Dressing Room and Montreal Miniatures Show

Hello Everyone. I hope you all had a woonerful week. It's been a while since my last post. I just want to thank you all for your wonderful comments and taking the time to follow my work. It means a lot to me and your kind words keep me inspired and focused. So to everyone who has been following my adventure, thank you so much!

Once again I underestimated how long the Dressing Room would take. 3 weeks later I finished:

The room measure 20" x 24". The windows on the fireplace wall overlook the ocean, the back door leads to the Bedroom Hall, the door on the right leads to the Master Bedroom, and the wall we're lookin in from will have a large window overlooking a rose garden.

The room is pretty simple: Wallpaper and ceiling paper, large baseboards and chair rails. I was afraid the room might be a little boring, so I thought I'd put a little extra effort into the floor.

You might remember, when I made the Gallery floor, I glued down one piece of wood with the grain going in the wrong direction. After it was shellaced is stuck out like a sore thumb. I figured I could use different grain directions to make an interesting floor. I drew 1/4 of the design on graph paper and printed several copies. I then put the paper on the wood veneer and cut out each piece with an exacto knive, making sure I payed attention to the direction of the wood grain.

I first glued down the dark wood circles to create the medallion outline. Next I filled in each section. I cut 4 pieces at a time and glued them in place. I think about 20 pieces fit the first time , every other one had to be adjusted or re-cut. When that was done I glued the dark border around the room that matches the one in the Master Bedroom.

The next step was to fill in the the rest of the floor. I went with diagonal slats. Once again I wanted to use the wood grain to create interest. I've mentionned the wood veneers before. You just heat them with an iron to activate the glue. I prefer to touch the wood side of the veneer strip to the iron  for 5 seconds and then put it into place. When I've done about 10 inch section I go over with the iron so the edges my fingers were holding stick down.  

The final step was applying 3 coats of shellac, waiting 30 minutes between coates, and voila

I left it overnight and went over it with Dark floor wax. There is a natural color floor wax, but I like the dark one because it fills in the cracks and makes the floor look used. the next day, I glued it into place.

The fireplace is from Unique Miniatures, and was my very first attempt at faux marbling over a year ago.

The room is big for a dressing room, but in my mind a lot goes on there.

The lady of the house would sit here to have her morning tea listening to the ocean before choosing what to wear. The Corset is by Pedrete. The pictures do not do it justice. It is exquisite!

She would go over the accounts with the housekeeper, approve the menu for the day , and give her instructions for the staff

And finally she would sit at her vanity and get ready, always looking out at the water. The overmantel was made with the window and door trim, crown molding, and a leftover piece of the frieze from the Dining Room

And that's ot for progress...now for shopping.

Yesterday was the yearly Montreal Miniatures Show. I had a lovely time and found some great pieces.

I know exactly which chandelier I want in each room and was happy to find the Sheryl Renee from the Getzans for the Dressing room at the Little Dollhouse Company. The Tea set was an impulse buy from the lovely Janice Crawley...again it was perfect for milady's tea in the dressing Room. The potatoes and trouts I purchased from martha Mclean. She has spectacular pieces.

I love going to the show, but it always makes me antsy to finish construction. I'm enjoying every minute...but I look forward to the day I can just buy accessories to my hearts content. I'm dying to get floral arangements from Martha Mclean, accessories made by Julie from Westwinds Miniatures and...pretty much everybody...Well there's always next year.When I look at the Manor I think it will take me another year to finish it, then about 30 years to accessorize it.

Well, that's it for this week. I've been asked which issues of Miniaturas Dewell Manor is featured in. So far ssue 167 showed the Great Room, 168 the Entrance and staircase, and 169 the Library. i believe they are out in Europe, but not sure when they ged accross the ocean.

 Before I start work on the Attic floor I decided to build a butler's pantry in one section of the kitchen. If I'm not done by next weekend, I just want to wish everyone a very Happy Easter, and happy weekend to those not celebrating, or celebrating the week after. As always, I look forward to seeing your work. You always inspire me with your amazing talent and creative ideas.

All the best my friends, I send you great big hugs,

Giac

Master Bedroom

Hello everyone! I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend! Today I finished the Master Bedroom:

The bedroom measures 16 inches x 20 inches. When I put together the shell of the house I designed  a nook for the bed and nighttables to add a little architectural interest. The plan was to frame it with columns that were very similar to the Great Room ones.

The first step was making the floor. Again I used 2 types of iron-on wood strips which I attahced to an illustration board subfloor and finished with shellac flakes dissolved in 99% Alcohol.

Next came to nook columns. First, I glued together 2 pieces of lumber to go over the corner wall at each side of the nook. I then used my door and window frame molding to create the bottom half of the column

Next, I put a small spacer at the top of the column. This spacer is used to create the angle of the top half. In the next picture you can see I put a big glob of glue on the top spacer and just above the bottom half of the column. I then put on the angled piece.

