Brass chandelier

The past few days I have been doing some boring things, like sanding stairs railings, and some more creative things, like wallpapering rear interior walls, which still isn't much to show. So today, as possibly the last project of the year, I made something that I had been planning for a very long time. More than a year ago I bought this part of an old petroleum lamp at a car boot sale:

 

I knew that it would make an excellent chandelier. I had a similar one in my old Victorian house (it will now move to Womble Hall).

I didn't take step-by-step pictures because it was just a hugely tedious job of fixing the chains, that, by the way, came from one of my treasure chests. I took a shortcut and used thin metal thread (of the kind you find on wine bottles) which I then secured on the inside with a plastic bead. I cannot fix the chandelier even temporarily in a room because it is heavy, and neither tack nor tape would hold. So here I just attached it at the edge. It will not be in this room, but at least you can see what it is going to look like.

It will eventually be in the grand hall, but, again, I cannot fix it yet, so in this picture I am holding it with my left hand, trying to take a picture with my right hand. Anyone who has tried this knows it is impossible. This is the best I can do.

 

The lights are just fixed with tape, but I will figure out how to make it better. They do look much better in reality than in a picture. This is a battery-powered set of warm lights. You can see the cord hanging down, but when I do it properly it will go through the ceiling, and the power switch will be on the back of the house.

I have a magnificent ceiling rose to go with the chandelier, a large ornate brooch. It will probably be some months before I can put it up since there is still so much preliminary work to do on the house. I haven't even painted the ceilings yet!

Dormers

I am always saying that miniature-making is highly educational. I didn't know what a dormer was until I was building Helen Hall and had to buy some spare parts. Now I know that Helen Hall had gable dormers, while Womble Hall will have flat-roof dormers.

I enjoyed making the roof so much that I just had to go on and make dormers. I started by painting all parts, white on the inside and the same light green on the outside that I have on the house front. I must admit: I make a couple of mistakes with the sides and had to repaint. Then I put in window frames and glazing.

I glued sides with the front and immediately realised that I was making another mistake.

It would be much easier to add curtains before glueing the sides. So this is what I did with the remaining four dormers. The curtains are bits of lace. It won't be possible to draw curtains in the dormers, and I'd like to be able to peep into the rooms through the windows, so I didn't want larger curtains.

To make it neat, I covered the side seams with filler and when it was dry I painted over it. Here you can see the three steps:

This is what it will look like - so far just fixed with white tack:

 

I estimate that it took me 15 hours to make the five dormers (the window frames had been primed, sanded and painted before). I say "estimate" because some of the time they were drying while I was doing something else. It will take more time to attach them to the roof.

Slated roof, continued

I never got another box of biscuits for my slated roof, but fortunately I have immense supply of thin card from the recycling bin at work. I want to show the steps, because when you have seen the result you may not believe that I have made it myself. So here is if not the before, but at least the half-way through:

Yes, it is tedious, therefore I only did it now and then, not at one go. It doesn't matter that the slates are different colour because I will paint them anyway.

When it was finished and looked rather funny, I admit, it was time to paint. I considered red-brown brick tiles, but decided against them because they would contrast too much with the delicate light green of the walls. And anyway, a Georgian house would have slates rather than tiles. Jean Nisbett suggests a mix of gray, yellow and green to produce a good slate colour, which I would have never thought of myself. So I mixed white and black to get gray, then added yellow and green drop by drop, because it is very easy to overdose, and then you will have to throw it away. I got the mix I wanted very quickly and painted with a broad brush.

The effect I had not anticipated was that some slates raised slightly, which made the roof look much more natural. I couldn't have done it on purpose (I tried when they were still dry, but they wouldn't stay). I also, as Nisbett suggests, painted some random slates with a darker shade, for variation and a more authentic look.

And here is a close-up. 

Since I had some paint left I also painted the flat roof top and dormer roofs.

When the slates were dry I varnished them. All in all, I believe that it has taken me 16 hours to make the roof.

Now, once again, you may ask why I am doing the roof which will most likely be the very last part I add to the house, some time a year from now at the very earliest. Firstly, I like variation, and I have been doing interior work for quite a while. Secondly, I like seeing results of my work, and this result has surpassed my wildest expectations. Finally, when I have done almost everything and only have the roof left, it will be ready to attach.

