Flower shop stairs

... around the corner and going up.

While working on the stairs for the flower shop, I did ask myself why I didn't just plan for a straight flight of stairs...  or even better a fake door with an imaginary stairwell behind it ???

The answer is; I had a picture in my head.. a hint steps at the back of the room. 

I wanted steps or stairs to help create a bit of structural interest to the otherwise very square box that will be the shop. This would also allow for a small partition to form a bit of a work and storage space for the florist under and behind the stairs at the back of the shop.

I had only build one set of stairs before, those for the furniture store next door. These stairs are similar, only this time there will be no landing instead the steps 'turn' around the corner.  

 

As with the previous stairs, I started by creating a 'model' on the computer - pretty much like stacking boxes to replicate the steps and risers, making sure the finished height matches the height of the wall. 

To work out the three steps that turn the corner, I simply divided the 'landing' from the previous stairs into three wedges and crossed my fingers it would work out.

Once the dimensions were worked out, I printed them off and then stuck the paper onto card stock and cut them out (a little like you would put a paper pattern onto fabric when sewing). This saves trying to measure and cut everything square - which I am absolutely not very good at. 

Once the side pieces were cut out, I cut the pieces for the risers and it all went together surprisingly smoothly. 

Since these stairs will be fully enclosed by walls, there is no need for a handrail, nor did I need to worry about keeping the sides clean and tidy. I undercoated the risers with black gesso - I like using black, it gives a different 'worn' depth to the top colour.

I then cut the steps from 3mm balsa, sanded the front edges to round them off, then painted them with an oak stain before sanding each step again to give the worn patches in the middle.

After testing the stairs for size and fit in the room, I began building the partition walls around them and suddenly realised I would have to decide on a paint colour for the walls in the stairwell even though it will never be seen once the stairs are in place. 

As you can see the top riser goes above the wall to allow for the first floor.

Once the stair and partition structure is in place, the storage space under the stairs is really tight as you can see below so I haven't glued  in place yet. I will wait and do that after I have had fun decorating the back.

I started by cladding the back of the partition wall under the stairs with narrow strips of wood and painted this wall a warm clotted cream before adding the beige trim and skirting.

I then added a short wall piece, cladded and painted the same way to act as the back of the shelving. Once the shelves were in place, it left just enough room for a little row of hooks to hold a few items out of view from the shop floor. The little brush and dust pan are by 

María José

 miniatures and are just so beautifully made. 

This is were I left off a few months ago... 

...and I think it will be nice - and fun - to get back into this project by decorating this tiny space. After all, it is only small and there is no way I will be able to get to it easily once it is in place. 

We have a vineyard, are heading into harvest but at the same time are suddenly having to get property packed up and ready for sale, so as you can imagine I have a lot going on and will have very limited mini time (and energy) in the next few months. Playing with this little space might just turn out to be a nice and manageable distraction from what is going on around me. 

Take care of yourselves and your loved ones.

Anna X

Starting the second room ~ The Flower shop

It has been a while! I hope you have all arrived safe and well in 2022.

I had to put my minis aside for a while because of some family stuff going on. I am finding it a little difficult to pick up where I left off. Almost forgotten where I was up to so I thought writing down what I did before it all came to a grinding halt would be a start...

I had build the carcasses for the two ground floor rooms of this house HERE back in October so after finishing the smaller of the two for 'Kaj Larsen's Furniture' as much as I could HERE , I started turning the other into a florist shop.

~ ~ ~ Ea's Blomster ~ ~ ~ 

[Ea's Flowers]

The box needed a rear door and stairs in the left hand back corner, so I decided to get those ready before finishing the walls and floor. 

I had bought a door, I wanted to use but when I took it out of the packaging, I was disappointed to realize that there was no 'glass' in the transom windows above the door. I knew I needed to adapt the door a bit to fit but these things are still irritating, don't you think?

The door needed to swing the other way, the frame was not deep enough for the build-up wall and anything with glass is so much easier to paint without the glass in place -So I started by pretty much pulling the door and door frame apart. 30sec in microwave on high to soften glue - Thanks for that handy tip Brea (Otterine's Miniatures).

The door will sit flush with the external wall, so to allow for the extra thickness in the wall, I had to cut away the architrave that was glued to one side of the frame.

