The Dressmaker's Cottage: Wallpaper Beginnings

I don't have any 1:12 scale wallpaper in my stash, and ordering it is so expensive when you add in the cost of postage, so I decided tp print my own on my laser printer, and then seal it with ModPodge.

I found most of the patterns I used on Pinterest.  Some were full page, free printables, and others were free tileable pattern blocks.  I opened these in Microsoft Publisher on my laptop and tiled them across the page before printing them out.

It's a LOT easier to apply wallpaper to the walls when you can lay them flat on the table!  So before I glued the walls together, I applied wallpaper to as many surfaces as I could, then cut out the windows and door spaces using a sharp craft knife.

Here you can see the kitchen on the ground floor, and the bedroom upstairs.  The blue damask is almost identical to the wallpaper feature wall my daughter has in her own bedroom :-)

This is the lounge room and the sewing room, which is located in the little extension at the front.  The stairs will run up the right hand wall between the two rooms.  The bathroom will be at the top of the stairs, above the lounge room.

The Dressmaker's Cottage: The Beginning

Hi peeps!  I've been having a mini-break, lol.  I know I haven't yet finished the ModPod, but it's my middle daughter's 14th birthday next month, and although my kids have a dollhouse made by my Father-in-law when they were little, I'd love for her to have her own dollhouse to use to display collector's miniatures which are not for playing with ;-)

Now that I have increased my confidence in scratch-building with the ModPod, I would love to have a go at a "traditional" house in 1:12 scale.  I have long admired the shabby chic-style houses built by Cinderella Moments, so when I found a couple of posts on her blog outlining a tutorial for building a cottage, I was thrilled!

So, I have decided to make my take on her tutorial.  Like the ModPod, I will be building it out of foam board  rather then timber, just because I don't have the space or tools required to cut up sheets of timber and plywood!

I worked out rough dimensions first and then starting cutting into the A2 sheets of 5mm foam board I had leftover from the ModPod.

First, the base, with reinforcement underneath.  I will cover this with timber trim around the outer edges when I am finished.

The onto the outer walls.  It will be two storeys high, although the top floors will be like an attic space under the eaves.  There will be a kitchen, lounge, sewing room with a bathroom and bedroom upstairs.  Rear view:

Front view:

The flat space at the front will be a courtyard garden, with French doors leading into the cottage :-)

ModPod: The Glazing

It took me quite a while to find the right size and width of perspex I wanted for the doors and windows - I ended up having to order some off the internet, so then I had to wait for it to arrive :-)

There are two A4 sized pieces of  2mm perspex, which fit just nicely into the front of the Pod.

In order to mount the sliding doors, I glued pieces of 5mm wide plastic U-channel (from the local hobby shop), painted black with enamel paint, into the inside of the top and bottom of the front of the Pod.

I then realised that the two sides of the door overlapped right in the middle of the kitchen, which obstructed the view of the future modern kitchen!  Plus, I kinda want to put an island table in front of the doors so that the imaginary occupants can admire the view ;-)

So I resolved that by cutting down the two 2mm pieces of perspex and using a 3mm piece, cut to size, in the middle.  The middle piece will stay in place and the two outer doors will slide across.  All of them can be moved or removed for photographs - the 2mm pieces flex enough when bent to pop them in and out of the U channels.  The 3mm piece is too thick to remove that way, but it can be slid out of the way when the doors are removed :-)

The doors with the protective film in place:

Here I've removed the film from the middle "door" and Ive started framing the sliding doors:

Fro the framing I had to use something very think, or it would make the doors too thick to slide easily in the tracks, so I ended up using strips of thick craft paper, which I painted black and glued on with roller sticky tape!  Tacky glue dried too thick and ran out around the edges of the paper.

I used off cuts from the 2mm perspex to cut the slit windows, and popped them into place.  I'll leave the protective film on until I've finished so they don't get accidentally scratched.

The black box on top of the roof is the battery pack for the ceiling lights.  I'll use some black tubing to cover up the wiring when I mount it to the back wall, where I hope it will look like a power or air conditioner control box!

Ta da! Sliding doors!

