Variations on a Japanese Theme (Finishing the Master Bedroom)

Final details on the Master Bedroom: A full length vintage dressing mirror, a red velvet rocking chair, and my hand embroidered runner carpet.

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall...

Close to finishing the Master Bedroom!

Here is a four-post canopy bed of my own design.  The fabric is actually taken from an antique black and red Japanese kimono, with little pillows and lace canopy curtains.

Don't you want to jump right in?

You can see the dark wood and red enamel wardrobe, the hardwood floors, and the origami papered walls.

A bedside table with a vase of roses, a red enameled vanity, some dressing accessories and a hand carved mirror on the wall. 

Miss Dystopia, Architect

This room has been the most complicated by far. First off, it's on the third floor of the main house, and so it has one side that slopes in a peculiar way. 

I'm not unfamiliar with this type of situation in a real house; my house (the white, wall paper free one) is of the Cape Cod style, with weird nooks and asymmetrical, slopes that make the upstairs ceilings 8' in the middle of the room, 7' at front of the closets, 4' at the back of the closets, and 6' at the exterior walls. In other words, all of the walls are perfectly vertical; it's just that the ceiling starts lower than others. 

Just like this:

(pardon my really bad Paint skills)

It gives one significantly less control over furniture placement, but I deal with it. What makes it manageable is the fact that the slopes are actually sloped ceilings, not sloped walls.  

The third floor of the dollhouse is shaped like a trapezoid; the exterior walls on both sides slope from floor to ceiling, and at a pretty sharp angle, making the master bedroom more like this:

So furniture placement is even more complicated. Any flat-backed piece you put against this wall looks kind of stupid. So, this one might take a while longer to complete.

Starting out, origami paper on the walls with silk and  lace borders

More to come, as soon as I decide how to put furniture in this room.

And the Girl Said, "Let There Be A Kitchen"

And slowly a kitchen was created.

This is how the empty little room started:

Rather dreary, indeed.

And so the girl said, "Let there be light."

That's better. Now we can see what we're doing.

This is the lower level of the annex, and it is going to be my kitchen.
Have you ever had the loathsome chore of picking out wallpaper for a real house? I have. I hate it. The whole interior of my real house is white. Painted white. I have broken all of my fingernails down to the bed, scraped every knuckle, and fallen off of ladders to rid my real house of the stuff. Wallpaper? In my opinion? KILL IT!
But the Victorians loved it.
And as it turns out, there's a hell of a lot more variety to be easily obtained on a miniature scale. And you don't need gallons of toxic industrial adhesive to put it up, and you don't need vats of fabric softener and a titanium scraper to take it down. All you need is a clever eye and a stationary or craft store with a scrapbooking aisle to choose a small print, and a few dollops of Elmer's to put it up.

So, after adding in the appliances, a table and chairs, some shelving, a mother of pearl tile backsplash, and some kitchen accessories (including a silk flower arrangement), the kitchen is done!

If I'd Known Then What I Know Now...

There are some ground rules that must be established before anybody should attempt this sort of undertaking. If I'd known, at the start, the things I know now, I probably would have saved myself a lot of frustration.

1. Figure out your budget.

This seems obvious at first; one would think that a box and a lot of tiny wood furniture would be a cute and cheap hobby.

One would, however, be sadly mistaken. If you're able to start from scratch with plywood, paint, a sack of assorted balsa, an exacto-knife and a lot of glue, then all the power to you. But if you're going to buy a dollhouse kit and don't want to make all your own furniture, this stuff gets expensive pretty fast - especially if you're thinking of wiring for electricity.

You'd think a miniature chandelier wouldn't cost you an arm and a leg - but there are many out there, beautiful indeed, though you could probably buy the real world sized version for less.

2. Figure out the kind of scale you're comfortable working with.

This point also seems totally obvious, but the world of miniatures is just as complicated as the real world.

Ever have the kind of miserable moving in/out, Alice in Wonderland-esque experience where all the furniture is about 4 inches too big in every dimension for the wall you want to put it against? It happens on a smaller scale, too.

