Don't cry, it'll be all right

Yesterday I dug out the Victorian wash house to make a rack to put next to the sink.
I measured several times before I cut the pieces and glued the rack together, then I slid it into place to mark where I needed to glue the other support. I realized I had overlooked something. There was a post in the corner of the room, and it was in the way of the rack. I made alterations in the rack so it would fit. No problem.

Next I measured and cut the support, but it wouldn't fit. I sanded a tiny bit off the end - still didn't fit. I sanded some more - still didn't fit. I kept on sanding infinitesimal bits off the end, and it finally came out a little short. By this point I didn't care. - It'll be all right in the end.

Next I put the rack into place and tried to slide the support between the rack and the wall to make sure it all fit before I started staining and gluing, but the support kept falling out. I guessed it was because it's being a tiny-tiny bit too short did matter after all.

I made another support, and this time it looked like everything was going to be OK.

This morning I went downstairs to double check the rack and support so I could stain them. They wouldn't fit. Maybe the little gremlins came in during the night and pumped the wooden slats with enough moisture to make them expand, I don't know, I only knew the pieces wouldn't fit.

I'd had enough of this piddling around with the stupid rack and decided to make a new one, one that fit better.

Using the rotten crummy old rack as a template to show me what not to do with the second rack, I cut new slats. I came out a slat short. No problem, I have another strip of that wood. No--- turns out that strip was narrower. I hunted through all my scrapwood - and believe me I have a lot of scrapwood - boxes of it --but I didn't have any pieces of that particular dimension. I broke up the discarded rack and used the longest piece, even though it's a little short. It'll be all right, I'll rig up something to support that short end.

Right now the glue is drying on part of the rack. Next I'll have to carefully flip it over so I can glue a skinny little support near the other end of the rack. It'll be all right in the end.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

Do you ever feel that your dollhouse has a mind of its own? Annie: a dollhouse story

Mid century modern

Last night I felt like doing something constructive, but I didn't have the energy to actually do something, so I decided to scan some pictures I had saved from old magazines. Then I thought, I might as well add them to my Picasa albums.
There are now 2 more albums, pictures from the October 1956 issue of House beautiful, and September 1957 House and Garden. My Picasa albums

What's new at New England Miniatures - Feb 8

Added 3 new items today.
The Rococo chair and ottoman is from the Platinum line, made for Aztec Miniatures by Bespaq.

A blanket chest in walnut finish in a timeless design

Thirdly, a white wire side table which goes nicely with New England Miniatures' other white wire garden furniture.

See these and other fine dollhouse furniture & accessories at New England Miniatures
Don't forget, we ship everyday by US Priority mail 2-3 day delivery, and although we don't shout that we have the lowest prices on the web, most of the time we really do.

What's new at New England Miniatures

I added several new pieces to New England Miniatures today.
Among them are a maroon leather sofa and loveseat from Aztec Platinum. We already carry the matching chair and ottoman. One of the nice things about this set is that they can fit both modern and traditional room designs depending on what kind of tables and accessories you use.

Other Platinum items are the British explorer's desk and British colonial chair.

I also added a wire rattan style couch. I really like the ones that are true to period designs.

See these and the other new items at New England Miniatures.

It's been a while since I posted

Today is January 13, 2012. It seems like there just aren't enough hours in the day lately.
I've had no time to work on the wash house, I just finally got my Christmas tree down and my living room straightened up yesterday!
Since I feel guilty that I don't have new pictures of the wash house to show, I've dug out a couple of links I found recently.
Here's one to a model railroading site. DIY Layered Rock. Keep in mind that the author is working in smaller that 1" scale, but the technique will work in 1" or 1/2" depending on how thick you make your plaster. He goes on to make a cast of the resulting stone wall which could be helpful to small scale builders.
Also, check the Scenery and Weathering sections for more tips and ideas.

I found a bottle of Liquid Sculpey when I was clearing out a drawer. Obviously I wanted to try it for some project or effect, but I've forgotten what it was. Here's a link to Translucent Liquid Sculpey Techniques. I just skimmed through it. I didn't want to get too excited and want to try something new when I haven't even managed to finish my current project, for pity's sake.

OK- here comes the commercial....
A few of the new items I've added to New England Miniatures:
Here's Bespaq's retired lace Front Curio shown in walnut. I also have mahogany, but both are in extremely limited amounts. Once they're gone - they're gone forever.

Next comes a window air conditioner. That's something you don't see everyday, a dollhouse air conditioner.

Here's Lee's Line Ashley desk. We carry many Lee's Line items at New England Miniatures.

