Shapeways order

My order from the 3D printing service Shapeways, has arrived.  I chose the delayed delivery option to save some money because I knew I wouldn't be needing them for a while.  All the items were from the store, Pretty Small Things.

The wing chairs will go with an Art Deco side table with a chess set on it and the electric chair belongs in the Dungeon - obviously!  The filing cabinet will go in the War Room and the stove in the kitchen (of course).

Two Victorian wing chairs

Electric chair!

Vintage stove and oven

Filing cabinet on castors

Obviously all of the items require painting; I'll have to do some research on the best way to prepare the surface and which paints to use.

Bits and bobs

I finally made it to the post office today to pick up some parcels.  One was a book I ordered on eBay by Jean Nisbett: Doll's House Inspiration.  I ordered it because I plan to build a Dutch dollhouse at some point in the future, although a contemporary one, and this book has a couple of examples of a Dutch Canal House in it. I fell in love with the canal houses when we visited Amsterdam, although we stayed for a month with relatives in the countryside and my experience is more with the traditional urban homes - huge picture windows facing the street with their spectacularly neat living rooms on display. Divine.

The second package was my LED light kits from the US.  I've never used LEDs before, so that should be exciting... and challenging!

And finally, I received a little box full of 1:24 scale kits for accessories for the Art Deco build.  A filing cabinet, sink kit, rotary phones, a trunk, shovels (of course!) and many others.  They are going to keep me busy gluing and painting for a while.  I have no confidence in my miniature painting abilities, so I could very well wreck them, so I have all my fingers and toes crossed I don't do too badly, lol.  If worse come to worst, I might have to resort to asking my Mother, who is a much better painter than me, and has experience with tiny brushes!

The Fairfield: Beginner-itis!

So, it's been months and months since I finally received my dollhouse kit, but apart from opening it and making sure I had all the contents, I haven't done anything with it! At first it was because it was just before my eldest daughter's birthday, and then it was Christmas... and new year... and then school went back with my eldest starting high school... and then when I finally had some time to start on it I became completely overwhelmed by the amount of work it will require!

Hence it has sat in it's box in the cupboard until now. It was my youngest daughter's birthday party last weekend, and she wanted an arts and crafts party. It went off really well and it re-sparked by creativity a little. I haven't even knit or crochet for weeks! Anyway, it inspired me to revisit my Pinterest inspiration boards, and then I managed to find myself on Etsy (I really don't know how that happened... ahem), where I found the most wonderful half scale hat by Kat Hazelton, inspired by the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter!  Despite the postage cost, I had to have it, and hopefully it will be on it's way to me soon :D

A few minutes later, another item seemed to mysteriously jump into my shopping cart: a half scale writing set by MiniFanaticus. It's just gorgeous.

I can't wait to receive it as well. I can just see it sitting on a table in the library.

They have both prompted me to dig through my things and find the doors and windows I started on last year. I've been reading some more tutorials on weathering effects and I think that I will need to do some more work on them.

I've done the first coat of Wenge stain on the three new double windows and wiped it off. I'll do another coat when it's dry. Then I'll do some sanding!

I also started sanding back the three interior doors I stained and waxed. I don't like the wax finish I've now decided, nor the almost-black colour of the doors, so I've taken a lot of it off with 120 grit sandpaper, and I also had a go at them with a small wire brush.  Sadly I got too enthusiastic with the front door, and I broke it, ooops. Never mind, I don't think it's anything some glue won't fix.

Next I think I will try washing over the doors with a dark brown paint.  I've read on several tutorials that they seal the paint in between sanding and weathering. I'm not sure why? But I bought some spray-on matte varnish last year, so I will follow their advice and try doing that and see what happens.  IF it works well on the doors, I will definitely have another go at the bedroom furniture - it's nice but it doesn't have the patina I would like.

SO. MUCH. TO. DO!  I can't even decided if I should undercoat ALL the kit pieces first, or seal them with varnish, as I may want to stain some of them in the future - which I can't do if it is painted. I am thinking not so much of the flooring, as the ceiling.  I've seen some lovely lined and stained work. Sigh. I'm probably thinking too much and should just paint it and be done with it so I can get started putting it together!

Four Poster Bed

I previously mentioned the four poster bed which came with the bedroom suite I didn't order (it was substituted for a larger four poster bed which I did order); well, after tackling the rest of the suite, I got started on the bed.

Bed: Before

Bed: Before

First I carefully peeled the fabric bedding and trim away from the frame, and put it away for safe keeping. I may dye the bedding and glue it back on, however I think I will do something different with the canopy.

During

I sanded it back as best I could and then painted it black, like the rest of the furniture.  Whilst I was waiting for the paint to dry enough to do some distressing, I decided to play around with the bedding. I grabbed a red fabric marker and coloured in the top part of the bedding.

Painted and waiting for distressing.

Painted and waiting for distressing.

