Adding space

I know I am nowhere near, but suddenly I felt I would like to test the inside of the fronts. Most dollhouses with opening fronts do not have anything on the inside, possiby apart from curtains. At the very best, the fronts are wallpapered to match the rooms.

In my cabinet dollhouse, that does not exist any more, I had fake windows, semi-flat bookshelves, paintings and wall sconces on the inside.

In my retro house, I have all kinds of semi-flat stuff on the removable walls. 

When I was making my Georgian house, I read some clever books that used the inside surface of the fronts to add the sense of space and also some further decoration and ornaments. I tried it and was very happy with the results. I never really finished that house, and now I have given it away. But before that, I had mirrors, pictures and other decorations on the inside, and when you opened the fronts, it gave a sense of additional rooms.

Besides, if the fronts are closed nobody can see that you have matching wallpaper on the fourth wall.

Or it may perhaps work in a smaller house. But mine is so big that if I have matching wallpaper on the inside, it will be too much.



So here I am, with two large surfaces. I mean, very large surfaces. My task is to create an optical illusion so that when the fronts are open it looks as if there were more rooms. Up to nine more rooms.

There are several challenges. Firstly, the colour scheme on each side has to be carefully thought through. It is still more important than within the house, because the walls are not separated by a real floor, they will be only separated by a fake rail. Secondly, the colour scheme has to be compatible with the walls inside the house. Not too bright, not too contrasting.

It is easier with the right side, because it will just be three rooms. Something like this:

 

The green sheet is just to mark the colour - I will paint this section, and I will frame the panels, which by the way are genuine Japanese hand-made paper. The rails that separate floors have to be higher or lower than the floors inside the house, because otherwise the fronts will not close. But it doesn't matter. The bookshelf comes from another house and is too large so I will trim it to fit between the windows. I believe this might work: larger pattern at the bottom, small on the top, mono-colour in between, with pretty panels. And the whole scheme, pale green, goes well with the adjacent rooms.

It was more complicated on the other side. To begin with, I tried this:

 

The two papers go well together and with the reception room on the right. But then I imagined two more colours or patterns above, and then two more, and that felt far too much. It would distract attention from the main rooms. So instead I tried this:

 

The colours still go well together, but this way there will be three patterns rather than six. Let's pretend it is three very large halls. I will then paint the top floor light blue and either make another framed panel or just hang mirrors or paintings between the two sets of windows. I will add rails and cornices. I may add fake or semi-flat pillars around the doors. I may also make window sills for flowers and other ornaments.

So preliminarily, this is what it will look like:



I think it may work. I will let it stay like this for a while, and maybe I will move the papers around, and maybe it will end up completely different.

By the way, all papers come from Jennifer's Printables, which is a great site.