I SPLURGED!

I really did.  My credit card will never forgive me.  Heh.

We've been having a bit of a beastly time in our neck of the woods and, I suppose, I like retail therapy as much as the next girl.  My wonderful, entirely too supportive husband encouraged me to go ahead and buy the one thing I really wanted (that can be purchased): real marble tile for the Haunted Beacon Hill.  And, well, that led to him pointing out that, really, I shouldn't compromise my vision for the house by using less-than-desired cladding materials.  You can see where this is going.  Pretty soon, I'd bought out the entire store!

I can't say that it made this morning's funeral any less wretched, but it has given me warm and fuzzy fantasies about how I'll distract myself in the upcoming weeks.  

The tile, while ludicrously expensive, is really lovely.  It's pink!  Richard Stacey's entire line, I've recently discovered, is available for sale on eBay.  I don't normally care for eBay, but for some things I'll make the sacrifice.  This is particularly good, because it's not static; you can see, in real time, what sorts of colors of marble they're offering.  I also (hey, why ruin a good thing?) bought some deeply veined gray marble for the conservatory.  I'd originally been planning on going in a completely different direction, but this project has--appropriately for a haunted house, I suppose--taken on a life of its own.

In other news, I'm coming along with the carvings, and should have something to show for myself in that department soon.  I'm really excited to write about it, and show you what I've done.  What's holding me back right now, more than anything, is the mail--waiting for things to arrive!  The time I have (I took a couple of mental health days), the materials...

Also, too, I've been pondering the interior window trim and have realized, in doing that, that having any sort of sense of what I want necessitates having an indoor design plan.  The only room about which I have absolutely no ideas--or no good ideas, I should modify--is the dining room.  Normally I'm mad for dining rooms; I don't know what it is, this time.

On a final note, my son behaved really, really well today.  Jim and I were commenting that if only he were old enough, we'd take him out for an ice cream and presents.  He put up with quite a bit--strange, looming people not the least of which--and handled himself wonderfully.  Now, of course, everyone thinks we have the perfect baby!  Which, of course, we do.

Back at home, with Teddy.

I'm still sort of struggling along with the catacombs...

I hope everyone else's week has ended on a high note.

How To Make Old, Grimy Cookware

Surprisingly, there are a lot of things you can do with Chrysnbon cookware.  I have a couple different ideas in the works, and will be posting pictures when I'm further along with them.  Which, incidentally, might be awhile.  We actually have found a place to rent for the winter, but between work, moving, etc, I really don't know what the next few weeks will be like.  I do know that I'll have an actual craft room--if a small one--for awhile, which will be nice.  And, hopefully, our house will get built within a reasonable time frame.

Anyway, moving on...

You will need:

1. A set (or two) of Chrysnbon cookware.  Sometimes you can find it cheaper on eBay.  
2. Testors buffing aluminum plate metalizer (unless you have an airbrush, make sure you're buying the 3 oz spray and not the airbrush only formulation).
3. Testors metallic copper enamel.  I personally use the spray formulation, but it really doesn't matter; if you're more comfortable with a paintbrush, use the bottled version.  It's the same stuff, and interchangeable.  Sometimes, I spray things and end up touching them up with a brush later on; you can't tell the difference.
4. Americana brand craft paint in "lamp black" and "burnt sienna."
5. Q-tips (these are really good to have on hand anyway).
6. Toilet paper (for all purposes, I prefer Charmin Ultra Strong.
7. A sanding sponge or two.  I use 3M "fine" grit sanding sponges, which are intended for automotive use.  "Fine" is really, for miniature purposes, really more of a medium and, since these sponges hold a grit pretty well, as they dull down, they work well for successively finer work.  These are a little pricey but, in my opinion, worth the extra money; they last a long time, serve variable purposes, can take the place of multiple grits in many situations, and are excellent wet or dry.  If you buy them on Amazon, you can save as much as 40% off list.
8. Brushes.  Michael's actually sells some very high quality craft brushes for cheap.
9. Testors "dullcote" spray.
10. Water, and, if you're using enamels (as opposed to water based modeling paint), thinner.

Your first step is to separate all the pieces from the sprue, assemble them where necessary, and sand off any odd bits.  The little circles on the baking sheets, etc are almost impossible to completely remove; don't worry about it.  This is only a problem if you want brand new-looking cookware (and you can fix it; I'll get to that in a later post).