You can still see the floral pattern through the red marker, but I am liking the blood red against the black so far.  I'd like to use something more tattered and threadbare as the canopy, so that it looks a but like cobwebs. I'm not sure how I can achieve that - I thought about tea-dying some cheesecloth but I think the cheesecloth would be too large a scale. Maybe an old, worn handkerchief might have the right drape? Regardless, I certainly prefer it without the ruffled valance around the bottom, so that will be staying off.

I'm loving this miniature bed I found on Pinterest. And here's a real-life four poster:

Bedroom Suite

I should have known better than to leave well-enough alone! I didn't mind the distressed, painted finish I ended up with on the bedroom suite so I left it to dry for a couple of days before I waxed it today... which then rubbed off more of the paint than I had anticipated! Argh. So annoyed with myself. It made a big difference on the wardrobe in particular.

It's hard to take photos of black things...

 The other pieces in the set were better sanded - and less fiddled with! - than the wardrobe and they fared much better and I was able to buff the wax reasonably well.  The armoire however... well, it still looks flat and waxy and I don't like to rub it any more for fear of taking off nearly all the paint :(  You live and learn though I suppose, plus half the reason I didn't mind fiddling around with the set is that I suspect it is much smaller than 1:24 scale? I have read that different manufacturers of minis sometimes differ in sizing, so maybe this is one of them. I'd certainly like the bed to be bigger, but I haven't started on it yet.

Before.. and after.

 In other news, I have received some more accessories that I couldn't resist ordering along with building components.  I love these minis: a little skull, skull candle and book and a palmistry chart with a crystal ball. Cute!

As well, I got a few thing from the Lemax Spooky Town range which were on sale after Halloween: a packet of crows and vultures, a packet of rats and snakes, tombstones, cats and skulls and a couple of  'bare' willow trees.  I plan to have a small family graveyard next to the house when I finish the landscaping.

The Fairfield: More Components Arrive

On Friday the latest of the building components I have ordered arrived. The stair kit, the other two interior doors, the two sets of French doors, the porch spindles and hand rail, roof finials and the black Victorian railing. I love the railing but I'm worried it's way too big for the scale. I guess we'll see.

I have still to order the porch posts, as I am wondering whether I should go with plaster columns instead of the traditional turned wooden posts? They are much more expensive to buy but would add more to the character of the house I think? Regardless, I haven't decided how I want to finish off the porch and railings yet, so I'll leave them for the time being.

So today it was time to stain the new doors, and then wax them with Black Antiquing Wax.  They turned out nicely - I love the warm patina that you can only get with wax. Plus, I think it might look more realistic on the house than a shiny lacquered finish.

While I was waiting between coats, I started fiddling around with the bedroom suite I mentioned a few posts ago.  The original finish on the suite - a four poster bed, armoire, dressing table and mirror, two bedside tables and another mirror - is lacquer over a pale timber. Very boring and conservative.

I experimented with staining and various methods of ageing on this armoire before I finally settled on just lightly sanding, painting them black and distressing them lightly with an emery board. When they are completely dry I will also wax them with the black antiquing wax.

I was hoping to achieve a more realistic finish than this but the difficulties of working with such tiny pieces which have already been finished got a bit beyond my current collection of tools! Never mind, I hope that once they are in the bedroom and surrounded with other peices they will blend in OK. I ended up distressing the armoire too much so I painted over it again and will make it a bit more chippy tomorrow before I wax it. I hope it comes up better than it looks at the moment!

The next challenge is the four poster bed. It has bedding and a fabric drape attached to it, but I think they are just glued on and I can carefully peel them off.  The floral fabric used on it is not to my taste at all, lol. Once I have painted and distressed the bed, I will experiment with either making new bedding or perhaps using fabric paint to upcycle the existing bedding and glue it back on.

The Fairfield: First Purchases

OK, so I haven't even received the dollhouse kit yet and I've bought teeny tiny things for the interior! I couldn't resist, and I really wanted to get a feel for the size of the 1:24 scale items. Boy, are they small! So cute though.

 


I ordered two black resin fireplaces, a wand and cauldron (it's that time of year with Halloween at the end of the month, so there is an abundance of these things around the web), a mortar and pestle, three tiny potion jars, nine books and a four poster bed.  In actuality, they must have been out of the beds I ordered and they've subsituted it with an entire bedroom suite, including a poster bed. Nice idea, but it's *very* tame and not at all what I want to use.  However, it will give me an opportunity to play around with hacking - I will have a go at sanding, repainting and distressing the items to see what happens, not to mention how difficult it is with such itsy bitsy items.

Looking at these photos I'm thinking that I'm going to need to get a better macro lens for my camera - any excuse for a camera-related Christmas present, lol.
 

I've also ordered a new front door, three windows and an interior door. I'd order everything I need at once, but everything is so expensive, so I am going to have to do it in installments. These items will at least give me a chance to play with stains and paint finishes.