Updates to the Parlor

A while ago, I went through the parlor and did some serious re-arranging.  Despite having quite definite ideas of the way I wanted this room to feel, I've always struggled with this room. Compared to the real-life rooms I've been inspired by, my miniature parlor is somewhat small and quite narrow, with tiny windows, while the off-centered fireplace makes many furniture arrangements look unbalanced. The mint green chair will not be staying that color, and may not be staying at all. I'd really love an overstuffed green velvet chair there instead, but I don't think there's quite enough room for the style I have in mind.

 

My next big project in this room will be the curtains. I've been saving a photo of the ones I want for at least a decade- the only problem is finding a similar looking brocade in miniature! I plan to make the curtains somewhat larger than the window, in order to cover up as little of the glass as possible.

There's a bay window nook on the door of the house. This space has changed frequently over the years. As I began to think about how I would curtain this space, I realized that the space is really far too small for both curtains and any of the furniture I'd filled it with in the past.  Instead, I plan to build an elaborate terrarium.  The small terrarium in the photo above was a trial, to get a feel for the construction process. I built the frame from styrene (plastic) rods, ornamented with more plastic pieces. The "glass" is clear plastic, coated with glass paints.

I also made a few additions to the room itself. The smaller, off-white pillow on the sofa is my first finished piece of miniature petite point! I used a free pattern from Open House Miniatures, and worked it on 45 count linen.  To be honest, I wasn't planning to make a pillow, particularly not on the bulky linen. I just wanted to whether petite point was possible on the linen, and it somehow grew into stitching the whole pillow! I've since started a new project on silk  gauze and find it so much easier!

  The table is (I think) made of resin, by John Hodgeson. Mom made the fern years ago for my music room. The figurine is made by Goebel, as is the chair (one of a pair.) The Goebel chairs had the most awful seats, covered in  acid yellow flocking. I used a vintage silk tie to reupholster them.

Next to the fireplace, I've added my beloved little writing cabinet, painted by Rosemarie Torre. At the moment, it's sitting on a silly little table I made. You can  also see the finished bamboo overdoor at the top right.

I have this gorgeous little cloisonné vase up there now, and am looking for a suitable plate to go behind it.

Last but not least, I had a little fun with the photo editor, and made an "old" photograph of the room. That bare window sticks out like a sore thumb, but otherwise I think it's looking pretty realistic!

A Canopy for the Nursery

I haven't had a chance to work on the shop for a while.  If all goes well, Mom and I will be making a trip to our local-ish dollhouse shop this weekend, where I'm hoping to find the iron railing. In the mean time, I thought I'd share a project I worked on a few months ago. I've had this Bespaq crib for years in an undressed state. I finally decided it was time to do something about its bare canopy.

 The nursery is a long, dark room at the back of my house. It was originally meant to be the bathroom.  My uncle, who built my dollhouse, covered the walls with plastic tile. I guess he really wanted it to stand up to a lot of play, since we literally had to melt the plastic off when the house was refurbished. 

I raided Mom's doll-making supplies for sheer white batiste for the canopy top, and found some vintage embroidered pieces in my own stash to make the curtains. I still need to make a frill to go around the wooden canopy top. 

There's barely room for the nursemaid! I love how kind she looks. For more details about the nursery, you can read about the curtains here, the bookcase here, and the cheap metal spoon I reworked here.

How to Make Bamboo Furniture: Part One

I have a real soft spot for bamboo furniture, and I've always wanted the parlor to have a few pieces. As it turns out, miniature bamboo furniture is incredibly difficult to find! I've been searching for over a decade, and only found a couple pieces, none of which were quite right for my house. In fact, the only piece of bamboo furniture I have is this chair that Mom made. It was one of the first pieces of furniture Mom made, and it's become quite rickety as the glue is letting go. I finally had to pack it away for safekeeping until it can be fixed or remade.

 This illustration of a bamboo "overdoor" caught my eye in a library book a while ago. I am completely addicted to dollhouse porcelain, so anything that lets me cram in a few more plates/vases/figurines is a good thing in my book! I had to make it.

I reworked the design to fit over the parlor door. I eliminated all the curved pieces, which would have made the project more difficult. I was also completely out of narrow dowels, so I used toothpicks to make the bamboo. Using toothpicks meant I had to break the long bottom piece into three sections, which I think made the whole thing a bit more fragile.

