Lord Asriel's room, revisited

Every now and then I go back to my old projects and either dismantle them or improve them in some way. I have for instance made room boxes with shops, and I keep adding objects or things get "sold" for other projects. 

It is almost impossible to alter something in a project that you have gifted. For some time, I kept giving my friend new items for her shoe shop, but there is a limit to how much you can squeeze in a shoe box. Mostly, when a room box leaves your hands it's out of your control. I even wonder how many of them have been kept. I shouldn't care, but I do. 

I have for a while wanted to improve the room box I made for my son many, many years ago. It was the second room box I made, and I wasn't very good at it. Every time I came to visit, I would look at the box and wish I could give it another chance, and finally the time has come: I am working on the revision of Lord Asriel's study.  

This is the before picture, more or less the final picture of the original project. 

I will not elaborate on every fault I find, but it needs a total renovation, including floors, walls, mouldings and more. The challenge, however, will be to preserve the general look so that it will still be easily recognisable. The focal point of the room is the bookshelf, which is one of those pathetic first attempts at handmade furniture, so I will replace it with a magnificent Chippendale bookcase. And the rest will have to match. 

I have just had good training for this project making my Dark Academia book nook. I don't want to copy it, but I will use some features, because Lord Asriel's study is a typical Dark Academia environment. I didn't know anything about Dark Academia when I made the box all those years ago. 

The first thing I did was of course strip the room of everything, except the wallpaper and the ceiling that I decided to keep, for the reason stated above: it must be recognisable. I left the pictures just to have some sense of what it used to be. 

The old floor was flagstone made from air-drying clay. At the time, it was an innovative technology for me, and I was proud of it, but really, why would an Oxford academic have flagstone floor in his study? It's more appropriate for a wine cellar. Hence, the first step was to make a proper hardwood parquet. I had a large piece left over from an earlier project (in fact, I cut a little bit out of it for Dark Academia) so I used it, or what could be saved of it, since a lot had to be redone to fit the new floor area. I was much more diligent with sanding the floor when it was finished. 

Next, I wanted to make dark wooden panels, and for that I have experience both from Womble Hall and Dark Academia. I used a strip of card, adding some moulding from coffee stirrers and skewers. I considered heavy skirting I have left over from Womble Hall, but it felt too bulky.

But I wanted something extraordinary for the panels, also testing something I have never done before. I had a wooden ornament from a hobby shop, and it would have been easy to just get more of them, but it's not much of a challenge. Instead, I made a mould from air-dry clay, then made multiple imprints of the ornament. 

I painted the panels with acrylic, then gave it a coat of mahogany stain and several coats of varnish. 

Close up. Yes, I see that the wallpaper is bubbly, but not much I can do about it, short of pulling it off and hanging new, and that's too much. 

 

I did not put the ornaments on every panel because they would interfere with the furniture. 

I wanted to add a fireplace that wasn't in the original room but of course would be indispensible in an academic's room without other heating. I happened to have a suitable fireplace surround so I didn't make one from scratch, but I will add some details to it, including a fire. A mantlepiece is a good place to put all the numerous weird objects I had in the original room. I will probably replace the mirror with a more period-correct one.

Coving in the old room was made from full-size picture frames, which at that time felt a perfect solution, but wouldn't do now. Again, I have quite a lot of leftovers from Womble Hall, and since then I have learned to use mitre shears. although even with this tool, mitring cornishes is a nightmare. I considered painting coving dark as well, but decided against it, to have something white in the room for contrast. 

As you see, I have discarded the pipes. I have tried and tested, and they just didn't go with the panels. Since I am not even sure why they were there in the first place, I don't feel bad about them. 

Before I could focus on furnishing, I needed to consider anbaric light (which, if you haven't read His Dark Materials, is what they call electricity in Lord Asriel's world). I have learned a lot about lighting in the past years, and although I still haven't found a perfect solution for Womble Hall, I have successfully made lights for some room boxes, including Dark Academia. Lights do add to the atmosphere. That said, the recipient of this room box is a lighting expert so it has to be perfect or none at all. 

What this expert taught me is the fundamental principle of display lighting is that the light sources have to be hidden. There are many ways of doing this, but I have added a top frame to hide anbaric lights behind. At this stage, I also painted all edges dark brown, to match the panels.

