Creative process

In my Vermont Farmhouse Jr.  (which I have had for 7 years and is still not complete), the bedroom right now is pretty blah.

I did wallpaper it about 5 years ago, and that was it.  Never really touched it again.  So I've been thinking a lot about finishing it.  I don't know what the point of me having all these dollhouses is if they are just sitting empty.  Other side.....what is the point of having all this dollhouse furniture and accessories if I am NOT putting them in a dollhouse.    There is a simple solution.  PUT THE FURNITURE IN THE HOUSE!  Not sure why I have not thought of this before.  haha

This post is going to be the start of me finishing the master bedroom in the VFJ. 

Firstly, I should show you the wallpaper.  Sorry about the horrible pictures, bad lighting and a cell phone don't make for good photos. 

Close-up of wallpaper

Ok so that my dear followers is the wallpaper that I chose for this room 5 years ago.  The print is small and in scale.  I must have liked it at some point, now I am not so sure.  However, that being said it's staying.  I consider wallpapering a dollhouse about as irritating as nails on a chalkboard.  
So it looks like little leaves, that are pink with a darker pink/burgundy colour, and little green dots.

So......what goes with that wallpaper?  I have real issues with pairing patterns in rooms.  I've seen a lot of dollhouses with floral wallpaper and another floral for curtains etc.....it may work for some, but I cringe when I see that.  I struggle with co-ordinating wallpaper to curtains or fabrics for furniture.  So I already know that I'm going to be frustrated by the end of the creative process.

The floor in the bedroom is unfinished right now.  It's grooved to look like hardwood, but the likelihood of me actually staining it is slim.  So I thought maybe on each side of the bed I would put a throw rug.   Just something plain....maybe white-ish.

So here is a picture of the wallpaper, with the rug I was thinking, and the colour of the furniture that will be in the room.  Wanted to see if they go nicely together.  Which I think that they do.  Oh I should also mention that any trim in the room is white.

So far so good.  This particular room has two windows that are on either side of the bed.   They need curtains I think.  I'm still torn between putting curtains or making roller shades for them.  I saw a really cool easy tutorial to make some.  Either way, I have to figure out what fabric to use.
What I like to do is take my wallpaper swatch, and carpet swatch and place fabric swatches with them that I think might look nice. 

So, went through my enormous stash of fabric and got a few pieces I thought might go with the wallpaper.  The burgundy I think looks really good and possibly even the pink.  The one with the swirly things on it, might make good cushions for the bed.  Possibly?!?!
See, I'm already frustrated!  This is why the room has sat empty for the past 5 years.

I wondered if maybe some reds would go, so that is a picture of two types of red that I have.  I'm not sure that either goes very well.

So I'm no further ahead.  I still have a wallpapered room with the furniture in it, but no finishings.

Next step would probably be to see if maybe some nice greens would go, although I have a feeling that I would just be wasting my time. 

Thoughts?????

Chairs and a hutch

I got more done this weekend than I have in a very long time.  Which is so ironic because I thought I was not going to be able to work on anything because of my work schedule. 

Today I got the hutch done for the Tea Room, and I also got the chairs done.   I tried to go with a slight shabby chic look.....I didn't want it to be too distressed but just a tad.  Keeping with the very girly pink and green, that is what I painted the chairs.  I also wanted it to be slightly eclectic, so I made sure I didn't use 4 of the same chairs.  I wish I had 4 different styles in my stash but I did not and so I have 2 different styles. 

I used a Michaels hutch (thanks again Sonya...), and I left it alone.  No bashing this time, but I painted it an off white (sorta cream), and lined the back with a pink polka dot scrapbook paper that co-ordinates with the other colours of the Tea Room.  In the picture it looks rather yellowish, but it's not.  It looks very nice in the room and matches nicely with the cream colours in the wallpaper.

The paper that you see in the picture is the room that these items will be in once the whole project is done, unlike the picture I posted of the couch and chair.

Thoughts?

Christmas House

Earlier this week on the Canada Minis group that I belong to, there was some discussion about Christmas themed dollhouses or roomboxes etc.....

Which got me thinking about one of my dollhouses, that is not exactly my favourite.  I sort of gave up on it.  It's the Acorn from the Little Dollhouse Company.  It's a nice house, and it was a gift from my husband (way before he became my husband), so I didn't want to give it away or sell it or let it continue to collect dust.  So, to make a long story short, I have decided to turn it into a Christmas House.  I can bring it out each Christmas for me and my family to enjoy.  

The house itself is in pretty good shape.  All rooms had been wallpapered.  Most of the exterior had been finished, with the exception of the shingles......Next to putting up wallpaper, shingling is my next least favourite thing to do.  So this is what it looked like before starting.  I plan on painting the outside and decorating it to fit the Christmas theme.


Exterior of the house

 

Interior of the house

What I am going to do is turn this into the Claus' house.  Make it a nice little home for Mr. & Mrs. Claus up in the North Pole. 

I decided to keep the middle room on the upper floor as is.  I really like the wallpaper, and feel that it will fit in with the rest of the house.  This will be the Claus' bedroom.  The two side rooms on the upper floor will get redone in a more Christmas theme.  One will be Mrs. Claus' sewing room, where she creates all the elves clothes, and Santa's too.  The other room will be Santa's office.  No toys get made in this house, that happens at the workshop......There might be some toys in his office, you know like prototypes..... OH.....that awful blue carpet will be leaving the building. 

The main level nicely done, but I am going to make a few changes.  The room on the far left will be the kitchen.  I'm going to keep it the same as it is now, but I am going to put Christmas paper in place of the existing paper in the wainscotting. 

