings this is it. The floor is for once a sheet from a shop.

Here are the two rooms together:


Then I put on the ceiling - tentatively, since there is more work to do before it can be fixed. But it gives a better sence of space.

And both floors, with some furniture: