cynthiahoweminiatures.com

After working for some time on the inside, it seemed time to look again at the exterior. I now understand when they tell you that you are never really “Finished” with a dollhouse…. there is always something you can add, do or redo…

My shoppe had a lovely bay window. Originally it was divided up into twelve little paned squares and had glass shelves. However, since I am going to be making a ladies shoppe in this building, I will want to display mannequins in the window. I felt that the shelves and the panes needed to go. This left me with a large clear display window. Nice but kinda boring….. needed just a bit of something. Moonyeen to the rescue once again. She stopped by here on her way home from a week long workshop and stayed just long enough to talk me into another several projects, and to teach me how to do the simulated leaded glass windows. So.. out came the X-acto, hammer and chisel, and out came the glass. And just a few VERY FUN hours, later, here is how the plain window was embellished with a leaded border:

The colors in the photo are a bit off, the flowers are peach, and the diamonds a pretty sky blue with a butter yellow border, and frosted clear in the center areas.

Not to be out done, the doors also needed something special… again with the demolition, and then the glass panes were etched in our wonderful laser cutter. (Yes, it does glass too!!) The details of the etching are hard to see, but they are a lovely floral motif and border, and pretty scrolled letters F in each door.

The “F’s” stand for Felicity’s Fineries, which is to be the name of the shoppe. I guess I forgot to mention that. We came to that after Larrell and I , Ryan, Aaron and Moonyeen debated elegant victorian ladies names over a to die for desert of creme brulee at our local “Cool Hand Luke’s” Restaurant. It’s amazing what a good sugar rush can do for creative thinking!!! So Felicity’s Fineries it is.

I’m off the the CIMTA show next week, but when I get home, I’ll start moving the fixtures into the shoppe. Oh, and I’ll move them into my shopping cart then too. As promised, we will have available a wonderful new line of kits for all manner of ladies shoppe furnishings.. 13 new pieces at last count and still creating. You can purchase the kits and do your own thing, or work with me thru the year as we build and fill each of these fixtures with oodles of lovely ladies accessoires in a series of classes.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Cynthia

I’m sure that most people think of wallpaper first when trying to pick a wall treatment.  And there are some gorgeous dollhouse wallpapers out there to choose from.  However, I looked and looked to find a subtle floral stripe in peach and blue, to coordinate with the exterior of the building.  Guess what.  If you want ROSE and blue, no problem.  If you have peach, however, you are going to get GREEN as the contrasting color.  No kidding!!  So off to find a different solution.

Since so much of my crafting involves fabric, I guess it should not have been a surprise that my local fabric store is where I found my wall treatments.  First, I should tell you that the method I used was to cut illustration board to exactly fit each wall, and then cover the illustration board pieces with the fabric.  It made for a much smoother surface to work with, and let’s face it, it’s lots easier to cover a piece of board on your worktable than to try and climb into a tiny space like a dollhouse and hang anything without wrinkles….

The fabric I choose is actually two pieces… the first is a semi sheer cotton organdy with a delicately stitched ribbon design.  It is a lovely rich buttery cream color, and the stitching has a lovely sheen to it.  Made for a very three dimensional feel.  Since it was sheer, it was perfect to place over a piece of peach colored cotton, to bring my desired color into play.  A bit of looking turned up a very interesting peach cotton fabric with a very mottled marbled look.  Sounds odd, I know, but under the sheer fabric, it gave such a lovely sense of texture…the shading of the marbeled fabric, the soft haze of the sheer organza and the delicate sheen of the embroidered details.  I even managed to keep the stripes all running straight as I applied it to the boards.  And I KNOW I would not have been able to do that if I had applied directly to the walls.  I cheated even further and used iron on fusable wonder under to attach the first layer of fabric, and then a spray adhesive to adhere the sheer fabric.

Here’s a peek at the two fabrics:

I debated for months on whether or not to use the stairs that came with the house.; They were right smack dab in the center, and took up a LOT of floor space.  But without them, the overall space was a big empty cavernous box.  My solution was to use the stairs, but to create a wall directly under them on one side,  The end result is that I actually ended up with MORE usable wall space, as well as a darling nook on the other side under the stairs, where I will be creating a couple of fitting rooms.  And the stairs are really pretty.  So I am glad that it worked out so well.