Which brings me to the foyer, and the living room.  The foyer right now has a blue colour wallpaper, which I pretty much think needs to go.  So I just need to figure out what is going to go in it's place. 
The living room is what is giving me the most stress.  I love the wallpaper that is in there right now, and I did such a good job of putting it in that I don't want to cover it.  However, it's not Christmasy at all.  It's floral, with little pink and purple flowers.  I'm not sure if I want to leave it and let the rest of the room speak for itself or change it.....maybe you can leave a comment saying what you would do.

If it wasn't for the lovely people in my mini group, I probably would never have decided to go ahead and work on this house.  So if you are a Canadian Miniaturist, and would love to chat with other Canadian Miniaturists......feel free to join us at http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/CanadaMinis/

Stay tuned for more on this house......

Walls are up

In my last post I mentioned that I got the rest of the interior walls up. The kitchen is walled in and so is the bathroom. Here you can see the Kitchen glued and taped to dry. And here the kitchen is with the wallpaper up. I really like how it turned out. It was a little awkward to paper because of the back of the stairs sticking into the room but I am impressed with how well it went together.....I usually make a mess of tricky stuff like that. The walls for the bathroom are up and I wallpapered the other side of the walls (the bedroom) before I installed the walls. It was a mistake because I made a large boo boo with the wallpaper as you can see in the second picture below. I'm going to put some corner moulding on that edge to make it look nicer.

Now I see the progress

I've done a bit of work on the Lily in the last few days. I've wallpapered the 2nd floor bedroom and the living room. They turned out nicely. The first picture shows the bedroom. It's a nice pink colour. The second picture shows a picture of the living room walls. You can see the foyer through the archway in the far wall.











I decided to go ahead and put the last partition on the main floor. This was such a pain in the you know what. It's a wall with tabs, that is being placed where there is only room for the wall without the tabs. I had to use a hammer to slowly get it into place. It really mucked up my floor. Times like this make me thankful that I decided not to stain the floors and put the floor in later.











Now my foyer is closed in and I can only do work on it from the front door. Which is kind of tight. I'm glad I put the ceiling paper on prior to adding the last wall. I do have one small part to wallpaper still but that won't be a problem. I have to put flooring down, trim at the ceiling and baseboard, and put in the window. Then the foyer will be done. For some reason there is a little gap where the stair meets the floor but it doesn't seem to be putting any other walls/floors off, so once I put baseboard it will be covered up. It's really moving along now......

Moving Right Along

Hi everyone! Well I was feeling a little better today and decided to work on the Lily for a while.

I finally finished the second staircase....man that thing gave me so much trouble. Nothing seemed to fit properly. Thankfully you really don't see the stairs of this staircase. You mainly see the back and side. Not that it doesn't look good, but if there are any imperfections, you won't really see them. I really like the built in shelves in the back of the second floor staircase.


I put in a partition on the main floor between the foyer and the living room. It gave me a bit of trouble getting it in the slots but it looks great now. It's starting to look like a house.


I got up the courage to wallpaper today. Because the foyer will be closed in soon, I have to complete that room before I can move onto the rest of the house. I had to first make sure that all the windows were painted inside and out. This house (unlike other houses) the windows are set on the outside of the wood. Other houses, the windows are set inside the window frame. This means that the wood would show through the window, so I had to make sure that all the wood was painted in the window frames.



Then I wallpapered the foyer......there still is another wall to close in the foyer but I am going to paper it before it goes in, and make sure that the whole foyer is done before I do that. I like how it turned out.


While I was on a roll, I decided to wallpaper the second floor hallway. It was a big space, and I needed to match up some areas which I found challenging......(wallpapering is NOT my thing...LOL) I eventually got it done, and I like how it looks. I can hardly see the seam.


I've been painting the stairs to prepare them to put in the house. I've nicknamed them the straw, 'cause they just suck up all the paint. It's going to take many many coats of paint. See you all tomorrow :)

Wallpaper Details

Well, this cold has gotten the better of me, and I have put off any more construction on the house until I am feeling better. So, I thought I would share with you the details of each room's wallpaper. These colours look much nicer in real life, but this gives you an idea.

Top Row: Foyer, Living/Dining Room, Kitchen, 2nd Floor Hall


Bottom Row: Bathroom, Bedroom, Left Attic Bedroom, Right Attic Bedroom

For some reason the kitchen looks more blue here but it's actually sort of yellowish with pink flecks, and the Left Attic Room is more of a yellow colour too.

I can't wait to actually start putting the walls in. I love the papers so much.

Planning Day

I woke up this morning with a sore throat, so I don't much feel like building today. It will be more of a planning day. Before I can proceed with any more of the actual house building (still have the other staircase to do), I have to know what I am going to do with the foyer. The next walls that I put in will shut it off, and that's that. So I need to do as much in there as possible before I can go any further.

I decided that I wanted a pink and green shabby chic look for this house. Something really girly. I'm very excited to start doing some research. I also decided that I wanted to use scrapbook paper for this project because there is not much out there that I like in the way of dollhouse wallpaper. Even though I am not feeling great I decided to venture out in search of what I wanted. I looked at so much paper today.....exhausting, literally because I'm not feeling well.

My last stop of the day was Walmart, so I checked the scrapbook section and I found the perfect paper. It's a big paper pack by K&Company, it's their classic paper. It's perfect. Each sheet is more like cardstock than paper, and double sided. 36 sheets per pack, so I got two at $10 each. I should have plenty to complete full rooms, and many of the patterns are small enough for 1/12 scale walls. As well, my house is going to have a nice flow with all the coordinating patterns.

I will have to go through the packs later and decide which paper I like for which room. Once I have decided I will post better pictures of the papers that I choose. What do you think of the paper choice ?