When this was dry and solid, I had to fill in the space on the sides. In the Great Room, I used spackling and it worked great. However, this time around the angled piece was thinner and kind of waved a little when I was applying the spackle so it cracked. I then took out a piece of thin lumber and cut it to cover the side gap. I added some quarter round molding to the angled piece and voila!

I thought it would be nice to cap the columns with a statue of some sort. I decided I wanted the sculpture to be a griffin. A griffin has the body and back legs of a lion and the head, wings and front claws of an eagle. They were creatures who would protect treasure or very valuable things...so I thought it appropriate that a husband should have them over his bed to protect the woman he loves. I made a few quick sketches

I tried to sculpt them is sculpy, but they had to be a maximum of 1 3/4 inches with the wings so the detail was so small it kept getting distorted as I worked. Not one to fight a losing battle, I thought about and decided to carve them out of basewood. I started by taking a 1/4 x 1 inch piece, drew on the overall shape of the griffin, and cut it out using a utility knife and an exacto

When the overall shape was done, I started to round out some details with and exacto so they would not look so square

I cut out a large piece and a small piece for each wing, and then cut out the back leg. I chiseled out a little wing detail and glued the pieces together. I only detailed the side that people can see. The wings are quite thin and I was afraid to overwork them.

Finally I faux-walnut painted them and glued them into place. Not perfect sculptures, but they create the illusion I was after.

The column cap the griffin is sitting on is just a box with molding, a corbel I cut in half, and a cameo for the center carving. I made a third box for the center of the nook opening and joined everything with leftover molding.

I purchased a tudor style mantel from Sue Cook and used small pieces of door and window frame molding, as well as chair rail molding, to create the fireplace. Finally, I paneled, chair railed and baseboarded the rest of the room.

Here are some pictures of the empty room:

The door to the right of the fireplace leads to the balcony over the Loggia. The door on the back wall leads to the dressing room (which you have to go through to get into the Master Bedroom. The opening panel will have a large Bay window. The Pattern in the floor will be copied in the Dressing Room.

And that's it for this week. The next room I will tackle (last one before I get working on the attic floor), is the Dressing Room.  It's been a while since my last post and I would of liked to have more done, but month's end at work is always very difficult and last weekend was my Niece Alina's Christening. My sister asked me to make her cake and I could design what I wanted...so it naturally ended up being one big cake and 6 little ones. It took my mother 11 hours to make the roses, and it took me 22 hours to bake, assemble, sculpt and detail all the rest...but the look in my sister's eyes when she saw it was worth it...

It was a lot of work...but sculpting fondant bears and vines is much more delicious then sculpy!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and wish all of you the best. I really appreciate all your comments and your support. It is such a privilege to have met such great people and I can't thank you enough for being so kind to me and taking the time to follow my work.

Big Giac hugs to all,

Giac

Boy's Bedroom and past projects

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well and having a great week. This past weekend I finished the Boy's room.

The room measures 17" x 14" and 11 5/8" high. I'm afraid I don't have anything new to say about this room. I've used all the techniques and talked about them before.

The fireplace is an inexpensive resin one I faux painted using a technique by Whitledge-Burgess. I wanted the walls to be panneled, but chose a simpler design then the public rooms of the house. Because I wanted this room to have a masculine feel, I applied 3 coats of shellac to the floors wheras the Girl's Room and Bedroom hall only got 2. The Shellac flakes I use are Garnett Color. Each time you add a coat the floor gets a darker, orange color.

The furniture was purchased years ago and intended to be a master bedroom suite. Of all the bedroom sets I've seen I think this was one of the most masculin. I folded a piece of cotton fabric I had left over on the matress. I love the yellow in this room and would like a red fabric bedcover. Late victorians stopped using heavy drapery on the beds because they worried it wasen't hygienic. However, this is my house, so if I decide to hang drapes, so be it!
And here's a look at the empty room. I always think the empty rooms look smaller then they are

And that was progress for this week. Next, the Master Bedroom. I have a VERY busy couple of weeks coming up, so it might be a little while before my next post.

I have to take a moment and thank you all for your wonderful comments. You flatter me with all your kindess and I think it high praise indeed coming  from such talented artists as yourselves. I say it every week but it's the truth, it meas a lot to me and keeps me going. Several times friends have commented that being afraid of failure keeps them from trying. The only reason I have acheived what I haven is because I never shy away from a challenge. If I mess up, big deal! I swear a little, laugh a lot, and move on.

Since my post was rather short, I figured I'd put up some pictures of the last projects I built before starting on Dewell Manor.  When I think of the Foxhall Manor I built, all I think about are my errors: bad crown molding (attached with nails no less), bad paint, oversized tiles and grout lines, crooked construction, rediculous hinging on cabinet doors, bad brick work in the kitchen...