I added perspex to the transom and cut tiny pieces of wood to match those already in the window frame to hold it in place. I also cut strips for wood to add a door stop all the way around the inside of the frame - to stop the draft!

While it was all in pieces, I sanded and stained the threshold with oak stain. The door and frame was painted first with an 'undercoat' of dark brown the two coats of a fawn before being sanded and 'dirtied' in strategic places.

The finished door seemed a little bare, so I decided it needed a simple curtain. Lace was too fancy since this a back door allowing the florist to get to the rear yard behind the shop, so I made this simper curtain from a scrap of very fine cotton with lines of drawn threads.

I am forever surprised how much time you can spend adapting bought pieces - but equally satisfied that the playing around can transform a plain pine door into something that looks kind of real.

Next up, the stairs...

I will put that in the next post so this one won't go on forever LOL.

Have a lovely Monday.

Anna X

Finishing the first room box

'Be careful what you wish for' - would also be a suitable title for this post.

The whole idea of adding a Furniture & Bric-a-Brac shop to this house was to have somewhere to put furniture and other bits and pieces until they find a more permanent home.

I was determined not to put anything in the box until I had at least finished it, but as you can see, that plan did last long LOL. 

It was oh so easy to just 'try' a few minis in the room and before I knew it...

I had fun one night making an assortment of painting and just popped them in here to dry. The window leaning on the right hand wall will one day sit in the stairwell of the Florist's house next door. 

The rocker (a plastic Chrysnbon kit) is also destined for the Florist's apartment - I gave up counting the number of layers of paint I gave this one before getting a colour I liked. 

Resting on the rocker is the light that will be fitted in this room - when I get around to it. 

I really wanted to finish this box, so... 

Step one: Empty it.

I hadn't planned to have a shelf when I started this room but liked the idea of being able to pile a high shelf full of boxes and odd bits and pieces. 

I made the shelf from strips of basswood and stained it to look like oak. The brackets are just card painted with black gesso. Now it is nice and sturdy and ready to be piled full 😊

Then I moved on to finishing the outside of the box.

I had painted the walls with crisp white milk paint - In real life the walls would have been lime washed and would be shining white right after painting, but... 

...it was just too blinding white!

After looking at it for a couple of weeks, I gave them a thin coat of a warm white called London Fog (that kind of says it all, doesn't it?) It still needs to be distressed but I am so much happier with the colour. 

To make the studwork, I cut strips of 1mm (1/32") balsawood. Even with balsa that thin, I had to shave a bit of the edges to shape each piece so it didn't protrude from the render. 

NOTE to self: make the layer of render (filler) thicker on the next boxes. 

Before gluing the strips in place, I stained them with the same stain as the self inside to look like weathered oak. I had found this 'stain' recipe online (and have happily forgotten where). It is so easy to make and is non toxic. 

All you do is put steel wool and some black tea leaves (I just emptied a couple of teabags) into a jar and cover it with white vinegar. Then leave it for a little while (I had mine sitting around for a few months, only cause I didn't need it at the time) - and That's IT! 

Like other stain it is awfully messy to use so wear gloves, but I absolutely love the subtle colour of it. 

...and with that: 

The ground floor of the K. Larsen Furniture is as finished as it can be for now.

Have a lovely weekend everyone, and thanks for stopping by.

Anna X

Furniture Store ~ From box to room

Welcome to Kaj Larsen Furniture store.

The first floor of Kaj Larsen Furniture now looks more like a room than a little wooden box.

Once the floor was glued in place it looked a little too shabby. Even though this space is a workroom (Once upon a time the saddler worked here) converted into a shop space, the current owner Kaj Larsen is a man who takes pride in good presentation. I didn't have any furniture wax, but a friend had given me a massive chunk of bees wax. I rubbed that onto the floor and gave it a good rub after warming it up with a hair drier... It did the trick, I think. The worn oak floor now has a rich depth and slight shine to it. 

The skirting boards went on easily, although the tiny pieces into the front door step were incredibly fiddly. 

The window sill is in. Although the thick walls do compromise the already tiny room, I am so glad I made the decision to make them as thick as I did. I can't wait to decorate this little sill - kind of wish I had run a wire for a candle there - Wouldn't that just look super cute?

Never mind... there will be more thick walls and deep sills in this house, so plenty of time for that. 

