House restoration: bathroom, upper corridor, rear corridor.

I have now come to what I still try to view as minor repairs, although frankly it is closer to major repairs. Bathroom, upper corridor and rear corridor on the upper floor.

The bathroom is in better condition, mostly wallpaper unstuck.

The Adam ceiling was slightly damaged from start, but is worse now. I don't have enough of this paper to replace it so I will probably have to paint over the damaged patches. Or add some rust and pretend it's a leak.

The corridor is badly ruined.

Not just unstuck and torn wallpaper - more behind the stairs - but the door opening and surround are broken.

 On closer inspection, the partition has been pushed back.

I can push it forward, but it will need gluing, and this is a very awkward place to glue. This is the first time since I started restoration that I am really upset and don't know where to start. But I have to start somewhere or abandon the whole project, which is obviously not an option. So take a deep breath and get going.

The bathroom felt as a good start, so I glued back the wallpaper and floor. When I inspected the left-hand side of the rear corridor, using my head light (who would imagine that camping equipment may come handy in dollhouse construction?) I could state that it looked fine, which was a relief because I had feared the back of the house was broken.

 

In this part of the corridor, I used to have an old dressing table with a mirror: mirrors are great for various effects. Also with all kinds of trinkets on. The table is larger than 1:12, but it doesn't really matter in the rear corridor because there are no reference points. It's wrong style too, so some time I may replace it with something more appropriate, but it will have to do for now. The trinkets will have to wait until I have unpacked all small breakables.

So this part wasn't as bad as I first thought, and the bathroom is now done. I will add some details that I had planned to do before the disaster anyway, such as a genuine Victorian water cistern.

Now, moving to the corridor, I was brought back to my state of despair. I gently peeled off the wallpaper with the cornice, and the ceiling came off with it.

Reluctantly, I have to admit that I will need to make a new ceiling. Fortunately, I do have another sheet of this magnificent Adam paper. However, I feel that I need to be fresh and full of energy for this endeavour so I won't do it today. I will repair as much as possible of the other damage.

Edges are fine, but as I have said before, it is extremely difficult to work inside a narrow room, and in this room stairs are in my way. When I did the wallpaper there were no stairs yet. Behind the stairs, I just work by touch. Luckily, nobody will  even see it. And when I put in the large breakfront, nobody will ever see that the left corner is all warped.

On close inspection, the rear corridor is fine on this side as well.

I will not put in the chest of drawers in the rear corridor before I am finished with the ceiling and mouldings. I feel I have achieved a lot today and know what to do next.

As I was working on these rooms I realised that neither had ceiling lamps. I wonder what I was thinking. I am sure I had some ideas that apparently were never implemented. Now it so happened that I recently made some lamps in my miniature club, and one will definitely go well in the corridor.


To be continued.

Step by step: bathroom

Bathrooms are very interesting to make, just like kitchens, because there are many tiny details that you can add more and more of.

This is what the bathroom in Womble Hall looks like at the moment. It is on the upper floor, next to the master bedroom. There isn't a direct door from the bedroom to the bathroom, but you must go through a corridor. Maybe it's not correct, but there wasn't any other natural place for the bathroom.

 

The very first bathroom I made was in my old Victorian house in a bookshelf, which I keep referring to. I still have the bathtub, and I keep changing my mind between it and the current sugar-bowl with lion feet (you can see a glimpse of it in the picture).

In the next step, I added a washbasin and other stuff. I was a beginner then and didn't know what materials and tools to use, but I had fun. As you see, the tiles have found their way into Womble Hall after all these years.

When I moved the house into a cabinet, I kept the bathroom, but it became very small. Yet the concept is the same, and has remained so.

When I started planning Womble Hall I wasn't sure where the bathroom would go. I first thought in the attic, but it would be very uncomfortable for people in the bedroom if they had to run upstairs in the middle of the night. I also considered the large right-hand room on the upper floor, that eventually become the study.

But already on the very first picture of the shell, long before it was glued, you can see the bathroom in its current place.



