Cleaning up at the Summer KDF

Once more to Kensington Town Hall on 11 May for the Summer Festival. I went with an expat American friend - expert quiltmaker and all-round needlewoman - who, although a regular attender of the big stitching shows, had never been to a miniaturists' fair before. She was amazed at so much skill and ingenuity and specially delighted to discover the mini florists, inlaid furniture and ceramics.  We had a great time going around the show, I don't think we missed a single stand!

 

I'd resolved to keep a tight hold on my purse and not give way to too many self-administered treats (I knew it would be impossible to forbid myself completely). I went for this bright red dustpan and brush from Laurence and Angela St Leger because I had nothing made by them already, and I've always loved how they put their own style on the most ordinary household items.

 

I called in to see Steve Messenger, kit-designer at Sid Cooke's, and took another look at the completed Bon Marché model. I wanted to check the roof opening and also see whether I could alter the chimney height and position. Steve tells me he is taking plenty of orders from the US these days.

 

 

 

After that, my other 'practical ' call was to Wood Supplies (see their catalogue at wood-supplies.com ) for a neatly packaged boxful of pre-ordered cornices, skirting boards, picture rails etc. Let's hope all my estimates and calculations are correct!

 

 

 



This charming mirror by Tarbena (see tarbenaminiatures.co.uk) will hang in the hallway. It deliberately doesn't go with the wallpaper but reminds us of Charlie Brennan's heyday as an antique dealer. There are quality items like this scattered throughout his house, Charlie gets attached to certain things and 'forgets' to sell them on. 

 

 

 

Not such a glamorous object but vital to the story: I collected a small sink unit for the ground floor kitchenette from Rob Lucas (see worldofmyownminiatures.co.uk). At home, I swapped the Belfast sink and drainer supplied by Rob for a shallower Butler-style with ribbed sides that I already had. This small unit with its single cold water tap would have been the one and only when the house was newly built. A larger sink and unit were put in later upstairs, when the big kitchen was created and a hot water geyser installed; and what a wonderful innovation that must have seemed.

 

 

 

 While at World of My Own's stand, my eye fell upon this perfect little meat safe - absolutely identical to the one my grandmother had hanging on the wall outside the back door.

 

I had to have it for one other nostalgic reason. When my grandparents eventually bought a fridge they didn't need the meat safe any longer and threw it away into a corner of their garage. From where I rescued it, scrubbed it clean and with my grandfather's help - tools, scraps of wood and old pots of gloss paint - converted it into a dolls house that I could keep and play with whenever I visited them. As an avid eleven-year-old reader, I had just devoured Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca so I called my new mansion Manderley . . . what else?

 

charliechas

    

  

 

Obsessionistas

In my previous post (Newels and nosings, 2 May), I'd decided the stair balustrades were to be painted a deep cream in contrast to the dark oak-stained woodwork of the rest. They are done now and I'm rather pleased with the dowdy effect. The assembled parts are still not finally glued together because first I need to mix some murky-coloured acrylic and wash a layer of grime into the turned bits, to stop them looking too shiny and new.

I know that weathering or ageing certain aspects of our miniatures points to an obsession with mini details but I also know we are not alone. This time, instead of my caboodle, here is a link to two remarkable collectors, Tom Giannini and Linda Gavin. 

http://www.obsessionistas.co.uk/collections/category/furniture

Don't miss the prompts 'Click to read more ...' for their fascinating stories.

This weekend is Dolls House Festival time once more at Kensington Town Hall. Good luck to everyone involved! My planned purchases are very down-to-earth and practical, no impulse-buying allowed. But of course, one can never be quite sure . . .       

charliechas

Newels and nosings

Before installing the three flights of stairs in this shop/house, I had to decide how to treat the woodwork. Would it be painted or stained and what colours would I use? In the end I chose to copy the type of decoration that we had discovered under various layers of paint in our own RL house.

It's a typical terraced villa built in 1906 - right in the middle of the Edwardian period. When we moved in, it had kept its original stained glass front door, plaster mouldings and brass door knobs. However, it wasn't until we stripped down the window frames, skirting boards etc for repainting that we uncovered the dark brown stain that had been applied to the pine wood in the beginning. Obviously an attempt to convert it to instant ancestral oak!

So, assuming that no one had wanted to change the look of the staircases throughout the twenties and thirties,  this is what I have done to the miniature woodwork, using the same stain as on the floorboards (In at the ground floor, 5 November 2012).

And since I don't want a glossy effect, I have just waxed and polished the 'oak' stained parts to a moderately smooth finish. The balustrades or spindles will all be painted a contrasting shade of deep cream, in a nod to the move that the Edwardians made away from the heavy Victorian style.

Apart from the business of newels and nosings, I've done a little more kit bashing and installed an extra window in the side wall of the lodger's room at the top of the house. The room has a large dormer window but I had a small square frame lying about doing nothing and it seemed a pity to waste it!

