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

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