Corridor floor

So far, the only room I haven't even started considering properly is the front corridor, with stairs leading to the attic. There is not much you can do in this room, and initially I even thought about getting rid of the partition. But it's there now, and I will perhaps have pictures on the wall. I hadn't planned any fancy floor until I started looking up Victorian floor patterns for other rooms and found something I could test in a smaller area.

 

It is not perfect: the pattern is not strictly repeated. I haven't yet sanded or varnished. Essentially, I just wanted to see whether I could do it, and obviously I can, with some more training and patience. I used two different stains: mahogny and dark oak, and I stained before cutting and gluing. This area took me about four hours. So if I decide to make a really elaborate parquet for the reception room or dining room, I know that it's just a matter of time.

Entrance floor

I have finally finished the parquet floor for the main entrance. It isn't a particularly exciting or creative project: just cutting stirring sticks and pasting in a pattern. I used a bit of the floor that I had in the hall of the Victorian house, but it was a much smaller surface so I have been adding a few squares every now and then.

I did not stain the sticks, but painted them with a scratch-repair pencil from Poundland. It was much easier. I used the extra strong all-purpose glue stick. When I have covered the whole area, I sanded it very hard, to make the surface smooth. It also made the colour less even, therefore more natural. After that, I stained it with light oak stain, just one coat, to take away the whiteness of the unpainted sticks. (See, I didn't notice it six years ago when I first made this floor, but I do now). Finally, I varnished it with at least three coats. It now starts looking the way I want.

 The entrance is far from finished, but you can see how the floor fits into the whole design.

Slated roof

I am feeling particularly creative today. One of my projects is still drying so I will show it tomorrow, but meanwhile I had some inspiration and started making a roof. Of course it will be long before I will need a roof, but as you may have noticed I like switching from project to project.

Some days ago I brought home an empty box of biscuits because I thought I might use the plastic for something, and I was too lazy to throw away the card box. We do not usually eat biscuits, but we had an end-of-term party for the students. I did use the plastic to make some plates:

I was about to throw away the box into the blue recycling bin when I realised that I had a much better recycling idea. Here is what I did:

This is just one flap of the box. From it, I cut three strips. Then I cut about half a centimeter along the pencil lines and curved the corners. I now had three strips of roof slates.

 

These were very easy to glue direct onto the roof, overlapping each row with half a slate. At least, much easier and quicker than doing it slate by slate, as I did with my Tudor house. And considerably cheaper.

When I have finished the roof - I will need about twenty times as many strips, so I will have to get another box of biscuits - and painted it, it will look gorgeous.

I wish I could say that it was my own invention, but I must admit that it isn't, it comes from Jean Nisbett's indispensable book A Beginner's Guide to the Dolls' House Hobby.

Back to priming

It was a sunny morning, and I decided that I would take the opportunity to prime the few remaining parts of the house, mostly banisters. It will be long before I come to making stairs and balconies, but it may be equally long before the weather permits working outdoors. As it turned out, I had overestimated the mildness of British December weather. It was ice-cold, and if I get pneumonia and die, it's the dollhouse's fault. But it is done now, and I am glad I did all the major priming in summer.

While doing this tremendously tedious work once again - and banisters are more tedious than large surfaces of walls and ceilings - my thoughts kept returning to the £25,000 house, although it doesn't deserve it. Did they prime the banisters? You can buy assembled stairs, painted and all, and that's what they did, I can see it. You can hang wallpaper without priming the walls, and that's what they probably did. They didn't even bother to put in cornices! You can possibly paint windows without priming them (although I found it hard), and it will save you hours and hours of priming, sanding, painting, sanding... But who knows, maybe they sent the windows to be primed and sanded by children in Thailand, and the postal costs added to the price of the house.

Anyway, a pile of primed banisters is not much to show, so I will instead share the most recent picture of the dining room where I have temporarily put in floors from another room and like it so much that I will perhaps leave it like this. The doors are obviously not painted yet, and I haven't decided whether they will be white or dark. The window is not properly inserted. Mouldings will be added. The ceiling will be decorated. There will of course be wall sconces, pictures and other details that the £25,000 house doesn't have.

I am making slow progress. But I am enjoying it all the more.