I'm still debating what to use for door handles.  I found some pieces in my jewellery findings - they are the T bars from a couple of sets of bar and loop bracelet joiners - which I painted black.  I stuck them on with Blu-Tak to see what they look like:

Hmn, they'll do if I can't find anything else before I finish the Pod, although I don't know how I'll permanently attach them yet. 

Now for the interior!!  I have a few bits and bobs to put in, but the main construction is really the kitchen and I'm waiting for kits to arrive from the UK, from ELF Miniatures, to start.  I'm going to make the cupboards myself from scratch, but I've ordered a fridge, sink and taps and an oven front to insert into the cupboards, plus a few other things.  Exciting!

Mod Pod: The Roof

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I knew I wanted to install ceiling lights in the ModPod, and I figured the easiest way to do that was to create a false roof over the ceiling to hide the wiring.  You can the ceiling as it was, below.

The first thing I did was to find some more foamboard to create the roof.  This time I used thinner, 3mm foam core board from my stash.  I considered just painting it black, but I liked the thought of using something that looks a little more industrial, to go with the converted shipping container feel of the Pod.

I knew I had some A5 sheets of corrugated cardboard in the craft stash, so I painted four of them black to match the Pod.

When they dried, I glued them onto the 3mm pieces of foam board I used for the roof, which sits on top of the wiring.  I now needed a frame to keep the roof on the Pod like a "lid" (so that I can still gain access to the lights if required), to cover up the gap at the front between the ceiling and the roof, and to cover the joins between the pieces of corrugated cardboard.

I covered the joins with strips of 2.5mm x 2.5mm balsa wood, and made the outside frame from "L" shaped angle timber (from the local hobby shop).

Now painted black, it's starting to look more like a roof!

A little bit of balsa wood trim along the front...

 And voila!  Roof done :-) 

Pretty happy with it so far.  I think once I get the glazing on, especially the sliding 'glass' doors I am planning for the front, it will look pretty cool (if I do say so myself, lol).

ModPod: Interior Walls

Hi peeps!

I was finally able to get hold of some more balsa sticks, so I continued lining the interior walls.

Once I had done that, I couldn't help but to have a little "play" with some of the accessories I have purchased for the Pod!  Loving that little "cow hide" rug :-)

The, on to the painting and staining!  I wanted to have white walls and ceiling in order to make the Pod seem more spacious and clean - and modern, of course! - so I painted the back wall and the bedroom walls with the thin coat of Titanium White (so that you can still see the "boards", which is so trendy right now).

I knew I wanted to stain the floor and feature wall and I went back and forth over which colour stain to use - and whether I should just seal the wood with a clear sealer instead!  In the end I went with what I was hoping to be a light brown.  The test pieces looked good, but as you can see, the final colour ended up being very orange!!

You live and learn, LOL.  I don't hate it at all, but it's not the super modern look I was originally after.  I do wonder if I should have just sealed it with a clear coat, but I'm certain that I would never get it back to the original colour if I sand it back, as the balsa is thin, and soaks up so much stain.  Next time ;-)

Anyway, I think it's a nice contrast against the black exterior and white interior.

At this point I added the bedroom wall piece to see how it looked, and to decided whether it needs cladding too?  I was vaguely thinking of painting in faux concrete, but one feature wall in such a small space is enough.

Just for fun, I popped the lights back in to see what the ModPod looks like all lit up now :-)

Now we are getting somewhere!

ModPod: Feature wall and lighting

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am really liking the "timber" effect of the balsa sticks, today I continued the sticks up the lounge room wall.

I've decided I will line the rest of the walls, but at this point I ran out of balsa sticks, so I moved on to the lighting!

I was originally thinking of using some LED light kits which I have, but after looking at lots of pics on Pinterest, I decided that simple is often the best and decided to use a string of ready-made battery powered LED lights.  I bought a set for $3 in a discount bin and removed the plastic heart-shaped covers from the lights, leaving the bare bulbs.

I then measured out 10 equidistant spots on the ceiling - 2 rows of 5 - and made holes with a drill bit, just big enough to poke the lights through.

And voila!  Downlights!

For durability, I am looking at lining the interiors of the holes with large metal eyelets, but I haven't been able to find any the right size yet.