It does make a difference, doesn't it? I still need to make some improvements, but wanted to test. 

Now to the details. The bookcase needs to be filled with books. There were a few books in the old room, all of them with a special significance, but I need more, and of course since then I have made hundreds of books - that's not a hyperbole, really hundreds, for Womble Hall, for the library room box, and more still. 

I have some lovely books that would fit into an academic's room. They are real books, with words and pictures. Unfortunately they are a couple millimetres larger than the shelves so they will have to  be scattered around the room.  

Most books will be fake, with just covers. I estimated I would need about 60 books, and I was right: 65. It kept me busy for a while, but I didn't want to cheat with just spines. There are indeed 65 individual books that can be taken out, and at least one row is books with recognisable covers. They are all there for a reason. Others are simply generic "old books", but I used different covers and made some books larger and thicker, for variety. It does not look natural when all books are of the same size. 

Inside the room, the book case looks truly authentic. The recipient may never bother to open the bookcase and look at the books, but it doesn't matter. 

Of course I also have a copy of His Dark Materials. And a copy of one of my own books - I always leave a secret signature in my projects, like Hitchcock always has a vignette of himself in all his films. 

In the drawer of the bookcase I have put old maps, letters, newspapers, notebooks and other private and confidential stuff. 

I have already mentioned the fireplace, and it needed some extra work. To begin with, the back can never be mahogany, can it? It needs to be brick or just black. 

It is also too shiny as compared to the panellling, but I will have to live with it. I painted the back, and I had to sacrifice the fireguard because the kind of fire I wanted to insert didn't fit behind it. But I needed a fireguard, and I made one by painting a piece of fence from a farm play set. I made the fire with a flickering tea light, the way I have always made fires. This one can be put on a timer so it will switch on automatically in the evening, but in my experience it exhausts the battery quickly. But it is easy to take out, switch on and put back. There is of course a more sophisticated way to do it: drill a hole in the side wall and the fire surround and use a battery light that can be switched on from outside, but it will be, or might be, a next step. 

The wallpaper was damaged in some places, which happens when you are stupid and attach things to wall with blue tack. These spots had to be disguised, and on one wall I put a large old map of Svalbard. If you have read His Dark Materials, you know why, and if not, it plays a significant role in the books. Lord Asriel would definitely have a map of Svalbard in his study.

 

There was another map in the original room which I had cut from a magazine so it had no relevance at all. I replaced it with an old map of Oxford. I am afraid there is no Jordan college in this map. 

On the left-hand wall, I put some framed portraits. I don't know who these people are, but let's pretend they are famous Arctic explorers.  

The rest was more or less straightforward. I put the golden compass on a more appropriate side table. I added another occasional table by the armchair, on which I put a decanter of Tokay and two glasses. I kept Asriel's equipment for experiental theology - which is what science is called in his world.  

I put two very pretty candlesticks on the mantlepiece. I made them in my miniature club, and I think they fit fine. I also added a mantle clock. 

At a glance, the room probably looks the same, which has been the intention. But almost every feature has been improved, and I am very happy with the outcome. 

 

House restoration: music room, dining room, smoking room

The next point of my attention was the music room. (I believe I am intuitively avoiding the great hall because it will involve mending the stairs). It was remarkably well preserved.

The ceiling decoration got off a bit, but was easy to glue back. The fireplace wasn't even attached so it was just putting it back, but the mirror had come down. The floor was wobbly, but it probably was wobbly to begin with. This floor is the first hardwood floor I made, many-many years ago, and today I would make it differently and better, but I keep it for sentimental reasons. However, this is a good moment to sand it better - again, my demands on myself are much higher today. I sanded a bit at the front, but won't do it properly now. I will finish all the restoration first before starting on further improvements. But I clearly saw that sanding, and polishing afterwards, would be an improvement.

Apart from that, it was just a matter of putting back the furniture.

This room is full of objects and dolls, so I will have to unpack and identify them.

Meanwhile, I move up to the dining room.

It is also in a reasonably good shape. A few floorboards missing, easy to replace, since they are coffee stirrers. I have the same problem with this floor: with my today's eyes, I see that it needs sanding and polishing. But not right now.

