Tudor restoration

After a long break in house restoration I felt I should turn my attention to my other houses since Womble Hall is more or less presentable. The Tudor house hasn't suffered as much as Womble Hall, and the worst damage was totally my own fault. After I had unpacked the house, I left it unattended overnight, and it was attacked by wild beasts who managed to pull it down from the table onto the floor, during which the roof went off.

I feel strong affection for the Tudor house, because it was found in a dump, and I restored it and added a lot of details both inside and outside. I did extensive research on various period-correct features, and although I would never say that a project is finished, the Tudor house was as complete as it can be. It was even featured in a dollhouse magazine.

Just as with Womble Hall, this is an excellent occasion to revise and improve some things. It has been eight years since I did the main work on the Tudor, and I haven't done much on it once it was sort of done. There are many things I would do differently and probably better today, and there are things that simply need repair.

The first thing was to mend the roof, and fortunately all shingles were somewhere inside the house, and I had spares from when I first made the roof. So it was first a matter of gluing loose shingles back and then fixing the roof on the house.

Before going on with interior details I decided to do something I had been planning all along but never got round to. The house clearly used to have a front that could be closed and opened. Right now it is more important than ever because it needs to be protected from wild beasts, but hopefully also keep off at least some dust. 

I cut the front from a large piece of board which I otherwise use for bookbinding, another hobby I have. It has an irregular shape because the three stories of the house go over each other, as they did in Tudor times to diminish land tax. The board is very thick, and cutting it is always a pain. 

I could not mix an exact match of the yellow paint, but I don't think it matters. Then I made timber frames both on the outside and the inside. 

I used cardboard boxes for "timber" - I am a recycler. 

There were hinges left from when the house had a front, but because my front was made of board rather than wood I could not use the metal hinges. Instead, I made hinges from pieces of leather. The hook that kept the front in place was still there, and I had an eyelet. 

I must admit that I had not noticed the hook before. 

Now I can close and open the house which is both convenient and neat. 

Next, I had to mend the interior. 

At some point, I installed display lights in this house. They weren't working, and I decided to remove them altogether. I wasn't quite happy with them even when they did work, and nowadays there are better technologies in case I want display lights again. 

I started with solar - the upper floor with the great bed.

It was in a better shape than I had feared, but the bed itself was broken. It was, however, easy to mend, and I also added side curtains. 

The solar was thus finished. I didn't add or change anything for the time being.

 

With the great hall and the kitchen I wanted a few more radical changes.

In the past weeks I have been making food from polymer clay. I have already shown my bakery and my greengrocer stall. I borrowed some bread and some veggies to go into the Tudor house. Tudors ate lots of bread, in all social groups. They were not too keen on vegetables, and at that time what was available was mostly cabbage and onions. 

But they were all the more fond of meats. I had meats in my old Tudor kitchen, but as I develop better skills in clay sculpting, I started replacing old meats, mostly made in air-drying clay, with more elaborate ones in fimo. I have used several books for instructions.

I started with ham, steak and leg of mutton, then made a variety of sausages.

 

These hang in front of the inglenook in the kitchen. I have removed objects from the middle and front for better view. 

Yes, there is a pig roasting in the fire!

I made pies and cheeses. 

 

I know the Tudors made cheddar. Not sure about stilton, but it's visually gratifying so it will have to be inauthentic.

Then I had a great test of confidence. The mandatory piece on a Tudor fest table is a boar head. If you told me even a month ago that I would be bold enough to make a boar head from polymer clay I'd say, no way. But I considered it for a while and thought: What do I have to lose? If I fail, I will just knead the clay into a ball and make something else. Again, I followed instructions from a book, telling myself that the artist is after all a human being, working with the same materials and tools as I, so why wouldn't I be able to make it? Judge for yourself. 

 

With these new additions, the great hall has become much more impressive. 

The chicken is the only thing I haven't made myself, but after boar head I am sure I can make anything. 

The full view of great hall: 

 

What I suddenly became aware of, which I believe is the result of my recent evolution as a miniature-maker, is that the furniture looks improbably new. Which of course it is. When I made it, eight years ago, I had no idea how to distress furniture and also would never dare to. So this is something I will need to do next: age and distress the table and benches. Now I have the necessary tools and skills. This is the exciting thing about going back to an old project: you see how much better you have become.

In the kitchen I knew I had to make some sacrifices. I have lots of lovely antique pewter stuff and lots of things I made to look like pewter, some even before I had the Tudor house. For many years I just kept squeezing everything into the house, and in the end you cannot see anything properly. So I deselected almost half of the objects that used to be in the kitchen, on various criteria: size, authenticity and also how they fit in with everything else.

I re-assembled the trestle table and arranged the remaining items on and around it. 

I will stop here for a while. A project is never finished, but at least I won't be ashamed to show this house to a visitor. 

Tudor bathtub

Among many small details I have wanted and never got round to in my Tudor house is a bathtub. The excellent book by Brian Long explains how to make an authentic-looking bathtub, but for some reason it just hasn't happened.