Depending on whether you want copper or aluminum, spray your pieces appropriately.  You'll be the happiest with your results if you work in successive thin coats.  Once you've gotten the coverage you want, LET YOUR PIECES DRY OVERNIGHT.  This applies also to situations where you have to spray one side and flip it over--i.e. the baking pans.  I usually leave about 6 hours' dry time in between, then let everything sit for a day or two.

For the aluminum pieces: using a q-tip, or a square of toilet paper where appropriate, buff each piece to a shine.  The metalizers can be a little tricky to work with; if you get too over-enthusiastic and buff off all your paint (hard, but possible to do), just spray it again and repeat the same process.  It's really necessary to buff; not only does it really transform the piece into something real-looking, un-buffed metalizer sheds like crazy.  It's attracted to the oil on your fingertips much the same way fingerprint powder is.  I learned the hard way, wash your hands thoroughly after you've finished buffing.  I've ended up accidentally leaving silvery fingerprints on more than one stove part.

Some aluminum pieces in various stages of buffing.  The "cast iron" pieces have just been sprayed with flat black.  I like aluminum cookware; my grandparents' cabinets were full of pots and pans that looked just like this.

For the copper pieces: assuming you want your copper to look old, you want to spray it with a coat or two of "dullcote."  Basically, what this does is remove the shine.  It also provides a good base for the acrylic paints.  Sometimes, depending on your spraying environment, the thickness of the coats, etc, you can end up getting a kind of cloudy effect which, depending on your ultimate goals, might not be desirable.  One way to avoid this is to, first, spray your copper with a gloss coat (Testors calls it "glosscote" and it's pretty good stuff) and, once that's dry, spray it once or twice with the "dullcote."

 

Successive thin coats are best.

Starting with the aluminum, paint the insides of the pans with successive washes of burnt sienna.  My own technique is to paint the wash and--working quickly--dab off the excess with a q-tip.  This creates a more realistically "gross" effect.  In my washes, I try to concentrate my paint in areas where goo would accrete.  

Then, going sparingly--you can always add more--darken some areas with successive washes of lamp black.  I went more heavily in some areas (the inside of the muffin tins, for example) than others.  The edges and corners--like in the baking sheet--got a fairly heavy treatment, too.  I've found that what works best for this is to use a fine angled brush and pull a line down as far into the crevice as you can.  then, you can blur the line either with a q-tip or with a second small (dry) brush.  Keep going until your pans are satisfactorily disgusting.

Pay special attention to areas that'd be discolored by burnt food, oils, etc.

Remember the hard to reach places like corners, under and around handles, etc.  Also, some areas (like the insides of muffin tins) seem to get more disgusting than others.  Or maybe only in my kitchen?

For the copper, start by painting the insides of the pieces black.  I find that this is really where the "dullcote" makes a difference; it gives the paint something to adhere to.  I did several coats on the insides of the pots, baking dish and coffee pot, but only a couple of thin coats (addled by q-tips) on the insides of the pans.

Then, when I did the outsides, I thought about--again--where copper pots naturally discolor.  I paid special attention to the area under the lip, the area around the handles and, of course, the undersides of the pots where they'd be sitting on the burners.

The "baked on grossness" look is created with q-tips.

I also used a q-tip to stipple the black on the insides of the pots.

Some areas--like the lids--didn't get much treatment at all, since, in real life, these don't tend to get too dirty.  Also, for example, the actual handles, since constant grabbing would keep them pretty grime-free (and oils on your hands, which rub off on the metal, prevent discoloration to some extent).  The important thing to remember is that successful aging involves contrast.  Grimy areas are interesting, because they're next to comparatively clean areas.

This isn't the best picture ever, but you can get a sense of where I added the black.

This can be kind of a long process.  My husband read me an entire (long) article about the politics of the moose lottery while I worked on the copper pots.  It's a really good activity, I think, for when you're watching TV, or stuck inside on a rainy day, and want something relatively simple--but also absorbing--to work on.

If you want to age your cast iron, what I personally think works best is Testors acrylic "rust."  Trust me, you want your washes to be water-based.  The pan on the left has been sprayed flat black; the pan on the right, after being sprayed flat black, was given a couple washes of rust.  I concentrated the color on one side more than the other, theorizing that my dolls' cast iron pans don't age any more equally than mine.  I also like to have pots, pans, etc in various stages of revoltingness in my dolls' kitchens; after all, in real life, not every pan was purchased at the same time, gets the same amount of use, is of the same quality, etc.