I popped my small scissors on the floor, so you can better get an idea of just how (deliberately) small this room is. Only 20cm (8") wide and 33cm (13") deep after the thickening of the back wall. So with one corner taken up by the stairs, it is not going to take much Furniture & Curiosities to fill it to the brim.

Stairs

I built the stairs based on the instructions in Lea Frisoni's 'Big Book of a Miniature House' and (almost) completely forgot to take photos while making them. The stairs are mostly made from card stock, with balsa steps. I had to adjust Lea's measurements to fit the space. Since I am hopeless at measuring and ruling straight lines, I drew the stringers (the side bits) to scale on the computer and printed them out. Then I could glue those to the card and simply cut along the printed lines. It worked really well and I will be doing it that way again. 

The side of the long stringer looked a little bare, so I glued a timber molding in place for a bit of subtle decoration. 

The banisters and handrail is all made of wood. I didn't have a handrail and was too impatient to order one and wait for it to arrive. So I decided to try and make one using 2mm thick strip wood

I cut 2 x 5mm wide strips and  1 x 3mm strip and glued them together with the narrow piece in the middle and all of them level on the top edge (apology for the blurry photo - it was the only one I took). The idea behind this was to create a 2mm wide groove to slot the uprights (spindles?) into so the whole structure would be more sturdy. I sanded the upper edge to a smooth round so the mini customers don't get splinters in their little hands. 

Getting the railing structure secured onto the steps proved rather more tricky. One thing was getting the angles right (I used my printed template again so I could glue it laying flat) but I hadn't thought of how I would secure it to the steps...

I ended up drilling tiny holes at the base of each upright and gluing a metal pin into each with super glue. I then super glued the railing in place, pressing the pins into the soft balsa steps. It is not perfect but kind of worked. The railing is securely in place but I am sure there must be a better way of doing it. No more railings in this house, so that discovery will have to wait. 

 I had build the stairs before I even built the room box, so it was a great relief when they actually fit. These are the first stairs I have ever built, so I have to confess to feeling rather pleased with the result.

So this is where it is at. Other than a bit of trimming (beams?) along the top of the walls and getting the ceiling ready, there is not much left for me to do on this box. I cannot wait to fill jam packed with Furniture & Curiosities.

Next up will be the box for the flower shop next door. 

Thank you everyone for stopping by. I cannot tell you how much your support, comments and suggestions means to me.

Have a great week(end)

Anna X

Furniture shop; Walls & Floor

 With the first two boxes build and the exterior 'rendered', I couldn't resist testing the door to the smaller shop. It fits perfectly and the light shining through the stained glass is just as I have hoped. 

I decided to start with the smaller box because I think it is the simpler of the two. I am going to be building up the thickness of some walls. I like deep-set windows and doors and want to try and create the illusion of lined stone walls. 

Starting with the back wall, I cut strips of foam core. I only have 6mm (1/4"), so I doubled these to get a 12mm (1/2") thickness. 

The strings running along the channel on the left will be used to guide wires through to the base of the house later. I am already worried that I might be creating headache for myself later on by having all the wiring complete concealed within the wall space...!? I might try and think up a solution for a couple of access points - we'll see.

I added a full sheet of foam core on top and couldn't help myself to test how it will look once the window goes in. It is certainly getting the depth I was hoping for. 

I repeated the process on the side wall that will house the door. This time though, only adding one layer of strips for the depth.

When I build the door, I had made the frame to fit two layers of foam core + the plywood shell - only I didn't measure my foam core because( I thought) I knew it was 5mm thick - Turns out is is 6mm so the door frame is too thin by 2mm (1/16")  (NOTE TO SELF: Always measure and double check!)

I am not planning on having an architrave around this door anyway so instead of building up the door frame, I cut the edge of the foam core to slightly round it off. 

I have 'plastered' the walls with the same mix as on the outside and painted them in a sandy-beige colour. (Jo Sonia 'Smoked pearl'). I have only given them one coat and done a pretty patchy job. I am still pondering that I might give them a very light sand to smooth them down just a bit and wear down the paintwork even more.

Between the walls drying, I made a start om the floor. 

I used craft sticks glued onto a card template of the floor. Last time I did this, I had terrible trouble with them warping. This time I was extra careful when gluing them down and sure each had an even smear of glue to the very edges and put heavy weights onto everything right away. They dried nicely overnight. 