I need to hang the mirror and pictures and of course set the table. I also intend to replace the cupboard in the rear corridor with a more appropriate period piece, but this will also have to wait.

So finally, for this round, the study, or smoking room. Again, less damage than expected.

A few unstuck floorboards and mouldings, torn wallpaper.

When I put back objects, I started with the rear corridor, where, in addition to the bookcase, there are some pieces barely visible, except from the side window. I like such hidden nooks. You will see it better when the light is on.

In this picture you can also see the tear in the wallpaper. There is no way I can replace the wallpaper at this point, so I just mended it as neatly as possible. It is difficult to work on this level, because it's too high when you stand on the floor and too low if you use a stepladder. But somehow I managed.

I feel that I have reached the stage when I don't feel compelled to put every single item I own into this house so I will only add a few more. Last time, the room looked overflowing. Of course Victorian houses were overflowing, but it is also the matter of displaying things so that they can be admired and do not obscure each other. I am considering fewer dolls in each room, although this will feel like betrayal.

Anyway, now the whole right side is finished, at least as far as pure repairs are concerned.

I still need to do some work on the front. As I have been saying repeatedly, some people leave the inside of the fronts undecorated or at best decorate with paint or wallpaper to match the rooms. My concept is to create a sense of additional space, as if there were three extra rooms, each decorated differently and with as many flat or semiflat details as possible. As you see, I have mirrors, and I will also put back pictures, wall sconces and a book shelf with books.

Finally I did something long overdue. I had planned to use a magnet lock to keep the fronts firmly closed, but I never got round to it. Meanwhile, on another dollhouse I have, there is a hook for the purpose. I need something urgently because I have two inquisitive cats who have already explored the house, as cats do.

 

 I admit that this looks like a horror movie.

It doesn't work any longer to keep the fronts closed with tape, so I got a hook. I may find a better solution lately, but it works fine for now.

To be continued.

Step by step: smoking room

In my step-by-step tour, that so far has included the reception room, music room, drawing room and dining room and master bedroom,  I have come to the gentlemen's smoking room, which is on the second floor, to the right. The smoking room, that I have also frequently referred to as study has a long history. It started in my very first house in the bookshelf. There is very little left from that study, except the concept and the tile stove. But I started by making a chest of drawers and a writing desk from jenga blocks. Then I made a book case. It survived until quite recently. I added many interesting objects in the study. This is a picture from maybe a month after I began my hobby:

 

At this stage, I used Christmas lights.

When we moved, and when I re-created my house in a cabinet, I didn't put up any walls between the drawing room and the study so it was just one large room. 

But you recognise the tile stove, the book case at the back, the desk in front of it, and the chest of drawers is by the left wall, obscured by the clothes hanger.

I added, removed and replaced some objects, but the room remained the same until I started Womble Hall. Then I knew that the drawing room and the study would be separated, and although it made sense to have the study next to the dining room, it didn't work, so from the dining room the gentlemen have to go into the corridor and up the (non-existing) stairs to the second floor.

Like dining room, this room has a rear corridor and a pretty valve opening. I didn't make a chimney breast for this room because I was going to use the tile stove. It may be a wrong feature in a Victorian house, but I wouldn't part with this stove. I knew more or less how I wanted to decorate the room, so I tested it early, with low-resolution printed wallpaper. 

The partition is simply inserted, the floor is paper, the door leaned to, and so on. I had by that time made the Chippendale desk and cabinet, but the other desk is the same, and in the corridor you can see the old book case.

Before I started assembling and gluing the shell, I painted the back wall of the rear corridor and hung wallpaper on side walls and partition. It needed some clever calculation because I had to finish the corridor before I could put in the partition. This is also when I added a light in the corridor.



But this is also where I made an epic mistake and had to tear everything down and re-build it. Then I made a proper floor to replace the adhesive shelf lining. In this blog post from late April 2015 I say that the room is finished. But of course is wasn't. Nothing is ever finished. Less than a month later I replaced the old faithful book case. Then I added a rocking chair in the rear corridor. Then I made another Chippendale desk, and the old one was reluctantly removed. By the way, the coffee table in front of the sofa is a genuine Carin Backlund. And there is real whisky in the bottle!