So there you have it: gross pans.  I'm also working on some other colors and styles, so hopefully I'll have some more pictures to post soon.

A Color Scheme is Born

As promised, there are pictures!  However, due to the fact that the plumbers installing our sprinkler system (hooray!) completely took over the basement, they're not as complete as I'd like and I couldn't reach my better lights to turn them on.  So please excuse the shadows!  In any event, a few more goodies had arrived at the house, and I thought I'd start there.  I'm not really sure, yet, what I'll end up using in each house; the Sue Cook mantelpiece was intended for the house I'm working on now, but I'm not sure I'll end up using it.  I have a kit for a Georgian house waiting in the wings, so it may end up there, instead.  I ordered the grates, because I'm intending to build my own surrounds (probably for a bedroom fireplace).  And, lastly, the plaster rosettes are for the dining room.

Goodies!

In person, this is an especially lovely piece.

 

These rosettes are for the dining room (for the corners of doors, etc.)

My idea is to, hopefully, build something fairly modest around it.

The lighting's really poor, here (I couldn't reach my work lights to turn them on), but these are a few shots of the in-progress shell.  I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing with lighting, etc. before I put everything together completely.  As I find things I want to use, I've been sticking them into the house, so I can see everything at once and get a sense of how it all works (or doesn't work) together.

The main body of the house, which contains the formal rooms.

This is the rear extension.  In this picture, I'm looking down from above on the (unpartitioned) second floor.  Because it contains the more, shall we say, unexciting rooms, it'll be comparatively much more plain.  One contrast that's always interested me, in Victorian homes, is that between public and private.  I've seen these elaborate parlors, dining rooms, etc, then made my way into the kitchen and been shocked by how barren it was.  I'm still trying to decide what to do with my kitchen, here.

An upstairs in progress.

The dining room.

The library.

Yes, I like to write on things with Sharpies.  The dining room will be comparatively monochromatic (I don't like using wallpaper in every room; some solid color walls help calm things down, and set off the wallpaper to its best advantage), but will have quite a bit of ornament.  I plan on using lincrusta ("lincrusta") wainscoting both here and in the hall.  My lincrusta-making supplies arrived the other day, and I'm quite pleased with them--more on that later!

I've been fairly undecided about the kitchen.  Were I to be entirely historically accurate, it would have rough plaster walls and ceiling, and a random plank floor.  I'm considering, though, using bead board wainscoting and linoleum instead.  Thoughts?

The kitchen is on the left, the storage room is on the right, and the inset porch (this I did steal directly from Lincoln's house) is in the middle.  I envision it as being fairly utilitarian.

This is my first Victorian-era house, although I've wanted to build one for ages and have visited many historic homes.  What I find to be the biggest decorating challenge--and it's even more acute in miniature--is capturing the Victorian love of busy patterns, bold colors, and stuff without creating a horrible hodgepodge.  And eyesore!  I've been collecting (what I think will be) my major design elements, so I can see them all together.  This includes wallpaper, flooring, the fabric I plan to use on the larger pieces of furniture, and any other ornament necessary to the room (mirrors, niches, etc.)  After a few false starts--I bought some lovely wallpaper that fits absolutely nowhere--I think I'm finally getting somewhere.

For the living room, a couple of different fabrics, some slightly more bohemian wallpaper, a parlor stove and, find of finds, some miniature-scale grass cloth for wainscoting.

Thoughts?

 In the family room, I'm trying to go for a more relaxed, bohemian feel--to create a room where you can actually imagine people gathering to relax after dinner as a family.  It's still a nice room, and most definitely a public space, but it's also--at least, historically--easygoing and child-friendly.  The formal parlor, on the other hand, is not.  The comparatively more severe golds, oranges, and greens say "sit up straight."  Also, too, while a stove has been installed over the original fireplace in the family room (they were much more efficient), the formal parlor will still have only a fireplace--and, thus, for much of the year be freezing cold.

I'm hoping to work this frame into my overmantel somehow.  Contributing to the severe effect, all the fabrics for the room will tie directly into the colors and/or design of the wallpaper.

The wallpaper for the master bedroom.

I don't plan on using everything I got for this house...or potentially at all.  I purchased a few different flooring sheets, wondering if they could be used either as intended or, potentially, as linoleum ("linoleum") tiles.  I was a little disappointed with the scale of this tile sheet; it's not detailed enough to pass for real marble, but the squares are too large for it to really look like linoleum, either.  So this is going into the miscellaneous materials drawer for now.