Then multiple thin layers of stain (watered down acrylic paint) to build up colour with sanding between. For the first two layers of stain, I dried the floor straight away with my hairdryer. It all worked and there is no warping this time. This is a good old worn floor so craft sticks are perfect for the look. They are not always completely straight, but for this old floor I have deliberately not filled it in the gaps but instead pushed a bit of very brown paint into them; just think in years to come, when someone decides to renovate this old house and put in a new floor, they might find old coins, bits of paper, buttons and other tiny treasures that has fallen down into those crack.

I have glued the floor in place in the box - as I write it is drying weighted down by a heavy library of books. Fingers crossed it sticks down nicely. 

Keep well everyone.

Anna X

 

The building begins

Ok, I didn't completely just start building a door without a plan 😄 

This next house, will sit next to the Toy House and started to take shape in my mind a long, long time before the Toy House was anywhere near finished. 

I wanted to build a Florist (Ea's Flowers) - a room filled with colour and pretty things. I love my real life garden, worked in florist many years ago (more about that connection later) and have discovered I really enjoy making mini flowers, but...

.. when I began reading miniblogs not so very long ago, everyone seemed to have 'a stash' of just about anything and everything. Turns out that is easy to do and I have managed to build up quite a stash of furniture, furniture kits and mini accessories that don't have a specific home to go to yet so end up in boxes 'for later' and I forget I have them.

I decided, I needed to build some kind of room box, like an attic or something, to put them all in while they wait for a suitable home. I wasn't very excited about the prospect of building this 'box', it felt more like a 'I need to do this' kind of project.

Then it came to me.. what if I could combine the two? Could I perhaps just stick the furniture in the attic above the florist?

I had been enjoying following the making of The Old Misery an old Coach Inn on the TheInfill blog (have looked everywhere for the creator's name, and just can't find it). The story and make of the build is so incredible and captivating, but what really inspired me was the archway in the middle of the building. It got me thinking...

...what if I combined my Florist with a furniture, bric-a-brac, antique kind of dealer shop for my mis-matched furniture and other bits?? With an archway between where both flowers and furniture can spill out into? 

Inspiration photo - Sudergade, Helsingør.

Suddenly I had a very clear picture in my head how this house will work. I can't do pretty sketches like some of you, so after scribbling my ideas roughly out on paper, I drew this 'draft' on the computer.

Draft plan for façade 

It is pretty much the Toy House x 2 with an archway thrown in.

The Florist will be in the bigger shop to the left, with a small apartment above (oh, I can't wait to do pretty). To the right will be the Antique / Furniture / Second hand shop (Kaj Larsen & Son) with the door from my last post inside the archway. This shop is (deliberately) tiny on the bottom floor and will have stairs to a larger shop floor above.

Back of house

Like the Toy House, this will be a front opening house. The trouble with front opening houses is often the lack of windows. I love windows! 

Yes, you loose some wall space, but I like what they add to a room with the light coming in. So, this house will have windows at the rear - lots of windows! (and as you can see, some kind of door on the first floor of the furniture shop, since it clearly is impossible to get large pieces of furniture up a narrow staircase). 

Like is very often the case with houses in the old Danish towns, the front will be painted or 'white washed' but the timber studwork will be left exposed at the back. 

I am going to build this one as a series of individual room boxes, much in the same way as I did the Toy House. I liked building that way because I can work on one box at a time, easily move it around and get into the nooks and crannies easy. So, here it goes....

The first two boxes. I am using plywood again this time even though it does have a tendency to warp, but it is easy for me to cut. I found when I did the last build, that because the individual pieces are smallish, any warping does not tend to become a big issue especially since everything will be covered and cladded in one way or another. Besides this is an old house... 

I couldn't wait to 'tidy up' the outside of the boxes, so masked off the pattern for the studwork right away. 

A coat of render: filler compound mixed up with 1/2 water, 1/2 pva glue to make it nice and hard wearing. 

It is beginning to look like a house already :-)

Have a lovely week, everyone!

Anna 

Welcome to my New Project...

Where do you start a new project? I started with a door.

I am not sure if starting with a door is odd, but that is what I have done. I do have a plan for this next house, but I had such a clear picture in my head of one of the doors, I just built it.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos. The door, or doors are made from card stock that I scored to look like planks. I cut the hole for the window slightly larger smaller on the back and then made the frame on the front separate which allowed me to paint the door before putting the 'glass' in. 