Here are photos of the interior with the wall covering, baseboards, and window casings in place.  This is the side where I built the wall under the stairs…Still need to get to that crown molding….  Notice the beautiful Art Noveau lighted mirror.  It came from lumenations by Mr. K.  Love his pieces.

Here is the other side of the room.  See the cute space under the stairs?  Don’t you think it will be perfect for a tiny fitting room???

Hmmm… so crown molding, and a few more pieces of trim, and I think that the ladies can start moving in… This is quite exciting….!!!

More later.

Cynthia

I decided that for Christmas, I would treat myself to a day of working on my Ladies Shoppe.  It was time to tackle laying the floors.  This turned out to be much easier, and more fun than I anticipated, and I think the results are terrific.

For the attic area, which will be a work area, I wanted a bit of a worn, rustic look, so used basswood pieces, laid in plank rows.  A coat of minwax stain and a couple coats of satin deft gave me just the look I wanted:

The downstairs, however needed to be very elegant.  I choose 5/16″ wide cherrywood flooring which I purchased from S.H.Goode and Sons.   And what a good choice it was.  They gave me lots of helpful information over the phone regarding the best way to lay the floor, from glue choice, to lengths of pieces to use.  It took us two evenings, and we had the entire bottom floor laid.  I was amazed at the quality and consistency of the flooring.  It was beautiful wood, with gorgeous grain and color, and the thickness of the strips was so consistant that when we had the entire floor laid, it took at most maybe 45 minutes of sanding to get to a glassy smooth surface.

A coat of minwax stain, and several coats of deft went on, with sanding and/or steel wool between, and here are the finished results:

The floor almost looks like it has golden flecks down in the grain. I could not have been happier with the results, or the process, and am looking forward to laying another floor soon.  Wish it was this easy to have gorgeous floors in my REAL house!!  Now that the floors are in and finished, the wall treatments can be installed, and some of the wiring elements covered or disguised. It’s starting to look like this might come together after all!

Cynthia

I left off about halfway thru the description of the lighting.. so here is what we ended up with.

For that very high pitched attic area, we built a rafters system from basswood, painted and antiqued, and hung it at an appropriate height to be able to suspend a couple of work table type lights.

Notice in this photo that you can also see the two strips of flourette bulbs mounted across the front of the shoppe.  These will be covered later, but are what really provides the light for the lower portion of the building.  A similiar strip of these bulbs is mounted in the very peak of the attic to light that area.

Of course, we had to have those darling Lawbre porch lights on either side of the front door… door has been removed for renovation, but aren’t the lights just darling?? I love that the verdigris finish matches the trim around the roofline on the building.  Bear in mind that both sections of the front of this building are actually hinged doors that open to reveal the interior.  This means that in order to supply power to the porch lights, dear Moonyeen had to run the current thru the metal hinges that hold the front in place.  No easy task.. so as soon as she finished doing the porch lights, I asked her to do recessed lighting in the bay window on the opposite side, which also had to be wired thru the hinges.  So glad she is so patient and willing to rise to a challenge.

So, grand total.. 4 transformers carrying power to a total of 15 flourettes, two recessed spot lights in the bay window, two porch lights, two elaborate 5 bulb chandeliers, one lighted wall mirror, and two work table type fixtures in the attic.  Not bad for three days work!  A Million Thanks Moonyeen!!!

Now it’s time to decorate~~~

Cynthia

No, not the kind that goes on your hot dog…. but lots to catch you up on regarding my ladies shoppe project. First, I must confess that having a blog seems like a grand idea in the beginning, but just like my diaries of childhood, I am finding that I just don’t have the time or self discipline to do a daily entry. Which is obvious in the grand void since my last posting. This does not, however mean that I haven’t been making great strides, so in a rash of entries today, I’m going to bring you up to speed on my progress.