OK, but not really what I had in mind.

Still has possibilities, though!

 I wanted to use a little lincrusta in the house, both because I love the way it looks in real life and because, back then--certainly in America--man-made materials were all the rage.  Which is kind of hard to picture now!  Lincrusta was, like linoleum, made from linseed oil and used in a variety of applications.  My personal favorite was/is as wall ornament.  So, I thought I was really clever when I decided to buy a couple of 1:24 scale embossed papers to use.  I'll be making them into dado panels for the wainscoting.  I'll be using their 1:12 scale cousins as ceiling paper in a couple of the rooms.

I plan to use this pattern in the front hall; the angles will pick up the tiles nicely, I think (hope).

And here's the whole sheet.

I thought this would make lovely dado panels for the dining room wainscoting.  Good shapes and textures really work in a monochromatic setting, I think.  Each plays up the other.

 I might have no clue what I'm doing in the kitchen, but I've figured out the hallway.  Both linoleum tiles and encaustic tiles were popular throughout America during this time; linoleum (especially linoleum that looked like encaustic tile) was particularly popular in more rural areas.  It was expensive, and often chosen over (what we think of as) more desirable materials.  So, keeping that in mind, I'll probably doctor this up to look like linoleum.  This is, after all, no gentleman's house.

I promise, these colors really do work together--a fact which will be more obvious with the introduction of some solid colors, i.e. the wood flooring, the paint in the hallway, etc.

I don't know if it's totally obvious from this picture (the lighting really leaves something to be desired), but the orange in the wallpaper is the exact same burnt orange shade that's in the tile sheet.  They pick each other up nicely.

Also very hard to see in this terrible light, but the same orange is picked up again in my bohemian wallpaper.

So there it is.  It's a start.  I've brought up my plastic model-making supplies (although my metalizing sprays still haven't come), so hopefully I'll be able to work on the fixtures over the next month.  We'll be home after Labor Day, and I'm hoping by then that I'll have all my design issues worked out, so I can start right in on building the rest of the components (fireplaces, etc) and start installing everything. 

Thoughts?  It's really OK to tell me it's horrible (grin).  Anyone else facing any design issues?

Floor Tiles?

First off, if you want to see something really awesome, check this out.  Giac, I hope you don't think this is stalker-ish, but I've been (silently) following your progress for a long time now and, well, your work is amazing!  I hope everyone's as inspired by it as I am.  Also, something you've done really well has given me some questions about my own projects, particularly in regards to floors--your tile looks really realistic.

Which brings me to my question, everyone: what do you use for tile, and why?

Here's my dilemma.  On the one hand, I like using the real (sometimes "real", as in the case of stained glass) material whenever possible, i.e. wood, lead panes, etc etc etc.  But when it comes to tile, I can never figure out what to do--and this is why I rarely use it.  Real tile is, well, real tile, but the scale tends to be wrong.  The dips and divides between the individual tiles would be crater-like in real life.  Benefit of using the "right" material aside, they always seem, to me, to take the project out of scale.  Another option are polymer tiles--like the "marlike" tiles I discovered on another glorious blog, the Tudor Dollhouse Project.  And, of course, several talented folks have made their own tiles, using various media.  And, indeed, the "marlike" tiles are wonderful--but, specifically with the encaustic tile packages, I'm not thrilled with the scale.  Or maybe these mosaics aren't meant to be encaustic tile?

Which brings me to my (next) question: what does everyone think about paper tile sheets, such as are made by Les Chinoiseries?  On the one hand, I'm dubious of getting paper to look like real tile--but on the other, reproduced down to a (real) scale, an actual encaustic tile floor would have such tiny divisions between tiles (and the tiles themselves are so tiny!) it would really seem flat.

Also, too, what does everyone think about embossed tile sheets?  I've never worked with them, but have seen some very lovely results on others' blogs.  Are they difficult to work with?  Pro's and con's?

PS: I go back to the city every Friday for work, so next Friday--I forgot this Friday, as I had a very unpleasant meeting--I'll take some pictures of the house so far.  I'm also contemplating building a barn, but this will have to be from scratch, as the only barn kits available are for western-style barns, not English-style barns.  Unless one of you knows something I don't...?

My dollhouse really is turning into more of a farmhouse; color-wise, I've been inspired by a house down the road from where we are now:

PPS: next week, I'm also thinking of bringing up a few small projects, notably the wallpaper panels I'm making for the American Colonial, and the Chrysnbon kits I'm intending to kit-bash.  I've seen others do it--I can do it, too!  I think...