I used my chopper to cut the toothpick pieces to size. If anyone wants exact measurements, I can add them to the next post. The bamboo rings were made with DMC floss, covered in tacky glue and then wrapped twice around the toothpicks. I added the rings randomly, though I did try to keep the spacing fairly consistent.

My gluing jig was helpful keeping the bottom and vertical bars square.

I used my drawing to add the top and middle bars.

This is the assembled back portion of the overdoor. It still needs a shelf, decorative panel, and paint job. I had to pause here for a while, since this was as far as I had planned. I took a moment to check the fit over the parlor door.

 

Not bad, but it still has a ways to go!

The shelf was made from more toothpick and thread "bamboo", and a scrap of thin wood from a sandalwood fan. I tucked a piece of cardstock where the painted panel will eventually go. I'm thinking about adding panels behind the four bottom squares as well, but will wait until the I've painted the bamboo to decide.

Here's a better view of the shelf.

I'm also toying with the idea of adding a pair of little shelves for teacups or small vases on either side of the main shelf, approximately where you see them in the picture above. Next up, I'll be faux-finishing the bamboo, and painting that back panel.

A Painted Bookcase for the Nursery

There are several pieces that have never had a good home in the nursery. The silver cup and porringer, along with the bent spoon I made over, have been moved countless times. It occurred to me that an unfinished wooden bookcase I'd purchased from Bed Miniatures was just about the perfect size for the long and narrow room. 

I added feet made from Tiny Turnings, then got to work on the painting.  I based the  flowers for the bookcase loosely off the flowers from the curtain fabric (below). I didn't want to copy the fabric exactly, but wanted it to have that same delicate feel.

The post describing how I made the nursery's balloon shade can be found here. 

You can see in this photo how the cheap metal of the bent spoon looks different from the silver pieces. I'm thinking that a little silver rub'n'buff may help the spoon blend a little better.  The walls of the nursery are hung with fashion plates, which you can just see in the photo above. I got really interested in the full size versions when I was around twelve, so of course my dollhouse had to have them too! 

I filled the lower shelf of the bookcase with readable books. I've had a little box of books just waiting to fill a bookcase. I went through and picked out the most youthful titles for the nursery.  The Teddy bear had been hanging out in the playroom, but I like him much better down here. He's one of my favorites, and he was getting lost in the crowd of bears in the playroom. For some reason, I've never been a huge fan of teddy bears in real life, but I have a hard time saying no to the miniature ones!

A Surprise Gift

Life has taken a few crazy turns lately, and it all came to a head over the last week. I think the chaos is nearly at an end, but posts may be a bit inconsistent for the next few days. The other day, Mom surprised me with a tiny present...

 

Mom is a bit obsessed with David Edwards' tiny miniatures. Her kitchen has a bunch of his wooden pieces, if you look closely. She was lucky enough to buy one toothbrush for her cottage years ago, before David Edwards' work became so difficult to purchase in the U.S. While he is still making miniatures, only a tiny bit of surplus stock is for sale online.  Unfortunately, Mom's toothbrush disappeared several years ago, during a spring cleaning, and was never seen again.  She's been searching for a replacement ever since.

 

(I took a million photos of this scene, and could not get the toothbrush in focus. Sorry!)

A few weeks ago, Mom found a woman who was selling three of the toothbrushes. Two are going back into her cottage, but she surprised me with the third. I've placed it on Pheobe's dresser, for maximum visibility. The only other options were the vanity or washstand in the master bedroom, and the vanity was too crowded, and the washstand too hidden.

A Close Shave

This is the latest doll Mom has dressed. A few years ago, my brother became interested in the 1930s. An offshoot of that was that he started dressing in 1930s style clothing.  He began shaving with a straight razor, wearing suspenders, and learned to tie a bow tie. Needless to say, he had a lot of input in this doll!

Though Mom usually makes her own leather shoes, but this time she bought them from the Doll's Cobbler. The rug is a leftover from a bunch Mom made for her cottage, using upholstery fabric samples.

Mom used a pair of my brother's fishtail back trousers to draft her mini pattern.

The Bespaq shaving stand came from my dollhouse. It was one of the first "adult quality" miniatures I received in my early teenage years, when my miniatures were transitioning from toy to collection. An irresistible deal on a stunning shaving set by St. Leger made this stand redundant in my dollhouse, so I was happy for Mom to give it purpose again!