Yesterday I had another successful round of charity shops. (They are all in the area where I have my hairdresser and my dentist). This is what I found:

Not sure yet what I will do with the metal things, most probably candlesticks. The glass jar will join other jars in the larder. The handbag I will give to my friend the happy shoe shop owner. Every now and then I give her something to add to the shop.

But can you see what the napkin rings will be?

I think they look very, very authentic.

But do I really need two bathtubs in the Tudor house?

One can go into Victorian kitchen. Among many other things.

In any case, two very nice objects that took me about five minutes to make.

Tudor illumination, continued

As planned, I went on to make display lights in the Tudor house. Once again, the purpose of display lights is to illuminate the scene, regardless of what kind of lights would be used in the period you are re-creating. You can add what filmmakers call realistic lights, including fake lamps and chandeliers, or electric lights, but display lights allow the viewer to see details that wouldn't be visible in "authentic" light. For instance, if you have been to Museum of Childhood in London, where they have a huge collection of dollhouses, some have realistic lights, some don't, but all have display lights.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I had some issues with battery holders because they are hard to hide. In the solar, I did as I had planned: made a slit in the roof and led the battery into the attic. At the moment it is just there, but I will disguise it as a chest.



The LED strip is attached behind the front beam, and although it looks far too bright in the picture, it is a soft and even light, and you can see well into the room.

For the great hall, on the middle floor, I had several options. I could lead the battery outside and attach it to the wall, disguising it as something. I would have to make a slit in a cross-beam. I didn't much fancy it. I considered hiding the battery behind the stairs of the room above. It would fit, but I have tried several ideas about how to attach it, and it didn't work. So finally - or perhaps temporarily until I find a better solution - I simply hid it behind a beam, which I initially didn't want to do because it would be too conspicuous. However - can you see it?


Of course you cannot see it because I have cropped the picture. If you look very carefully, you can see a bit of it under the second beam, on the left. Believe me, it's not bad at all. (I may change my mind tomorrow).

I did  the same in the kitchen, and because it's below eye-level, you cannot see it at all, unless you look from below, and why would you?



Now you can see all the details at the back of the kitchen: the inglenook, the utensils, the hanging meats; and it doesn't matter that there were no LED lights in the Tudor era because there are no realistic lights (except candles and oil lamps), only display lights.

If you are curious about how furniture and other objects are made, search my blog with the tag "Tudor". 

Tudor illumination

This weekend I have traveled three hundred years back in time from my Victorian house to my Tudor house. If you want to see my Tudor house you will need to travel four years back in time of my blog, to the post when I last did some major work on it, and move backwards, to the day my husband brought home the shell he found at a recycling station. In between, you can read about how I decorated the house, added timber, made an inglenook and many other details. I have done some more work on the house since then, mostly adding objects I found at flea markets; but largely the Tudor house has been neglected, obscured by its more splendid Victorian neighbour.

The reason I went back to Tudor is that I want to install display lights. A dilemma with period houses is that you cannot have electricity in older houses, but you may still want some lights to show the details inside. The Tudor house is deep, and you cannot see very well even by daylight. I am with Brian Long, the author of The Authentic Tudor and Stuart Dolls' House, who says that even though there would of course be no electricity in a Tudor house it is still legitimate to have display lights. And in a Tudor house it is easy to hide display lights behind beams.

So I thought.

I bought 10cm LED strips with batteries and planned to attach the strips behind beams and hide the battery holders somewhere. The somewhere proved to be problematic. The holders are larger than you think, and they are very conspicuous in a miniature environment. I have several solutions. In the solar - which is the upper floor with the great bed - I can drill a hole behind the beam and hide the battery in the attic. I can disguise it as a treasure chest. On the ground and first floors, I can let the batteries sit on the outside. It won't be tremendously decorative, but it might work. I can also hide them behind stairs, but so far I haven't figured out how to attach them. I will sleep on it and go on tomorrow.

But while I was at it, I removed all objects from the house and dusted them, and also dusted floors and stairs and inspected all things that needed attention. For instance, last time I worked on this house, I inserted window panes in the solar, but never fixed them properly. Now was the right moment.

The original shell just had openings, but I added "leaded" window panes made from bottle protection mesh (the kind you get at taxfree shops in airports) which I glued onto a piece of old plastic folder. Looking at it now, I wonder how I could ever think that it was satisfactory. But I have had so much practice since then. So now I added a window frame, properly mitred, to match the timbers.

This looks so much neater. And from the outside, it looks like this:

I also hinged the back shutter in the kitchen that I had been postponing ever since, because it was such an awkward space to work in. But now I had no excuses, so I fixed that. And I mended the front door that had been broken from start. Now it can be opened and closed properly. This is what the kitchen will be like, with light (the battery holder just outside the picture edge, to the right.

Hopefully, tomorrow I will finish all the lights and have something to show. Come back!

Fame

My Tudor dollhouse is featured in the Dolls House World magazine.

I have published twenty academic books, two novels, two picturebooks, a cookbook, a computer manual, some short stories, several translated books, a memoir, two hundred academic articles, two hundred other articles and reviews. I have been interviewed by major newspapers in Sweden, the UK and elsewhere, and by scores of less major and very obscure newspapers and magazines all over the world; by radio and TV and websites.

