Decorating - successes and failures

Something I'm learning very quickly about making your own dolls house is that things don't always work as you would expect. I've been doing heaps of research and planning with this project but I am finding that the first idea or plan I have does not always come to fruition as well as I would expect. I'll detail my decorating attempts thus far below - some haven't gone so well, but some are going swimmingly so read on for an idea of what things are looking like:

Exterior:
Being a Victorian house my plan for the exterior is brick walls on the 2 sides and back, and then when I make a hinged door for the front (something I will do towards completion of the house) that will also be bricked but will include windows and some nice touches like flower baskets etc. My initial thought was "I will paint the walls". This plan was short lived as I realised it would have to be right first time, and wanting to take care with my house I'd like to have the option of practicing first. So second plan was "I will paint bricks onto paper myself and then wallpaper the outside of the house". So armed with a huge roll of parcel paper (the light brown paper you wrap parcels in) and a collection of paints and brushes I turned my lounge into a painting studio for the afternoon. I mixed a lovely terracotta colour background for the brick work that I painted onto the paper I measured out to fit the walls. So far so good. However, the next weekend when I was ready to do the brick work my plan was somewhat thwarted. Turns out that painting bricks is tricky. Not to mention I would need to make sure they were pretty consistent - even harder. I tried painting with a thin brush, using cocktail sticks to make impressions of the white paint on the terracotta, using chopsticks instead of a brush, and even making a sort of stamp with blu tac and cocktail sticks. None of these attempts worked very well and none of them resulted in something that looked like a brick. Not to worry though - I was not disheartened and it's always fun painting anyway, so away went the paint and chopsticks, and back to the drawing board I went.

Based on my research it seems that many people use scrapbooking paper for dolls houses. This is more suitable than normal wall paper as the patterns are quite small, and the paper can be easily applied to most surfaces. That seemed like the most appropriate option for decorating the exterior. Normal wallpaper would not work as I imagine not many places actually have brick patterened wall paper, however I have found a seller on Trade Me who lists brick scrapbooking paper. Perfect! I've actually decided to decorate the interior first (excluding furnishings) then will come back to the exterior afterwards, but when I do I will be trying my hand at using the paper linked above. Hopefully it will give the effect I'm going for.

Interior: This is what I'm doing at present, and it's going really well!!! For the walls I needed to find a suitable Victorian pattern for the paper. The first point of call was The Warehouse which actually didn't have much in the way of fancy patterned scrap booking paper. However next place was Spotlight. They had a great range and Nigel actually spotted a fantastic goldy green coloured paper with a pattern (hard to describe) that looked very much like the Victorian designs I have seen online. So I went away from the store with three packs of that (30 sheets) ready to get cutting wallpaper. The reason I went with wall paper over paint is that wall paper was very popular and became more frequently used during the Victorian period. William Morris - a very influential designer during this period - introduced some of the more elaborate and intricate wallpaper designs that are still in circulation today but are very Victorian in design.

Once my paper was all cut I had the first attempt at gluing it in. I tried with a hot glue gun but unfortunately in the cold weather when it dried the glue separated from the wood and the paper came away. Turns out this was quite helpful as I have since decided to paint the floors and it's better to do this without paper than with, so with the wall paper off (but ready to be put back on this weekend with wallpaper paste) I have painted the three top floors brown (to be wooden panels) and will make a rug for each floor to lay over the floor.

Currently the wall paper is blu tac'd into a room so I can see what it's like - and it looks great!

This weekend I should have the floor finished and the walls papered for three floors - the kitchen will come after.

Oh I should note that I've decided to use the same paper in each room as this is more authentic of the time - only the very wealthy could afford different paper in each room - however I do intend to vary the look of each room with furniture of course and art work on the walls.

Better get back to work - will try and update after the weekend!

Paint and paper

So I've been a bit slack and this blog has not had anything added to it since my initial posts. There was a reason for this - that being my camera has died so I don't have any photos to share. However, Mum did point out that I could just convey what's been happening with some good old fashion words, which is what I will do.

In my last post I mentioned the next step would be making the house. Well this turned out to be tricker than I expected. Due to where we live, the fact we have no garage, the fact it is raining, and the fact I would need to invest in some pretty heavy duty tools to cut wood, I decided to use a little workaround. I purchased a four floor bookcase which turns out makes a perfect dolls house structure. The bookcase was only $15 and I was able to construct it in 15 minutes in my lounge - compared with the approximate cost of around $200 for all of the tools and wood that would be required to build the house, not to mention the fact I would need to wait a few more weeks to start working as I'd need to save my pennies. So long story short, I bought a bookcase about a month ago and when I got around to constructing it a few weeks later it was all ready for me to start decorating.