It's been fitted high enough to allow furniture to stand underneath because the sloping ceiling doesn't leave very much upright wall space in that room.

Josje's recent post, josje-bouwt.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-day-at-museum on the re-opening of the Rijksmuseum, showed some beautiful miniature silverware. Now I certainly don't have anything to match such a marvellous display, but it reminded me that I have collected a few pieces in the past (when I could afford them!).

The lovely monteith bowl is by Ken Palmer, one day I may get some little glass cups to hang round the rim. The pair of serving spoons is by Jens Torp. The minute salt cellar and even tinier salt spoon are the work of Mike Sparrow. The candlesticks, wine cooler and cake basket are from the Royal Tunbridge Wells Miniatures collection issued during the mid-1990s.

charliechas

Hall, stairs and landing(s)

The toughest decorating job in any house is papering and painting the hall, stairs and landings, so in the case of Bon Marché, I'm glad to get it out of the way early. I don't have any choice to be honest because all three staircases run sideways up the back wall and I can't progress until they are in position and the wallpaper must go on first!

As I mentioned in my last post (Measure twice . . . 2 April), the wallpaper design was printed from a CD. Inkjet inks are water soluble so I couldn't use ordinary wallpaper paste and I'm having to trust to spray mounting the A4 paper directly onto the MDF and smoothing it down firmly with a clean soft cloth (synthetic fleece is ideal). With the paper held top and bottom by mouldings and skirting boards not to mention the stairs themselves, I'm hoping things should stick OK. But if any peeling does occur, the old shop/house is not meant to be in perfect repair and it won't really matter!

This shows the wallpaper following the line of the first flight of stairs. The area behind the stairs is Charlie Brennan's kitchenette at the back of the shop, and here I'm also trying out the position of the sink and draining board. Above the sink there'll be a dummy window. I might also install a false door down to the (imaginary) cellar if space allows.


The caboodle theme is sculptural this time. 

Remember that Charlie's shop specialized in antiques and curios before the war, which accounts for anything and everything gathered together here, from a statue of the Hindu god Vishnu, a suit of armour, the figurehead from the good ship Centurion and the gilded Virgin and Child from a baroque crib, to various other bits and pieces (probably destined to stand gathering moss out in Frankie's yard if there's no room indoors).

charliechas

Measure twice . . .

Our clocks have just gone forward one hour for British Summer Time but that signifies nothing this year, we are still waking to frosty rooftops and a cutting east wind that won't drop. However, when I might otherwise have been outside gardening, I've stayed in the warm working on the shop/house Bon Marché.

After deciding to swap and relocate the internal walls between Floors 2 and 3 (Having a bash, 14 March 2013) I've pencilled all the new positions on Floor 2 - several times over as it happened, because I was forced to pin my vague visualizations down to physical reality and precise measurements! 
At the bottom of the second flight of stairs, I've created a concealed space for the lighting switchboard, the SWP power controller, (see Kensington Christmas Festival, 29 November 2012) which I shall mount on the back of the dummy door to the living room.

The dummy door has no hinges, instead it will lift out completely for access to wiring and switches, via the narrow opening panel on the left of the house. A hole drilled in the rear wall will allow the jack plug to feed through from the regulated dc power supply. As you can see, this particular board has a convenient socket for the jack, which saves any more faffing about with connecting wires - hooray.

Two tiny holes drilled in the centre of Floor 2 mark the positions of my first ceiling lights, in the shop area below. These are the elegant double-armed models bought from Ray Storey last November. And I've papered the shop ceiling as well, using a remnant of Lincrusta from our own RL decorating. 

After threading them through to the floor above, each pair of wires is firmly taped in position, ready for connection to the board. I think I am slowly becoming a real electrican!

The lights fit neatly against the ceiling. The carcase lies on its side as I work on it, but when it's turned upright, the chain switches will of course hang vertically. 

I've always found the use of full-scale wallpapers quite attractive when looking into antique dolls houses, and I'm keen to try the effect in my own. I think of it as the Picasso trick because it plays ambiguously with proportions, space and distance.

I found a book and CD of fabric designs in a museum shop and printed enough copies of this late-Victorian iris pattern to cover the staircase wall. Its large scale will be scarcely visible except through balusters and open doorways so we shall only get occasional glimpses. 

The caboodle this time is a wooden dresser destined for the kitchen next to the living room on Floor 2. It's a much-altered ebay purchase with the varnish sanded off and ball feet removed so the cupboard is flush to the floor. The shelf sides were cut back to give a larger work surface and the door and drawer handles replaced by white 'china' knobs - actually map pins, glued in with the points safely snipped off inside. When I saw how nice the plain wood looked I abandoned the idea of shabby painting the dresser. Instead I'll use a dab of shoe polish to match the kitchen table top. 

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charliechas