But I am tremendously excited about two pages in Dolls House World.

Someone from one of my dollhouse Facebook groups approached me some time ago saying that she liked the stuff I was making and would I be interested to let her write a feature.

Now again, I am used to people approaching me about Winnie-the-Pooh, or young adult dystopia, or Twilight, or strong female characters, or suitability of death in picturebooks, or translations of Alice in Wonderland into Russian, or the proper way to cook buckwheat. But I am not used to being asked about my humble hobby, least of all for a glossy magazine where famous miniaturists display their magnificent work. But I see the point of writing about ordinary people and their projects, because the majority of the magazine's readers aren't famous or brilliant.

Anyway, to be interviewed is not a problem, but taking good quality pictures is not as easy as you might imagine. Taking good pictures of dollhouse interiors is very difficult. It's ok for Facebook and even a blog, but for a magazine they should preferably be really good. Luckily, my youngest son is a film-maker and knows all about taking good pictures. I have always known that in order to get one decent shot you need to take at least fifty, and these days, with digital cameras, it is less tedious and costly than it used to be. But the biggest challenge with dollhouses is light. You need strong, but soft light, and no shadows. Two years ago I bought a light tent which has been indispensable for taking pictures of single objects. Highly recommended.

But you cannot put a whole dollhouse into a light tent. I had to create a light-tent effect and use some of the tricks professional photographers use, without professional equipment. What I eventually did was place the dollhouse facing a white wall and use several strong lamps from the sides so that the light reflected from the wall into the dollhouse. I didn't have a tripod, I and used my phone, holding it very steadily against a chair. I took about twenty pictures of each room, and I could pick a good shot in each series. Obviously, they were good enough to use in the magazine.

(I have had photos published in newspapers and magazines before. But not photos requiring special lighting).

Like all good stories, this one is not quite accurate. But only a few people will know.

Just tiny details

I have of course known long before I read Patricia King's books that small details make a huge difference, but here is a very good example. I mentioned in my previous post that I might use the fancy earring for a headboard, and what I had in mind was my Tudor great bed. One big mistake that I keep making is forgetting that things can be improved, that once I have made something it doesn't have to stay the same for ever. Actually, when I looked at the bed today it didn't look that great, although at the time I made it I was really proud of it. But it only takes two bits of a plastic fan and an earring to make an improvement.

Firescreen

This was a very small improvement, but I thought it was worth while. The firescreen from my flea market binge was nice as it was

 and yet I felt that it would be better in a darker frame, so I painted and varnished it. I think it looks more natural this way.

Here it is in its environment. I had to remove some objects in the front to have a better view.

Finding the right place

As promised, I am going to show how the riches from the flea market either find their place in the existing environments or, perhaps, inspire new projects.

To place the pewter things was easy: they merge nicely into the Tudor great hall. They are slightly too big, but I don't think it matters. The rich master of the house wants to impress his guests.

In the solar, which is the upper floor of a Tudor house, I have put the lady, the baby in the cradle and the chest.

This is the first doll I have in the Tudor house. I was planning to have one, but it didn't happen until now, and I see how the presence of a doll makes a huge difference. I guess it means that there will be more.

Tudor final touches

The only things to finish the (ongoing) story of the Tudor house is to show the present state of the three rooms. The kitchen has not changed much, but I keep adding details, utensils, decorations, and I will make more food. I also plan to add a small baking oven.

 The Great Hall has another table that I found at a flea market in Stockholm. The numerous teapots and the bowls on the manterpiece are all made from old coins. The pretty pewter things are real pewter, bought on ebay. The battle axe and helmet are from Lego. There are two stools in the front. The one on the left is made from kit, the one on the right I made myself, using chopsticks for legs. There is not much I can add to this room, except for more crests and tapestries. The crests, by the way, are of Cambridge colleges.

Some new details in the solar are the cradle, the spinning wheel (which is a pencil sharpener) with a little bench, and, hidden behind, in the left corner, "the secret chair" covered with velvet.

It is difficult to show the whole house, but this is the best I can do. I never showed the attic before, but there isn't much there yet. 

I have some plans for exterior addtions, such as chimneys and a porch, and there is a lot I can do in the rooms. The book about Tudor dollhouses has masses of interesting ideas. I will come back with new developments, but for now, this is the end of the story of my Tudor house.

Tudor exterior details

I painted the house yellow, but I also wanted to add some period details, such as pargeting. I made it with embossed wallpaper.

The windows on the ground floor have no glazing, just shutters. But in the first floor, I made latticed windows. When I visited the dollhouse shop in Royston, I bought a sheet of window lattice, but I have still not used it because it was more fun to do it myself. I used fruit net - the kind you buy oranges in. Painted it and glued onto squares of transparent file binding (again recycling rather than buying). To the right is what it looks like from inside. The suit of armour is a souvenir from the medieval castle of Framlingham.

In the upper floor, I also made lattice windows, but from a different material: a protection sleeve you get at tax-free liquor shops. And I made a bay window from a plastic bottle. You may also notice a little rosette on one of the panels: they had such purposeless decorations on Tudor houses.

You can see pargeting better in this picture.