Then I started making Adam ceilings, and the smoking room was among the first.



I added curtains. I changed the chandelier. I added some more objects.

Here is what it looks like now:

Maybe looking at the pictures only, you might say that this room has changed least of all. But if you read the blog posts you will see how much work happened between each stage.

All over again

Did I ever mention that a dollhouse project is never finished? I did? Yes, I did. Many times.

When I finished my Adam ceilings, I was pretty sure that I was done with ceilings and ceiling lights. All mouldings and ceiling roses in place, nothing more to add. And then I go to this wonderful shop and buy three fabulous chandeliers. And I see that one of them will be perfect in the smoking room where I so far had a light that I was absolutely happy with.

 

Smoking room ceiling was one of the first Adam ceilings I made, and it involved removing the ceiling light and then putting it back. Of course I won't replace the ceiling this time, but I still need to remove the floor in the room above, remove the tape that is holding the wire from the light, feed the wire down through the hole, remove the light and the ceiling rose. Then, in reverse: feed the wire of the new chandelier through the ceiling rose (which by the way is a scrapbooking embellishment) and the hole, fix the wire with the tape and put back the floor. Luckily, the floor in the room above - guest bedroom - is still paper and can be removed without breaking up the skirting boards. (I won't get away so easily in other rooms).

Judge for yourself:

It's always like this: once you have made an improvement you wonder how on earth it could have been anything else. 

The light in the chandelier is a battery tea light. The fabric of the chandelier is a bit torn, and I first thought that I would replace it, but I will never manage to do it neatly, and after all, people did have torn and worn objects. Maybe it even looks more natural.

I have two more exquisite new chandeliers to put up, so do come back soon. It will be a much greater challenge.

Adam ceiling, smoking room

While the glue is setting on my grand stairs, I decided to continue my project of making new ceilings using Adam paper. It is not without trepidation I approached this task because, unlike the Grand Hall that didn't have any ceiling decoration (and was hard enough), in order to insert new ceilings in existing, assembled rooms I will need to perform the following operations:
1) remove all objects from the room I will be working on
2) remove coving (in this situation, I am glad that I use paper rather than wood)
3) remove existing ceiling paper or decoration
4) remove flooring in the room above (which may involve removing skirting) to access fixture for ceiling light
5) remove ceiling light
6) glue new ceiling paper onto a piece of lining, making sure that the new ceiling rose is aligned with the existing hole for the ceiling light (this may also involve cutting and pasting, to assemble a new pattern, as I had to do with the ceiling in Grand Hall)
7) glue new ceiling assembly onto the ceiling - working upside down in a small room. For this step you should preferably be an octopus
8) fix the ceiling light, feeding the wire through the hole up to the room above
9) replace flooring in the room above, including skirting
10) insert new coving in the room I am working on
11) put all objects back into the room

If you wonder why I bother it's because I am a perfectionist. Now that I have this magnificent paper I am no longer satisfied with my old ceilings.

I started with the smoking room for no particular reason; probably because the old ceiling was slightly damaged when we did the lights. 

I will not show step-by-step pictures because, apart from being tremendously difficult, it was straightforward (except that it was painful to see the room stripped down again). The only unforeseen trouble was that in a corner there was a wire connector that my son-in-law would have been able to remove and re-connect, but I didn't dare, so I had to cut a little square. Unless you look closely you won't notice. Here is the result:

It took me three hours, but luckily I didn't have to tear up the room above because I still have paper floors there which could be carefully lifted.

With objects put back:




Having lights inside the room was a huge advantage, although otherwise it would have made sense to fix the ceiling before the lights. But I didn't have much choice.

Infidelity

Every now and then I very reluctantly replace a piece of furniture that I made a long time ago with something better, either something I have have made better or bought. Each time I feel I am betraying an old friend. But sometimes it becomes inevitable. Everyone would agree that this:

looks better than this:

 

I mean the book case in the rear corridor of course. My old faithful book case that I made with so much care and wit eight yars ago and that I very recently attached to the wall with velcro.

But I cannot help it. I found some nice things at a charity shop today.