Besides this new runner, a few other rugs are back in stock.

We show new additions on our new items page for about 3-4 weeks. I'm always looking for something new to add. The other day I wondered how many pieces of furniture were in our Living Room section. I counted 226 sofas, chairs, rockers, end tables, coffee tables and assorted cabinets! That's a lot of mini furniture.

A reprint of my Non-Working Venetian Blind tutorial. Hope this works for you Kathi.

This project is pretty easy to do. The materials are cheap, so if you make a mistake, just start over. The result looks pretty impressive.

Materials:
Cardstock
Ribbon
Dollhouse molding or strip wood for the valance
Hot glue or other glue for attaching ribbon to paper
White, wood glue, (or optional contact cement)
Thin scrap wood

The slats of the blind are cut from cardstock. I happened to have a paper cutter, which made cutting the paper strips a quick job.
Cut a sheet of cardstock to the width of your window frame. You’ll then cut the strips from this sheet.
Ideally, the paper strips should be 3/16” wide, which equals a 2” wide real life blind slat, but ¼” wide strips work just as well.
You’ll need enough strips so that when laid side by side, they’ll cover the window. I saw right away that not all the strips I cut were exactly alike. Some were a bit too narrow, others a bit too wide, so I cut more than I needed.
Once I had a nice little array of paper strips I started matching up the ones that were closest in size, and I arranged them so that they’d cover about half my window. I then set these safely to one side, keeping the other strips to stack at the bottom of the blind.
If you want your blind to cover the full length of your window, you’ll just have to make sure you have enough paper strips that are the same width.
I then cut 2 lengths of ribbon, making them quite a bit longer than I needed, in case I made a mistake somewhere.

I drew a picture of the window on a piece of paper, then I drew on how I wanted the blinds to look, measuring the distance between the tapes (ribbon).
and checking how many slats I was going to need. A standard single dollhouse window needs about 13 slats to cover it halfway and about 26 for full length.

Iron the ribbon before you use it, so that it stays nice and flat. I used a bit of spray starch to stiffen it up a little, and make it easier to work with.

I decided to use hot glue, because I didn’t feel like waiting for glue to dry, and I wanted to make sure my paper slats or ribbon didn’t crumple from the glue. You can use any other glue that you feel works well for you.

Lay a length of ribbon on the table, then squeeze a thin bead of hot glue on the ribbon, about 1” or so long. You don't want the glue to harden before you get your paper strips attached. Carefully lay your paper strips on the glue, pressing down gently. You’ll want to leave about a ½” overhang.
You’ll also want to leave an extra 1” or so of ribbon at the top.
Once you’ve got one side done, carefully flip the paper strips and ribbon over.
To attach the second ribbon, you’ll need to glue the ribbon down onto the strips, instead of gluing the strips to the ribbon. From my experience, I found this the easier way.
Mark your ribbon, so you know where to bead on the glue. You don’t want it to go up or down too far, or it will get in the way during the next steps.

You should now have what, on the face of it, looks like an unfinished tiny Venetian blind.
If you’ve decided to make a blind that completely covers the window, you can skip the next section I call “stacking”.

Remember the extra paper strips, that may have included ones that were maybe a tiny bit too narrow or wide? You can use these at the bottom of the blind.
If you look at a real size Venetian or mini-blind, you’ll see there’s a wooden or polyvinyl slat at the bottom. I used a Skinny Stick to make one for the miniature blind. You can also cut one from a 1/16” thick piece of basswood, or a craft stick. Cut it the same size as your paper strips, and paint it white, and let dry.
Next, glue a paper strip to the wooden slat. Use just a narrow bead of white glue down the center. Keep gluing on strips of paper till the height of the stack looks right. How many should you glue on a stack? That’s up to you.


If you’re making your blinds full length, you’ll just need the wooden slat.

Position your slat, with the stacked paper strips, on its side, just under your unfinished Venetian blind. You’re going to hot glue the ribbon to the front of the stack, then down under the bottom and up the back.
When it’s all cooled, dry, and secure, you’ll need to glue the ribbon up the back of the paper strips.
At this point, you’ll have a cute, very mini Venetian blind. All you have to do now is attach it to the window frame.

Next I cut a length of dollhouse molding, though I could also have used stripwood, for my valance.
I lined the top of the blind with the bottom of the valance. I chose to overlap my blind slightly (about 1/32" or less), gluing it to the very bottom edge of the back of the valance. I thought it might make the blind a little bit sturdier. Then I glued the end front and back ends of the ribbons to the back of the valance, cutting off any extra ribbon.