Next blog: Decorating - successes and failures

Step 1 - deciding what to do

What sort of house am I making?
I've decided to make an English Victorian style house as my first attempt at making a house, akin to the many terraced houses that can be found across most of the UK. This style was chosen for a few reasons:
- being as much as a novice as I am I'm taking the easier option and creating a house without stairs to start with. Stairs seem to be, from what I've read, the hardest part of building a house. The house I'm making will be four floors with some artistic licence with the omitting of a stair case
- if I decide later on to make another Victorian house, I will have the option of joining the two together and making one large house with a stairwell in the middle
- there is tons of information online about Victorian architecture, decorating and furniture that I am using to help
- I have some quite comprehensive plans for a Victorian house in one of my books on Doll's House making
- when we were in the UK Nigel and I visited the Charles Dickens Museum in London where Dicken's lived from 1837 to 1839. Seemingly dull from the front, this house is very charming inside.

So basically I'm making a Victorian style house with the interior based very loosely on one of Mr Dickens' places of residence (albeit brief), and the exterior based on houses such as this one.

Why a Victorian house?
I really admire the variations that can be found in Victorian houses, while they still retain features that make them iconically Victorian.

I'm not one for lavish colours or fabrics, and rooms filled with ornaments and decorations that characterised many of the houses belonging to the Victorian middle and upper class. However I am drawn to the challenge and detail that this invites in relation to creating and decorating a doll's house. Of course there are many beautifully decorated Victorian houses that exist today (ones with the interior retained as it was in the time of Queen Victoria's reign) and my intent is to capture a tasteful yet accurate representation of the houses of this time, in a miniature scale.

Next post: making the house (not decorating though)...

The Doll's House

When dear old Mrs. Hay went back to town after staying with the Burnells she sent the children a doll's house. It was so big that the carter and Pat carried it into the courtyard, and there it stayed, propped up on two wooden boxes beside the feed-room door. No harm could come of it; it was summer. And perhaps the smell of paint would have gone off by the time it had to be taken in. For, really, the smell of paint coming from that doll's house ("Sweet of old Mrs. Hay, of course; most sweet and generous!") -- but the smell of paint was quite enough to make any one seriously ill, in Aunt Beryl's opinion. Even before the sacking was taken off. And when it was . . .
There stood the doll's house, a dark, oily, spinach green, picked out with bright yellow. Its two solid little chimneys, glued on to the roof, were painted red and white, and the door, gleaming with yellow varnish, was like a little slab of toffee. Four windows, real windows, were divided into panes by a broad streak of green. There was actually a tiny porch, too, painted yellow, with big lumps of congealed paint hanging along the edge.
But perfect, perfect little house! Who could possibly mind the smell? It was part of the joy, part of the newness.

An obvious opening I know, but the excitement, anticipation and grandeur that a doll's house can provide is detailed so beautifully by this story that I couldn't resist borrowing a paragraph or two. I will admit that Katherine Mansfield's words were not the inspiration or even a slight influence on my desire to make a doll's house, as much as I recall enjoying the short story in sixth form English.

The earliest I can remember being interested in doll's houses was when I was around 7 or 8. I would frequently take delight in looking at the pictures of the period houses in the big orange book on our shelves that was The Reader's Digest Things to Make and Do. I don't know if I ever went so far as to ask Dad to make one for me, but looking at the photos was satisfying enough. Shortly after arriving in New Zealand we made friends with the next door neighbours, they had a doll's house. It was fantastic! Rachael and I quickly became friends and playing with the doll's house occupied many a wintery days for us. Especially during school holidays.

Several years later, in 2001 I recall a particularly wet windy day during the holidays in which I decided to make my own doll's house. I will be the first to admit, like many projects I took upon myself during my teens, it didn't turn out too well. It consisted of three cardboard boxes stuck together, and for some reason painted forest green. I have a feeling it was the only colour paint I had at the time. I recall the day so well as it was the day Sir Peter Blake was killed by pirates in the Amazon delta. I caught the news updates in between my painting and gluing.

This recent interest in the creation of my own doll's house was ignited about 6 months ago when Nigel showed me a book at his work about Queen Mary's Dolls House This truly magnificent house is something so impressive and beautiful it can't be anything but an inspiration to someone with a slight interest in making a doll's house. And from that grew what is becoming a keen interest of mine. Several books have been purchased and poured over. Websites about architecture, period furniture and decorating, and how to guides on making houses (of the doll variety) have been looked up and book marked. And now I'm at the point where I'm starting to actually make the house.

As excited as I am to be doing this I'm also under no illusions that it's going to be a long, and expensive project. I'm also well aware that I'm not experienced in such projects and maybe tricky and possibly will not turn out exactly like my plans. But so far I'm enjoying myself and all being well, in however many months it will take, I too will have my very own perfect perfect little house.