The lovely little perfume bottle will, I believe, make a nice table lamp. The case on the right is not to scale, and at the moment I don't know what I will do with it. But the one on the left I felt at once was going to replace the old book case.

There were some problems though. Most books in the old book case were too large. Before I had time to change my mind I took my new favourite tool and resized all books.

 

Some were too thick and looked unnatural so I had to tear them apart and remove some "pages". Some I had to throw away (weeping with remorse). Then I had to make some more, to fill the shelves. Most of the old books were bound in black, so this time I added green, red and blue, painting the spines with gold.

Here is the room with the new rear corridor:

More "spot the difference"

I have mentioned repeatedly that it may seem odd that I keep putting objects into half-finished rooms only to remove them the next day. But if you think closer it makes sense. At each stage, I need to check what it will look like, and it is here I can spot mistakes and correct them. It isn't an option in 1:1 decoration, so there you must guess and trust your intuition. I don't mind moving things around, and I like putting everything back in the evening so that I have a nice view when I see it next morning.

So I removed everything from the smoking room to add moulding. As I was doing it, I realised that I wouldn't be able to fix skirting before I knew that the floor was right, and I wasn't sure that the adhesive lining floor was right. That's the problem: once you have started doing proper floors you aren't satisfied with half-measures. At least it didn't feel right so I tested the floor that I initially made for the nursery, but it is much too sofisticated for the nursery so I thought it would go well in the smoking room. I had to trim it a bit. The mouldings aren't fixed yet except for rails.

And then - yes, you have guessed it - I put everything back again.

This is the first room that is actually finished - apart from mouldings. I cannot yet fix the skirting because I need to attach the ceiling light in the room below, and the hole is under the floor. Apart from that, it is all done, the door surround glued, and I can start thinking what else is going into this room: pictures, ornaments. occasional tables, smoking utensils, lights. Maybe another male doll?

Miscalculation

Did I say in my previous post that I had made zillions of mistakes? Well. I have just discovered a big one. Remember the gentlemen's smoking room I was so proud of? It looked great, didn't it? And didn't I say that the rear room didn't matter because it wouldn't be visible? Well, it depends on how close you look.

The other evening I switched off all lights in the 1:1 room and switched on all lights in the house, including the flickering flames in the fireplaces. A professional might take a picture that does it justice, but believe me, it was stunning. I was particularly fascinated by looking through the windows. It was really intriguing.

Until I came to this lateral view of the rear room behind the smoking room:

This would never do, would it? Maybe one in a hundred guests would bother to have a look, but it would certainly be an inquisitive child who would notice and comment.

With a deep sigh I tore everything down and was back on square one. 

The lateral view through the side window revealed the open stairwell, the unfinished wallpaper, the wrong panel colour and the absence of proper moulding. In each case it was perhaps no more than a centimeter. But it looked untidy.

First of all, I had to close the stairwell. Because there would be no heavy objects there I simply took a piece of card (old document folder) and covered with self-adhesive shelf lining.

This time I didn't take any risks. Yes, only a couple of centimeters would be visible laterally, but it's easier to cover it all.

Then I painted the dark green panel. I should have removed the paper from the wall, but that was an overkill so I just painted over it. Then I added simple moulding, just unprofiled balsa strip and coffee stirrers. I didn't bother about the cornice although if you look very, very, very carefully through the side window you may see a glimpse of an edge. I don't think even an inquisitive child would notice. 

Now it was time to think about how to attach the book case to the wall. It so happened that I was reading a post in one of my Facebook groups about someone fixing something with velcro. I have a roll of velcro that I bought six years ago and only used two millimeters to make a toothbrush.

What a brilliant idea! Why haven't I thought about it before? I am sure there are more things in the house than can be successfully fixed with velcro. Whoever mentioned this on Facebook, you have the credit. Although I would never trust just velcro so I also used a screw to hang the book case on - it is made from a picture frame and has a hook.

I also put a painting on the wall. It is one of the first paintings I made, many years ago. It will be visible extremely laterally, but it adds hugely to the effect. You get a sense of vast spaces inside there.

Here is the result so far, although there is still moulding to be added.

Seemingly, this picture is exactly the same as in the old post. "Spot five differences". But the most important thing is that the lateral view is now correct. Welcome, the inquisitive child!