When we last left off, I was pondering the great mysteries of electricity. In other words, frozen in terror at the prospect of figuring out how to wire and light this lovely building properly. Well, my advice for anyone with a difficult project… if you don’t know how, find someone who does. And I was lucky to have a dear friend, Moonyeen Moller, come riding to the rescue. Moonyeen came and stayed several days, and wired the house for me. And do I mean wired. In retrospect, I can see now that my abilities regarding wiring, etc extend to being able to plug in and operate my blowdryer or hot glue gun. I didn’t even really have a concept of what would be required to do the job. My first instinct, and really only contribution to this part of the project was to rush out to pick out all the lovely chandeliers, sconces and porch lights.

It never occurred to me that these types of lights are just for effect. Yes, they are gorgeous, and make such a pretty display. But they don’t really put out any light!!! At least not enough to light up the dark back corners in a room that is 24″ deep. Moonyeen taught me the concept of “general illumination” which basically is the strategic placement of strong but tiny lights in hidden or at least easy to hide areas, so that all of the open area of each room is very well lit. To accomplish this in my house, three different strips of 5 flourette bulbs each were created and mounted in very out of the way places, but in places that indeed light up the interior so wonderfully that even the tiniest detail will be visible.

Moonyeen uses round wiring in her projects, and wires just like a real electrician… which means that she installs her own transformers, terminal blocks, etc. Lots of calculating led us to the decision that we would need four transformers to install all of the lighting that we wanted. The very cool part, is that all of the transformers, wiring, etc was all mounted in the void under the floor of the house. There is one pristine white cord coming out from the back of the house that plugs the entire thing in to the wall, and one very cool red power button on the front to turn it all on and off. None of those pesty black boxes hanging out of the wall, etc. We color coded and labeled, and soldered and screwed, and managed to create a real masterpiece of lighting technology. I say “we” because I watched every single step! LOL

The building has a very high ceilinged attic, and I wanted this to be a work area . So of course it needed lights, but how to hang them from a very tall pitched ceiling??? Well, check my next entry to see how we solved this and other interesting dilemmas. The photo above is of Moonyeen, hard at work. Notice the transformers, etc. all mounted to the underside of the upturned house. Genius at work!

More very soon!

Cindy

Well, I left you all hanging for what turned out to be a couple of weeks while I tried to make a few initial decisions about the shoppe project. Bearing in mind that being female, I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.. heres’ what I’m thinking at this point.

Since the lighting will be one of the first steps, I have selected light fixtures.

This gorgeous chandelier is by Lumenations by Mr. K. http://www.lumenationsbymrk.net I thought that it had just enough sparkle with the pretty bugle crystals, and the lovely frosted shades to be elegant without being too “over the top” for my Edwardian era shoppe. There are also matching sconces, which I have purchased. Don’t know where they will go just yet, but have them just in case. Also choose a beautiful lighted mirror from Mr. K, because a ladies fashion shoppe can’t have too many mirrors, right?

I have decided that since I like the colors used on the exterior of the building so much, I would like to try and carry them into the interior too. The colors are a very soft peach and a soft dusty blue. Unfortunately, after looking at what seems like thousands of mini wallpaper designs, I have realized that the standard color combinations are rose and blue, and peach and green… not at all what I had in mind. So I am considering looking for an elegant fabric to use in place of wallpaper, or perhaps creating and printing my own wallpaper design. Either one will be a delicate, viney floral pattern, not too heavy, and very feminine. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

We are treating ourselves to a trip to San Jose this weekend to attend the Good Sam Miniature Show. I’m really looking forward to this, haven’t been to a mini show in many years, so have dusted off all the credit cards, and am taking a BIG tote bag in hopes of finding lots of great goodies. And the real treat will be having lunch with Moonyeen Moller and planning our upcoming “wire my dollhouse” slumber party!

Will let you know next week what wonderful treasures we find at the show. Till then, take care!