I work on a one-inch scale - pretty standard - it means that one foot in real world size is scaled down to one inch in mini size. If you're buying everything pre-made, keep that in mind. And if you're planning to make your own furniture, etc., this is something to take really seriously. A square inch floor tile vs. a square foot floor tile is one thing, but when you get down to details like doorknobs and chair legs and teacup handles, patience is a major virtue.

On the flip side, making your own furniture is easier if you're working on a larger scale, but the structure to be furnished will be bigger, too.

Similarly,

3. Get your architecture in order before you actually start working on anything.

Floor plans, diagrams, the whole bit - just like a real architect; only, your little building has to have every corner of every room be accessible through one or more detachable/openable exterior sides. This applies especially if you're going to wire for electricity.

Measure everything. Measure it twice. Measure it until you're blue in the face.

4. Other than wallpaper, moldings  flooring, and doors, don't glue anything into place until you're SURE you want it to be there. Chances are that you will change your mind. You will change your mind several times. Take that into account.

5. Keep yourself organized.

These projects are long term, and not for the faint of heart. Especially if you're a hopeless OCD neurotic like me.

Regardless of where you plan to store your treasure when you've finished it, the fact remains that it will take up considerably more space while in the construction phases, and will almost certainly take longer to finish than you've planned. If you don't want to make a hoarder's den of your real house, set up a work area someplace where you can spread out and take your time on the details without necessitating a whole intervention scenario.

And, possibly the most important tidbit of all:

6. Model airplane glue, while infinitely useful, will not wash out of your hair without a serious struggle. That stuff means business. Use it wisely.

It All Starts With A Box

When it comes down to it, that's really all a dwelling is, whether life-size or doll-size. And here's the one I've been ranting about:

I did some research, and it turns out that my little house was constructed via a kit made by Lilliput, and the style is "Mulberry Lane". I also have the annex, which is the two story addition, and a couple of other little boxes of my own creation that I plan to add progressively.

Not crazy about the patriotic red, white, and blue exterior. But I'll worry about that later. 

Here's the inside thus far

I've done a little bit of work on it - nobody needs to see how ugly the original interior was. 

The pile of stuff in the big room on the second floor is actually a pile of lighting fixtures - yup, my treasure is wired for electricity.   

Welcome to the Dollhouse.

While going through some old toys and things at my mother's house towards the end of last year, I happened to come across a dollhouse, stashed away in the back of a closet. Now, I use the phrase "stashed away" pretty loosely here - this thing is enormous; I remember many years ago, when I was about 6 or so, my mother having fits trying to assemble the quaint "little" Victorian mansion. And then the annex. And then the carpeting. It became an ongoing project for her, and though I think it was supposed to be a birthday present (in April), I didn't actually get the thing until Christmas.

Having discovered the dollhouse again was intriguing. What struck me the most was the extent to which my taste in interior decorating had changed over the past twenty-ish years. The pastel wall-to-wall carpeting. The vulgar, broad striped vinyl wallpaper borders. The total waste of space dedicated to three children's bedrooms. The thorough lack of interior architecture, with no walls or doors separating the master bedroom from what, I think, was supposed to be an ad-hoc hallway. The gaping void at the top of each railing-less staircase.

Not to mention the fact that I had absolutely no place to put this box of despair. My boyfriend offered to help carry the cumbersome monstrosity down to the basement for storage.

 It seemed the logical thing to do, his reasoning was perfect: "Well, it's not like you still play with it anymore. Just get it out of the way."

But yet I hesitated.

And then, it occurred to me - it wasn't a matter of "playing" with the house. I couldn't even recall what I'd even named the dolls in my youth. This house, this ugly, ugly house, had nothing whatsoever to do with dolls. It was a matter of principle.

It was about me, and my obsession with historical accuracy. And my loathing for wall-to-wall carpeting and vinyl wallpaper. And the onset of foul weather, putting my actual home renovation projects on hold 'til Spring thaw.

A project was in the making.

I decided then and there that I was not going to "play" with the dollhouse. I was going to fix it.

I was going to make it beautiful, bring out all the potential of Victorian and Art Deco splendor that lurked beneath the vinyl.

Thus began my new hobby and most recent obsession, the progress of which I intend to document for anybody out there who's reading this thing.