A Little Life in a Dark Corner

I've had an orange tree in my parlor for years.  Mom made it from twisted wire and laser cut rose leaves, and planted it in one of the wonderful old mossy pots from Clive Brooker. But it took up a lot of space. I was wondering where to put it when I thought of the empty dining room corner. 

The underside of the stairs runs through the dining room, creating a dark, difficult to see corner that nonetheless looked odd when it was empty.  I'd considered putting a tea cart  under the stairs, with a mirror on the opposite wall to show it more clearly. But when I experimented with a mirror, I couldn't get it to show the right spot, so I never bought the tea cart. The orange tree ended up being the perfect thing to bring a little life to the underside of the stairs.

 

Lottie's Bedroom Makeover

Lottie's bedroom is one of the rooms I've always struggled with. Since I love miniature dolls, tea sets, paper dolls, etc, I'm constantly having to edit this room. The other problem was that the furniture nearly hid some of my favorite miniatures. Last year, I did some re-arranging and added the carpet which definitely helped, but there were still a lot of awkward areas. This time, I ended up taking out the Bespaq desk, and moved around every piece of furniture except the bed. I think it's the first time those hats have been visible since I put them up seven years ago!

This little chest used to be wedged in the back corner of the room. I like it much better out in front, especially since it allows my silver chocolate pot and Lucy Coles wash set to be seen. It also reminded me that the chocolate pot is on a truly awful metal tray. I don't object to fake silver, but I can't forgive how chunky that tray is! The Monet and Renoir paintings were half scale  paintings done by Josephine Meyer. The two porcelain dolls were made by Lucy Coles.
With the chest in such a visible spot now, I've started wondering what can be done about its finish. I have a love/hate relationship with Bespaq. I bought/was given quite a bit of Bespaq when I first started collecting. When I started collecting artisan made furniture, I noticed that the Bespaq finishes all started to look flat and a bit plastic next to the beautifully polished woodgrains of the hand made pieces.  I'm toying with the idea of painting or faux finishing this chest, since I do really like the scale of it..

The painted doll bed was one of the first "good" miniatures I bought, over a decade ago. It is still one of the most delicately painted pieces in my collection. Considering the way the paper backing on the mattress has yellowed, and that the dealer who sold it to me specialized in estate miniatures, I'm guessing it's a bit older than that.  The signature on the bottom says  S. Hoeltge(?). Does anyone know who that might be?

The Great Switch

Last night Mom was going through her dollhouse, and decided to rearrange some of the furniture. She ended up taking out a few gorgeous pieces that just weren't working in her house. Rather than packing them away, she let me take them for my house.

This plate was one of the things that came out of Mom's cottage. I only had space for one plate left on my kitchen plate rail. Now that it's full, I'll have to go through and rearrange the order a little. I just worked my way around the room as I bought more plates, so some of my favorites ended up in the very back where they can hardly be seen.

The other thing I took was a gate leg table made by Gerald Crawford. Mom had two of these, and kept the one by the fireplace upstairs, but this one was fair game. I rearranged the parlor a little to make room. In the process,  I decided to  take out a few pieces as well.

This big round Escutcheon* table in the photo above has never fit in my parlor. It was an expensive mistake (and a beautiful table), so I kept moving it around trying to make it work, but it never did.  Mom took one look at it and said it would be perfect for a newly-cleared spot in her house, so I was thrilled that it finally found a home! The orange tree and screen also came out. The orange tree was an early project which needs touching up, but I have a few new spots in mind for it after the makeover.

 

* I'm sure I've seen their website, but I couldn't find it. Does anyone know the link?

 

 

Parlor paintings

 Way back when I first started this blog, I briefly shared the story behind the Renoir painting that hangs in the parlor. My grandmother has two copies of this painting hanging in her house. One was painted by my great grandmother, and the other by my aunt. As a little girl, I loved to compare the two paintings. My great grandmother especially took a bit of artistic license with her copy- she made the blonde girl into a redhead to look look like my grandmother's best friend! Josephine Meyer painted the copy in my dollhouse. I think it's one of the best miniature paintings she's ever done (though I might be a little biased.)

 

 

 The painting below the Renoir is another special Josephine Meyer painting. Josephine told me after I'd purchased it that it was one of the paintings that she'd submitted to become an IGMA artisan.