Cynthia

Miniaturists are wonderful people!!! Really wonderful people. Yesterday’s quandary about how to manage the wiring in my house has magically vanished! I wrote Moonyeen at Moonlight Miniatures for some input on the wiring for my house. And guess what??? She is going to come down and stay with me for a few days and do the wiring for me! It just doesn’t get any better than this! Moonyeen is a fabulous artist, and an absolute expert in all things wiring and lighting related. She does the wiring for Bluette’s wonderful roomboxes as well as her own fabulous pieces, and custom wiring for customers including antique restorations. Besides that, she is a really fun gal!!! I anticipate three days of fun, talking, laughter and very little sleep!!! One of Moonyeen’s pieces is featured in the October Miniature Collector “In the Spotlight”. Take a look at her work and you will know why I am so excited to have her help with my project!!!

I’ll still need to give a lot of thought to what I want to be the end result so that we can wire accordingly, but having an expert lead me thru this part is going to transform it from terrifying to a whole lot of fun!!!

More Later!

After spending several days just looking at (and drooling over) this lovely building, I have quickly come to the realization that it takes a good deal of planning to finish one of these. Or to even get started on one of these. I have a whole new appreciation for all the photos I see of finished houses.  The entire interior of my shoppe is an unfinished shell, which is good. But there are so many things to plan..and here is my list so far, in the order that I think I need to do it…

Lighting, or at least the wiring for the lighting. Figure this comes first so that it can be covered by some of the things that come later

Flooring - now, wood, or carpeting, or tile? This is harder than decorating my own home!! Thinking at this point that a lovely finished hardwood floor might be nice, with a few pretty rugs strategically placed to help divide the space into different areas.

Wall covering. Wow. Wainscoting? Wallpaper and Chair Rail? Or those gorgeous carved wall panels? How is a girl supposed to choose? But now that I am thinking about wall coverings that brings me back around to item one.. lighting. Surely somewhere down the road I am going to want a couple of wall sconces.. so I guess I need to figure out now where they will go to make sure that there is a power source. But what if I want a couple of lighted display cabinets? Do I need to decide NOW where they will be placed to make sure there is power there? And if I do wood on the lower half of the walls, do I have to plan ahead where the outlets will be needed? Head spinning. I haven’t even come up with a color scheme yet, and now I realize I really need to plan WAYYYY ahead in order to do the very first task. Seems strange to have to figure out furniture and fixture placement when I don’t even have a floor installed. This is going to be quite a learning process, that’s for sure.

And I am just realizing that of course I want to have two lights on the exterior, on either side of the front doors, and a light up inside the top of the bay window. But those are both on hinged walls! Can you wire a hinged wall neatly and safely? Without loosing your mind?? Hmm… I wonder….

Here is my new project! This gorgeous building is the Millwood Country Store made by Lawbre. Most of you are probably familiar with the name Lawbre, it’s kinda the equivalent of “Cadillac” in the dollhouse world. This house was made in approx 2002 and the exterior was finished at the Lawbre studio in some of my very favorite colors. It was made for my new friend in PA, Dawn, who recently closed her miniature shop, and needed to part with some treasures that just could not be taken home with her. I was (and am) thrilled to pieces to have been able to purchase the house. The process included making new friends , sleepless nights, some high drama on ebay, and a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat (otherwise known as a phoney bidder) … but that’s another story alltogether!

In the end it all worked out wonderfully. Pak Mail picked the house up from Dawn and did an exceptional job of crating. And the house arrived in perfect condition, in spite of the many miles traveled to get to it’s new home. Which, by the way will be our dining room table for the next year or so that it will take me to complete this project. So I’ve joined the ranks of thousands of other miniaturists who haven’t seen the dining table in years, and live off TV trays! Well worth the sacrifice if you ask me! LOL

The Millwood will not be a country store for long.. we have big plans for this lovely house, and YOU can create right along with me!! Surely you have a roombox somewhere waiting to be filled??? Think elegant, think ladies, think Edwardian….

More later….Cynthia

Wow!  Here it is..  2,870.91 miles traveled, and 130 pounds including the crate.. Can’t wait to get inside!  Off to get some muscles and cordless screwdriver… more tomorrow!