I was happy witht he popsicle stick flooring on the second floor

I loved my design for the kitchen and was happy to scratch build everything...but boy do I wish I had payed more attention to the small details

I must admit, I was really happy with the appliances I made, however, the hinges on the cabinets ruined the effect

World's  largest grout lines

Do not use high gloss paints on  miniature doors and trim

I made this room for my # 1 aunt Lorraine. I used it to test several Whitledge-Burgess Techniques I read about in a magazine article. I was happy enough with the box to take on Dewell Manor

 I knew my work was good, not great, but I hoped I could do better. I did research on miniatures, Victoriana, full size construction, various art mediums, carpentry...I know there are things that just come naturally to me, but that's no reason not to try and improve what I am strugglign with. NEVER shy away from a challenge!

On that note, I wish you all a wonderful week. I will be commenting on your blogs I promise, work has just been taking A LOT out of me the past few weeks and the computer is the last thing I want to look at when I get home.

I wish you all the best my friends
Huge Giac hugs to all,
No Fear!

Giac

Scullery

Hello everyone,
I hope you all had a good week. Things at work are back to normal for the moment. It was really crazy, but I spent my free time working on he scullery to try and forget about the office.

Since Dewell Manor's kitchen is 24 inches by 20 inches,  I decided to take one area and build a proper scullery.

The first Item I put together was the Dish rack.

I started by drilling evenly spaced holes on some leftover pieces of lumber I had lying around. I then cut dowels to the height I wanted the dish rack, in this case enough for 3 levels.

When the dowels were through the supports, I spaced them using a 1 1/4 inch piece of wood and glued them into place

 Next, I put together the top and side of the dish rack box and glued in the dowel pieces when it was dry

I glued on the second side piece. For the back piece, I glued pieces of 1/8 inch x 1/16 inch lumber at the same level as the horizontal supports. Next, I took more dowels and glued them to line  up with the front piece. In the next picture, you see me adding another 1/8 , 1/16 inch piece of lumber to help support the dishes.

While the rack dried, I made the cup rack

This is just another piece of lumber 1/4 wide with holes drilled through. instead of using dowels for the cup pegs, I cut off the tips of cocktail toothpicks that had a nice detail. I made 2 of these, glued them onto 2 supports and added shelves, corbels, and 2 small dowels do look like supports for the top shelf.

Next came the sinks
I have 2 porcelain sinks in the kitchen, so I decided the scullery would have 2 other sinks. The first one is a wood sink victorians used to wash china (porcelain sinks would chip the dishes) and the second is a copper sink used for messy preperation (cleaning fish and washing pots and pans).

Both sinks are simple wood boxes on wood supports.

 I used embossing metal sheets for the copper sink. This is a fairly soft sheet of copper. It is easy enough to cut with a utility knife and very easy to fold. I first made a smaller wood box to fit into the sink. I glued down the bottom piece of metal, and then folded a strip around the sides which went over the top of the smaller box. (see above picture) I cut thin strips of the metal and glued those over the top of the copper sink to cover any wood you could see.

 In the above picture, I dropped the copper sink into the woood piece and covered the gap with 1/4 x1/8 molding strips.

Finaly, I drilled a whole in the bottom of the sink and filled it with a brass grommet (used for dollhouse electrifying) for the drain and I glued a piece of copper dowel underneath. I tried making faucets with , but they looked awful so I'm going to purchase them.

I made a small counter with a drawer that goes under the plate rack. It has a small lip to help guide the water that drips from the dishes into the wood sink. The counter between the 2 sinks is a piece of wainscott sample I had. The grooves are just the right size to send the water back into the sink when pots are drying. I painted everything to look like dark wood.

And once everything was dry, I glued it all into place

I also put together a clothes rack that will hang from the ceiling in front of the kitchen stove

 I'm not going to hang it yet. I want to eventually purchase a wrought iron pot rack and will decide what the best placement for both item is.

If anyone is interested in Victorian kitchens I found a wonderful British series called "Victorian Kitchen":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoJnEJlwCpU&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL66C52B53F7E34468

It's a 9 episode series in which they repair a real victorian kitchen, hire a cook who started off as a scullery maid in the late 1920s and she prepares food in the same way the victorians did. The first episode has a lot of information about how the kitchen  was set up.

I also reccomend a book called "The Victorian House" by Judith Flanders. It talks about everything in the victorian middle class home. It gives a good idea of the work that servants went through on a daily basis.

Next I will tackle the 3 unfinished rooms of the second floor. I've been putting it off bcause I didn't feel like cutting all the floor planks, but now I have to in order to go forward.

I also want to thank Maria from  http://prettythingsireland.blogspot.com/ for giving me a Blog Fantabuloso award! My first award! Thank you so much Maria, I REALLY appreciate it and it means a lot coming from you.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and I wish you all the best,
Hugs,
Giac