The Dollhouse Tudor Roof

I've always struggled with roofs.  Traditional kit-type roofs never seem to come out quite right.  With this house, my problem was twofold: create an authentic-looking tudor ridge line, and cover up the edges of the balsa.  After examining a few real tudor roofs, I came to the conclusion that three things, in particular, identify a roof as tudor: the thickness of the roof itself, the presence of gable, eave, and ridge line carvings, and, of course, the roofing material itself.  I'll be roofing this house with slate, eventually, but in the meantime...

I created the apex angle, glued my triangle, then taped it in place so I could measure the lengths of the eaves.

I tried dry-fitting several different combinations of carvings.  This is one I rejected.  I usually design my pieces by playing around with different component parts and seeing what happens.

Ultimately, I preferred this corbel.

I started gluing everything in place, from the apex out.

Here, I'm holding up a corbel so I can figure out where, exactly, I want to put it.  I've drawn a light pencil line in the background, indicating where I want to cut.  Creating these pieces was something of an organic process, as I wasn't sure, initially, what would look good.

I taped the piece in place.  It looked good, but something was missing.  I decided I needed something else...but what?

I looked at it from another angle.

And realized I needed to make the piece taller.

While the stain was drying, I put a first coat of copper paint on the drain pipe.  I carved this little piece to hold the pipe in place next to the house.  It'll connect to the gutter at the top.  Once I've had a chance to sand this piece, it'll look a lot smoother and more metal-like.

Here's the drain pipe, posed next to the gutter.  It'll only traverse the length of the first floor.  I taped the top to something so it could dry in place, with nothing fuzzing up the paint.  This is oil-based paint, and it takes forever to dry.

A copper gutter isn't strictly tudor, but this is where the "tudor fantasy" aspect of the project comes into play.

Stucco and Brick Cladding Tips

It seems so simple: just glue it on.  But, if you're anything like me, you've had at least one rage blackout while trying to clad a building.  How can something so "easy" possibly be so hard?  As I take a break from gluing on bricks, I'm going to share some tips I've picked up over the years.  Hopefully you can avoid some of my mistakes!

The hardest part about stuccoing a half timbered house is the little crevices.  It's hard to get the stucco in there without getting it everywhere!  What I did here, and what, generally, I think works very well is a two step process: stucco, then water.  I used a very fine brush to push stucco into the crevice, trying to keep everything as neat as possible.  Then, I took a very fine angled brush, loaded with clean water, and used it to "clean" the section around the crevice.  I'd swipe the area, leaving a slight film of left-over stucco, swirl my brush in the clean water, and swipe it again.  It's a little time consuming, but this process gets the beams clean and creates a very clean look.

Here, I'm cleaning the area.  Be prepared for this process to take hours.  I did all the little triangles first, because they're the most unpleasant.  I left the larger areas for later, since they a) use up more stucco, and b) are fun.  

I also highly recommend purchasing all the stucco powder and paint you need before you begin.  I actually ran out of stucco powder after completing a little more than one side, which is--in this case--OK, since more stucco powder is reasonably easily available.  However, powder formulations do change, and, often, so do batches of paint.  I bought a new bottle of "antique white" paint just for this project, and it's actually slightly darker than the last bottle I bought.

Use a spacer.  These are strips of 1/32" thick wood.  Make sure, though, that your rows remain parallel by periodically measuring both sides.  Don't eyeball it, and don't rely on the spacers to keep everything horizontal!  Once in awhile, rows will become slightly uneven, start listing to the left, etc.  The more often you spot check, the easier these problems are to identify and correct.

If you need 1/2 bricks, I recommend making yourself a little supply before you begin.  Generally, what I do is dry fit a row to see how everything will fit.  Here, I got lucky: my rows aligned perfectly.  My "1/2 bricks" are actually half bricks.  I've done projects before, though, where I had to fuzz things a bit, by using 1/3 bricks, and shortening the bricks immediately around them so everything appeared to line up.

I'm excited for sealing and grouting!

Notice, I'm NOT cladding the other side of the door.  That's because I'm going to wait until I've done the entire left side, and the first full-length row over the door.  Then, I'll clad the right-hand side of the door from top to bottom.  That way, all the bricks will line up.  Stay tuned, I'll post more pictures so you'll understand what I'm talking about.

And, best of all, soon I'll be ready to add the fountain!