I couldn't remember anything about the original portrait, and google wasn't being very helpful either. I finally figured out that the painting was a portrait of the Marquise d'Antin by Jean-Marc Nattier. It looks like Josephine changed changed the color of the dress from blue/grey to gold! Josephine also made the gold easel. I've always had a vague idea that I should drape it with a bit of silk or velvet, but I'm holding off until I have the color scheme for this room pinned down. The (standard bespaq) upholstery in this room was light green for years, but I never really liked it. Right now the parlor is in a bit of a battle between the brighter shade of green which I used to reupholster the loveseat, and some brown and pink furniture I stole from other rooms and loved in here. I think the brown and pink will win in the end, but it's a little hard to banish the green after years of picturing it that way.

Experimenting with Curtains, Part 1

Since I've never made curtains before, I figured I should start with one of the easier rooms. The nursery only needed one curtain, and John of Merriman Park had already written a detailed tutorial on balloon shades, which seemed like the perfect solution for the tight corner. The last time I posted, I was torn between using white batiste or this flowered pink cotton. While I love white in a nursery, I thought it would be too similar to the white canopy I plan to put on the crib, and I couldn't resist the way the pink fabric picked up the flowered sconce shades.

I don't have a sewing machine, and dislike sewing by hand, so I knew that I was going to have deviate from John's tutorial a little. While I did stitch a few gathering threads, I relyed more on pins and fabric stiffener to make the the right look. In the end, this worked, but I definitely wasted some time fussing with pins when I should have used a needle!

 A few days ago, I measured and drew a window from my house, then made several copies. I pinned all my fabric directly to the photocopy, letting me see how the curtains would look on the window as I went along.

After some looking at a few photos of balloon shades, I decided I only wanted my shade to have one swag. My window was 3" across, and about 5" high.  I used a piece of paper napkin to double check the size fabric I would need. John recommended multiplying the width of the window by three, but since I was going to have a lot less draping, I made my shade only 5" wide.

 After I turned under the sides and bottom edges (I used the fabric selvage for the top of the curtain) , I drew a line 1/2" from each side, using an air-erasable fabric pen. Then, I hand stitched a quick gathering thread down each side from the selvage (couldn't figure out a way to completely avoid using a needle!)

 

I used a piece of Styrofoam covered in tin foil (the tinfoil was to stop the foam from flaking and creating a huge mess) to pin my fabric. Over the top of the tinfoil, I taped a copy of my window drawing. I began pinning the top of the shade panel to the foam, gathering the fabric a little with the pins so that the 5" width was reduced to the 3" width of my window. I may have gone a little overboard with the pins, but it helped keep the top straight and the gathers small. An easier/faster/better way to this would be to run a gather thread along the top and glue it to a piece of stripwood (as I ended up doing later).  Once the top portion was secured, I started using the gathering threads to bunch up the shades. I used a few more pins along the gather threads to keep the pleating even.

At that point, I could have sprayed the curtain with fabric stiffener and been done. But it was looking a bit poofy to me, and I didn't like the way the side ruffles were sticking out rather than hanging gracefully. So I borrowed Mom's extra-thin pins and got to work pinning the draping into smaller folds.
This was the longest part of making the shade.

There's no such thing as too many pins!

Almost done! After I had the fabric arranged the way I wanted it, it was just a matter of spraying the fabric with fabric stiffener. My squirt bottle was accidentally set to a heavier stream, so this fabric was soaked with stiffener. Even though I used a hairdryer to speed up the drying time, it took a while to dry.

Just to recap, this was the way the shade looked with just a gathering thread...

and here it is after pinning and spraying! I think it made a huge difference.

At this point, I tried the curtain in my nursery in my house and realized I had a problem. I'd let the shade go a little over my 3" wide window drawing, forgetting how little space I had to the right of the the nursery window. As a result, my shade was a quarter inch too wide. To eat up the extra width,I ran a gathering stitch along the top  of the shade to help gather it in, and then glued the top to a piece of 3" piece of strip wood. Then, I cut a piece of 3" wide white fabric, and glued the shade firmly to it.With a little coaxing, I was able to get the shade to the right width. Since the nursery window is along the back wall of the house, I didn't worry about what the shade would look like from the outside. The only problem I had was that reducing the width made the shade dip a little lower, so now it covers more of the window than I intended. It doesn't bother me enough to redo it (at least not now) but I do wish it was a little shorter.

And finally, here's the shade in the nursery. Please ignore the fact that it's hanging a little crookedly. It's just waxed up there temorarily, since I still need to fuss around with the top a little. Now I just need to finish dressing the crib, and make curtains for all the other rooms. Between the nursery and kitchen, I have four windows (nearly) finished, and sixteen more to go!