I made the first attempts decorating the bathroom early in the project, precisely because I simply copied it from the previous house. Maybe it was my lack of imagination, but I really liked the old bathroom, and even though not a lot has survived, the general sense has. As I explain in that early blog post, I have seen pictures of bathrooms in people's dollhouses where they have just pasted the whole sheet of tiles on the wall, and it doesn't look natural. So here I pasted the tiny tiles one by one. Yes, it did take some time. But I am never in a hurry with my mini projects. The floor is also a commercial sheet that I bought very early in my mini-making days, today I would have made in myself. But the sheet was not large enough, so the back part of it is a photocopy. Can you tell?

In the picture below you see a door in the back wall. Behind the door is a corridor, and in the next picture you can see what I made there.

 

As with all other rooms, it took a long time before I could make any final arrangements. In this case particularly, I had to finish the rear corridor (which I will show in due time), but as soon as that was done, the basic work on the bathroom was done as well.

After that, I added some objects, and the final touch came with Adam ceilings.

Since then, I made the Chippendale dressing table and two small tables - you cannot have too many tables in a Victorian house. I may add another mirror over the dressing table, and the hooks keep falling off, as you see, I must fix them better.I also want to make a proper Victorian water cistern over the toilet. Once again, a project is never ever finished.

Adam paper

For a whole number of reasons I haven't done much on my project recently. I have done some work, but nothing worth sharing.

Earlier this week I went to London with a friend and took her to a museum I like, Soane's House. I am always looking for small things in museum shops, and this time I didn't find any small things but instead a book of Robert Adam wrapping paper.

I don't know why anyone would want to use beautiful paper for wrapping that will be torn up and thrown away within seconds. Miniature-makers save wrapping paper because it can be recycled for many purposes. I have never bought wrapping paper because I like recycling, but this time I couldn't resist. I saw at once what I could do with it. My friend knows I am crazy so she wasn't surprised.

Here are Adam designs, most of which never executed.

The booklet has only been published this year, so I hadn't missed it last time I was there. But I wish I had discovered it before I had finished my ceilings because now I will of course have to tear them down and make new ones with these papers.

If you have followed my blog you know that I made all ceilings on flat surfaces, before I assembled the house (use the tag "ceiling" to see how I made them). Now I will have to work inside rooms and upside down. But I cannot even say it's bad planning because I couldn't know that a new option would appear.

And it isn't as straightforward as you may think. Firstly, I will need to remove all coving that I have so patiently added in the past few months. I will have to tear up floors to remove ceiling lights before I can re-decorate ceilings. The papers are not necessarily scaled to my rooms. I will have to center them to fit with my ceilings. They also need to match the wallpaper - no way I am re-doing all wallpaper (although it would be gorgeous, but too late). I will probably have to sacrifice some ceilings that I am quite proud of. Anyway, this will be a lot of work that I haven't anticipated but will be very happy to perform.

I started with something seemingly easy, although it turned out to be tricky enough.

 

The bathroom had a plain white ceiling and no ceiling light. Still, I had to remove the coving, cut the paper to measure - fortunately, two squares fit precisely across - with a border to fold over the wall. Glueing it on upside down was a h-ll of a job. Some additional trimming was necessary, but I hope it doesn't show too much. For this ceiling, I could afford making mistakes because I had more than enough paper, but for other ceilings I will have to be very, very careful. Arguably, the ceiling doesn't quite match the tiles, but let's say that the house owner has an eclectic taste - just like Sir John Soane.

Bathroom

I will now go back to the beginning of the second floor and the rear corridor even though I have shown similar pictures before. The reason I think it is important to account for some projects step by step is that, if people only see the finished room, they have no idea how much work lies behind it and how much needs to be planned and considered.

I had removed everything from this space.

The only thing I had done is fix the pictures permanently because I won't be able to do this once the partition is in place. You can also see where the LED light sits. It won't be visible through the doors.

This was the time to glue in the partition, and you know what? I decided not to. It sits quite firmly in the groove, and if I for whatever reason need to remove it I will only have to tear down the mouldings and wallpaper. I do hope this never happens. Not in my lifetime anyway.

I put in the wall and placed the furniture in the rear corridor. I have added and rearranged the ornaments on the chests. I visited a stately home last weekend and noticed, once again, how crammed chests and dressers were.

Then I put in the middle partition and of course noticed that the edge needed painting. These are the small details you discover as you go, and it makes sense to paint the edge before putting in the wallpaper.