I couldn't find a handle that I liked, so made this handle using a small curved section of a fancy cut mdf piece meant for balustrades. I glued it onto a piece of card and painting the whole thing black and then rubbed a bit of copper ink over it. It is much less shiny than in this photo and will pass for a cast iron handle, I think.

You may notice the 'glass' in the photo above is clear. That was my first attempt but I wasn't completely happy with it. The cathedral style of glass is made by smearing glue over the plexiglass - the method works fine, but it wasn't the look I was after. 

I really wanted coloured glass and after a bit of pondering, I decided to try mixing in some coloured ink. I also decided to use gloss modge podge instead of the glue. The tacky glue had dried beautifully clear but stayed slightly rubbery so I was thinking dust would stick to it over time and be difficult to clean off. 

This time, instead of smearing the glue on in a scrolling pattern, I put on rows of dots. I remember seeing glass panes that looked like rows of bottle bases once and thought it would look interesting. 

I managed to carefully pry the frame away and replace the cathedral glass with my coloured glass and am so happy with the result. 

(By the way: The glass is an afterthought by the current owner, set into an original door to 'fancy it up' and add a bit of interest - but more about that later).

and the inside. The doorframe is basswood and the stone step is made from balsa wood. The little latch that keeps the half-door in place works and to hold the top of the door, I made a tiny little working wire hook and eye. Looking at it now, I realize I will need to add some kind of locking mechanism so the shop owner can lock-up shop at night. 

It all went so well until the hinges. I got them all on, all glued, all the tiny nails in and then.. one of turning parts snapped on the half-door. Of course it happened after the glue had set. Short of pulling it all apart, I have decided to live with it and glued the broken part in place. 

It is disappointing but reality is that it will never be opened and closed I (and you) am the only one who knows it is stuck. 

So what is this new house? As you can see I have started to build something, but I will wait and show you more soon, when it actually will look like something other than a wooden box. I do hope to get to work on it some more this coming weekend. 

Thank you all for stopping by.

Anna 

From wood to terracotta

I have just realized, I completely forgot to show you how my roof tiles turned out. 

Pale wood beading has been turned to 'terracotta tiles'. I really enjoyed the process of these make-believe tiles and am really happy with how it has turned out. 

I started by giving the entire roof an undercoat of black gesso. I wish, I had remembered to take a photo. I think, I am in love with black gesso - it looked amazing! It made me want to build a house with glazed black tiles.

My thinking behind using black instead of the usual white, was that black would tone down and 'dirty' the terracotta paint rather than making it bright as a white undercoat tends to do. In the picture above, the tiles had had just a single coat of terracotta over the black. 

The 'ridge tiles' are made from a length of 'half-round' wood beading with narrow card strips glued over the top for the individual tiles. 

A second coat of paint and the tiles are starting to look like terracotta, but now it was too clean and uniform for an old house so...

Back to the painting. For this last coat, I painted the tiles one by one, randomly mixing the paints, most burnt sienna, with bits of red and various browns thrown in for good measure.

I have never attached the roof to the house. I was going to, but it just rests nicely onto the house, fitting into two notches, so I am not sure I will ever hinge it. One thing is for certain; it came in really handy to be able to lift it off and work on it. 

Next up was the zink flashing. This is just thick foil painted with silver acrylic paint a trick I found in 

'The big book of a miniature house' by Lea Frisoni. I was glad that I had painted plenty of foil because it took quite a few trails before I worked out how to get the foil strips to fit in and around the ridges in the tiles. 

Note to self: use heavier foil in the future.

In the end, I worked out a rough template. It is not perfect, but it looks ok for an old roof. 

After that was all glued in place, I 'dirtied' and weathered the whole roof. It might need a bit of dirt and grime and I am toying with the idea of moss growing here and there. We'll see...

So will I do this kind of roof again? I think it works, so I am pretty sure I will. 

But next time, I might like to try and find a wood beading with a slightly more shallow profile so that I can get a neater finish on the zink. And - if the house is any bigger than this one, I just might have to invest in a better saw (read 'something electrical'), because I am not sure, I would want to cut any more tiles than this by hand. 

And so - I think the house itself is finally finished. Is a house ever really finished? 

There are still empty shelves in the shop, the curtains in the apartment needs to be hung and Truffle is still waiting for his basket. But the house itself is finished. 

Have a great weekend everyone,

Anna X