I used a short piece of bass stripwood as a spacer, and also to help in firmly attaching the blind to the window frame.
The spacer makes the top of the blind come forward slightly, so that the bulge at the bottom isn't noticible unless you peer closely at a side view.
I glued the spacer to the back of the valance, sandwiching that tiny edge of the top paper strip between the 2 pieces of wood.
When the whole assembly was dry I glued it to the window frame. Since I was using wood glue, which can sometimes take a while to set, I turned the house on its side, so that the wall be more or less horizontal.

It occured to me now, that contact cement is another solution. You'd need to spread a little of the glue to the back of the spacer, and some to the section of the window frame where you were going to attach the blind. Wait 10 to 15 minutes til the glue was dry, then set the blind into place. You have to be careful and do it right the first time, because you will probably not be able to reposition it.

The last step is to cut tiny pieces of valance molding to glue into the space between the valance front and the wall. See side view photo.
You can skip the side pieces if no one is going to see them. I believe I attached one to only to one side, because no one will ever see the back side view.

When gluing the paper strips, I placed them side by side, and when the light shines through the window, you can see little glimmers of light. If you want to block the light, overlap your paper strips slightly when gluing them to the ribbon.

Part 8 - the stone sink

I finished the stone sink a few days ago, and added a little more plaster, I wanted to smooth the plaster a bit, and fill in some gaps, but I haven't had the a chance to do so, so the area around the sink is a bit rough. Just ignore it, ok?

The sink is a box made of basswood, covered all around the sides with a strip of Rigid Wrap. I've used the product in several projects. Here's a link to the manufacturer's page, with information about the product.
I wanted to be sure the box stayed firmly glued together, and also thought the Rigid Wrap would be a good base for the faux stonework.
Here's a closeup of the sink. The bits of white you see are from the plaster, I wanted to take the picture before it got dark and I didn't have time to wash the plaster bits off.

I covered 3 exterior sides of my sink with a thin layer of plaster. I also added a thin layer to the top edges and inside walls. I left the sink base bare wood.
When the plaster was to my liking, I stippled it a little with a small stenciling brush, then I patted it a bit with my finger so it wouldn't be too dimpled or lumpy.

When the plaster was dry I began to paint. - Remember, as long as your plaster,(drywall compound, stucco, etc.) is unpainted, you can smooth it or fix any cracks, or add more plaster with no problem.
The colors I used to create the stone look were: Payne's Gray, Medium Hauser Green, a dark brown and a warm white.
I described Payne's Gray in the timbering section. You can use any kind of off white when you need to lighten a stone color, just don't use plain regular white. It just doesn't give the right effect.
Terre Verte, or Green Earth, adds a nice touch to painted stonework. I didn't happen to have any handy, so I used the Medium Hauser Green instead, which worked very well.

I squirted a bit of each color onto my palette, which happens to be a foam plate. I took a dab each from my Payne's Gray, warm white, and half a dab from the green and brown, then I swirled them together till they were somewhat mixed, but splotchy. I could then see what color I needed more of, and I added more of the warm white, then a little of the gray, etc., always keeping the color on my plate not quite mixed. Having the color all smoothly mixed on the plate is bad, so don't do that. if your color has been over mixed, add more of the colors so it'll be splotchy again. If you try it, you'll see what I mean.
Next I started putting paint on the sink, adding dabs of color, then spreading the color around with a stippling movement - never brushing it on. I'dd more paint as needed, sometimes adding more green, brown or off white to my mixed swirl of paint on the plate.
The stone effect you see on the sink is more the result of the paint than the plaster, the plaster just helps a little.

Stone sinks come in different shades, grayer, browner, greener, whiter. Some are smooth, others rougher. My wash house sink is supposed to have a rougher surface than perhaps some stone kitchen sinks.
Don't be afraid to experiment with faux painting techniques. Use scrapwood if you have it, paper or cardstock if you don't, but plain paper will absorb the paint differently and sometimes results will look different than they would on wood.

On a final note, I'd also like to mention we added a few new items to New England Miniatures last week. The miniature keyboard now has the option of a case/gift box. We do have a few of them left without the gift box at the original lower price. There's also an ice cream maker. I checked each and every one to make sure the handles fit into the holes, too. Some of them didn't want to, but I fixed that. There's a nice iron look chandelier with wooden candles. We've also added a sconce light with matching ceiling lamp.

But the picture of the ceiling lamp is upside down, you say? Well, that depends on how you look at the lamp. My husband unpacked the shipment and noted that they were table lamps, and I had to admit they do make a nice dining table or sideboard lamp, although the order form read ceiling light.