I made the bathroom tiles more than half a year ago.  This sets the whole project in perspective. Now they are finally in place.

But there are still several things to do. For instance, door posts. In the adjacent room I could do this on flat surface because the wallpaper was already done, but here I had to do it afterwards. Another argument for doing as much as possible on flat surfaces! Frankly, I don't know how you can do all decoration after assembly. But I have a bad shoulder.

That done, compare the difference.

The next step is moulding. Now, it isn't my strong side. I have never figured out how to mitre cornices, and I think I won't bother.

 

The cornices are white-tacked so far because there is yet another detail I need to decide on. I won't have skirting on the back wall because it will be hidden by a dresser.

Now some objects to get the general idea.

 

The whole project, from the first picture above to the last, including painting the mouldinds, has taken six hours.

Bathroom tiling

Today, a rainy Saturday, I have been working on the bathroom. As I mentioned earlier today, I have bought lining paper, perfect for constructing wall decoration. This is the third time I am tiling a bathroom: first in my original house, then in the cabinet house that is now being transformed into Womble Hall. I still believe that it is worth the trouble glueing tiles one by one, to create a unique pattern. These tiles are very common, but no other dollhouse bathroom looks like mine.

It takes a long time and is messy, but I like the result. I re-used the tiles; they were relatively easy to peel off, and since the new bathroom is smaller than the old one, there were more than enough.

Everything is still white-tacked, but you get the idea.

I see, for instance, that the off-white door doesn't work, it should be clear white. The floor came in a bundle from ebay, I could have easily made it myself, as I did for the retro kitchen.

There will be more details of course, and I am sure I will move things around for best display. The door opens into a rear corridor, and I need to decide what will be hidden there. Perhaps more linen cupboards?

Further half-scale development

As I mentioned in the previous post, there are three shelves on he inside of the cabinet door, and although they are shallow, they provide some additional space. I have made an attic and a bathroom.

I only made the attic because I have these Avon miniatures, and they are sweet. I have borrowed the maps from another house, but I am not sure they fit. There must be something on the wall. I will also add more objects that belong in the attic.

The bathroom appliances, possibly Mattel, came with another lot, and I have saved them until now. I will add more things here as well: towels, toiletries, maybe a shelf.

It is beginning to look really nice. Next, I will do the dining room and the kitchen.  

Funkis bathroom, part 2

My initial intention was to put in a wall with a door in the bathroom. As I was considering how best to do it I realised that I was planning to re-introduce the famous fourth wall, which makes it possible to look into the miniature world. Was I going to seal off the room, especially when I was so proud with my renovation work, including the details?

I am not quite happy with the toilet seat and will probably make a better one. The toilet paper holder comes from an ebay lot, but I have borrowed my own idea for a towel rack from a different project. It is a cooking-oil bottle cap. The rubbish bin is a paint container, and the toilet brush is a makeup brush. The shelf is recycled from another project. Anyway, I really like this room and don't want to hide it behind a wall.

This is a trial, but I have decided to have a door frame without a wall. It is bluetacked so far, not very neat.

Use your imagination and see the non-existant wall. The people of the house can use the bathroom without being disturbed. After all, I don't have fourth walls in my other bathrooms. The frame is a left-over from another project, and there is no door to come with it. I made a door to fit the frame with the same technique I used in the Georgian house.

What bothers me now is that you cannot see my pretty towel rack. And I am not sure this works. Maybe you can imagine both the wall and the door? What do you think?

By the way, for lighting I used a led spot of the same kind I used for my Dutch roombox. I just fixed it with bluetack to take pictures, but actually I think I may leave it there. It gives a nice, strong, but aoft light, filtered through baking paper. A dollhouse led light would be far too dim.

Funkis bathroom

For some reason, I started the renovation of the funkis house with the bathroom. In fact, the ground floor of the house will be a shop. The yarn shop. It will fit in perfectly. And the little space by the stairs will be a bathroom, for the customers and the shop owner. It could be a pentry or a storeroom, but I just felt it had to be a bathroom, and after all, it's my project, and I can do whatever I want.

