My dolls house - part 3

After I had finished the kitchen I started on the hallway.  Both on the ground floor and first floor there are supposed to be stairs, but when I'd put in the stairs to the first floor I regretted it straight away.  What use is an empty hallway behind the stairs if you can't see anything and next to them there wasn't much room.  I made the decision to change the layout of the house, well, sort of...  I made a door in the wall at the far end, suggesting that the house was bigger and the stairs would be at the back of the house.  Possible.  Ain't that right?

When I made the stairs, way before I started on the hallway, I did so under supervision of my little cat.  She's no longer alive and I miss her dearly.  She was such good company while I was working and never got in the way.  Mostly she was content just basking in the sun and watching the chickens outside. (BTW I have moved twice since and don't have the chickens anymore either.  The more is the pity...)

little Misty

So, I made the door with a kind of leadlight window, cut a hole in the wall, made a door frame and placed the door.  I reckon it looks good.  The walls I have covered with stained paddlepopsticks and the wall above that I have painted off-white with a bit of sand added to the paint.  This gives it a nice texture.  I'd done the same with the wall over the fire place in the kitchen and liked the effect very much.

At the time I didn't really know what to do with the floor, until I happened upon some black contact that looked a bit like marble.  I bought some white contact as well and cut out the tiles for the hallway.  It gives it an old fashioned look that I like.  The lamp, as well as the umbrella stand and a waste paper basket I have painted green (the lamp with glass paint, the others with acrylics) and stuck some gold stickers on for decoration.  Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the bin and umbrella stand, but if you take a look at the lamp you get the drift.

hallway

By the time I took this photo I had already made the doors on both sides as well.  In actual fact however, they were done after downstairs was finished.  I didn't want to leave the doors plain, so bought some strips of 0.5 mm thick (or should I say 'thin' ;-)) and glued these on.  In the future, with other dollshouses or roomboxes, I might be more adventurous and use the router to do some shaping.  For now I am happy enough with the strips.

Next was the living room and this one took me a long, long time, because I wanted a parquet floor.  I had a whole box with veneer, given to me by a friend some years before.  She'd also given me a cutter, so I sat there, day after day, cutting little strips of veneer.  I glued them all on cardboard (easier to just slide into a room) and gave them a coat with bees wax.  It looked super and still does.  It was a lot of work, but well worth it:

showing the difference between waxed and not waxed

Besides the wallpaper in the kitchen, which I liked, I never used any of the flooring or wallpapers that came with the house.  In the room I have used very dark paper, so very much liked in the stuffy and dark Victorian period.

The furniture for the living room I had already done, so I do have a cabinet with shelves, a lounge, a dining table and four chairs.  None of them done with any creativity on my part.  Since they were almost the first parts of furniture I made, I just followed the instructions.

This is roughly what I had, save for the guitar and other small stuff, which I made much later

Later I made the mantelpiece and a fire in the hearth.  The mantelpiece is partially faux marble.  It took a lot of time getting it right.  The fire is lit by way of a flickering light.  I bought the kit and soldered it with the help of my son. (Soldering is not my strongest side!)  Luckily I had some wallpaper left to cover the top half of the mantelpiece.  The old wallpaper had slightly faded, but I bet that by now I won't see the difference anymore. 

You can tell that by then I was becoming a bit more adventurous.  The basket for the fire I designed and made myself.  The front is part of a metal balcony railing, the end bits are toothpicks and the back just blackened cardboard with a finding bought at the egg decorators.  The 'coal' is painted cat litter!

And this is it for today.  The following update will probably be a small one and after that I will try and take pictures as I go, because between then and now I have hardly done a thing...

Rest me to welcome three more followers:

Adrie from the Netherlands at Adrie's Poppenhuizen, mindymax and rmartedal.  The last two don't seem to have a blog or website, so please, if you read this and you do have one let me know and I post it here.  Anyway, a warm welcome on my blog and I hope you'll enjoy the reading.

In the meantime I have also worked on my log this afternoon.  There were a number of items I had left out in the past, and probably a greater number from earlier this year, but that'll be done next week or so.  At least I am heading in the right direction. ;-)

See you all next time.