I chose tile wallpaper from my favourite printie site, and I photocopied black-and-white chequered floor that I had used for Helen Hall that is now gone, so it's ok to use the same pattern. After Helen Hall where I could easily dismantle the walls and put in wallpaper before I assembled them again, here I had to work in awkward spaces. But I am very pleased with the result. The toilet and the washbasin are from ebay (cheap, for the toilet seat and one tap are missing), and the mirror is from a Barbie house and had been used elsewhere all this time.

Of course I must put in a wall and a door (with a sign), and of course there will be more details: a towel rack, a shelf, a potted plant. So please come back soon.

Replacements

It is with nostalgic reluctance that I replace some of the furniture I made during the very first weeks of my miniature making almost six years ago with new objects. I realise that those first attempts were clumsy, that I didn't have proper tools and materials, hadn't done enough research. But I was eager and enthusiastic, and in a way it feels a betrayal to remove something that I once made with so much love and effort.

Nevertheless I have just made another replacement in the Victorian bathroom. The old wash stand was among the very first pieces I made, and it has served well.

 However, I bought a very elegant wash stand during my recent flea market binge, and it will now go into this space. At least I can proudly say that I made the wash set (and the two small pots underneath) in my pottery class.

Plastic house makeover, part 2

I hadn't finished the exterior of the house yet, but I was eager to test what it would look like on the inside with some effort put into it. I painted the ceilings white. The first room I decorared will eventually be the bathroom. The wallpaper is a printie. I decided to have the same pattern on the walls and the floor because it a small scale it feels too much with two patterns.

I cut out the shape of the windows, cut out window frames from white card, then glued transparent film and another pair of frames on the back of the wallpaper .

This "before" picture is a reminder of how ugly it was

 
before it turned into this:
 

To be continued.

Bedroom and bathroom

The whole upper floor with the bedroom. bathroom and a hall in between, with an armchair and coffee table, so after your bath you can cool down with cofee and cake. Through the large opening in the wall, you can see the other room on the upper floor, which I will tell about next.

Modern bathroom

I built the bathroom on th same floor as the bedroom, with a little hall in between. It took me a long time to decide how to make the bathroom walls because solid walls would make the whole floor too heavy and crammed. Finally I used a CD box, which became quite an interesting solution.

Just as I started on the bathroom I found this marble bathtub in a thrift shop. The wash stand is a makeup box glued onto a plastic tube. On the right you can see that I have started tiling the floor, the tiles cut from a fancy shopping bag.

 

The tiling is similar on the floor and the wall. I made the shower from two spice-jar lids (the lid for peppar has small holes in it, just right), and the taps are plastic beads. I later moved the tub and the shower into my Victorian house because I found a fabulous bathroom set in a shop on Portobello Road in London.

It is an original Barton set (which means it is wrong scale, since Barton is 1:16, but all scales are slightly wrong in this house). It was in porr shape and I strongly dislike the 1980s green so I painted it a bit more daring - but also authentic: I have seen exactly this colour combination on Barton bathrooms. It was a very delicate job since I didn't want to remove the taps and the toilet seat.

Some further details in this bathroom: the little dressing table is made from an unidentifable plastic object, the same I used for the kitchen table. The scissors, razor and comb come from party crackers. I made the mirror holders from clothes hooks. The toothbrush mug is a ballpoint pen cap, and the brushes are made with tiny bits of Velcro. The toilet brush, which you cannot see very well behind the tub, is a makeup brush in a plastic medicine-bottle cap. The towel rings are made from the sealing rings in cooking-oil bottles.

Adjusting the stairs

I wanted to keep the staircase from the old house even if it meant sacrificing space from the bedroom and bathroom on the upper floor. Since the room is deeper I had to make a new wall with the two doors. I recycled the paper floor from the old house for the time being.

And this is what it looked like when I put the first lights in.

Everybody says it's easy to have lights in your dollhouse, but it needs a lot of patience, as anyone knows who has tried. I drilled holes in the top of the cabinet and pulled the wires of the tiny bulbs through the holes. For that, you need to take away the plugs, which you then need to put back. They are about three millimetres, and the wire keeps sliding off. There is a power strip on the back of tyhe cabinet, into which you insert plugs. When it doesn't work you just have to do it all over again. The lamps are from my old house. I have also re-tiled the bathroom. The little girl came as a bonus when I bought the lights.