Hanging curtains

 This weekend, I finished installing the curtains in the apartment.

Unlike all the dollhouse kits I have seen, the spacing between windows in old Danish houses is really narrow. At times no more than 50cm (20"), which translates to just 2mm (3/4"), which is the spacing I had made for The Toy House apartment. 

With such a narrow space between the windows, I had to be quite selective when it came to curtains, so that they wouldn't look too bulky. I have known all along that I was going (somehow) have semi-shear white lace curtains over roller blinds, which was really common for window treatment.

To make the curtains, I bought 10cm (4") wide Swiss embroidered edging lace. It is basically a Swiss voile with a machine embroidered edge. The beauty of it for this project is the fine, lightweight cotton, which draws up to fine, soft gathers beautifully. 

I cut the piece into the six lengths, pressed and handstitched the seams. Yes, you read correctly - handstitched! I know, slightly nuts, but I really don't like the stiffness of glued hems.

I then gathered up the top of each curtain before pinning the drapes into place and giving them a good dose of spray starch and leaving them to dry. 

While the curtains were drying, I made the blinds to go behind them (and of course forgot to take photos). They are basically a bit of fabric, rolled up around a toothpick, cut to length and a wee bit of string attached to the lower edge. You can just see a glimpse of them in the picture.

To assemble the whole thing, I cut three pieces of foamcore the same width as the windows. I glued a blind onto each piece. Once that and the curtains were dry, I glued a pair of curtains onto the front of each piece.

Then I cut a strip of balsa wood, slightly wider than the card pieces and about 1.5cm (5/8") longer than the trio of windows. This piece would both enable me to install the three sets of curtains nice and level, but also provide support for a pelmet.

I hope that all makes sense. You can kind of see how all the layers work in the picture above.

After debating about what to do for the pelmet for a bit, I decided to embroider one. I had (very brief) look around for a suitable ribbon, but an embroidered one would be nicely in line with the 'hand craft' movement of the time. 

 

I embroidered a strip of simple daisies. These are simple stitches (chain stitch, stem stitch and French knots), but I admit the size makes it a little bit fiddly. 

Once done, I cut it out and glued it over a piece of firm card. Before I glued the covered card onto the balsa strip, I stained the top of the wood to look like untreated, aged oak - now it just needs the dust to settle and it will look rather authentic LOL.

I am still undecided about curtain tiebacks. In some ways, it would make sense, but I don't want these windows to look too formal, and looking at photos it was rather common to have the curtains loose and just draw them back around the edge of the window sill... not sure yet. 

I hope you are having a lovely week everyone and hopefully find some time to mini.

Anna X

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

Roof tiling

I am rather horrified to admit my Toy House has been sitting without a proper roof since... well since Lock Up.

At least, I had painted the roof, just so it wouldn't look too horrible while I worked on the finishing touches. 

The thing is - I wanted a tiled terracotta roof like these: 

 

As you can see, these types of tiles are different to the barrel tiles seen in southern Europe and are laid in straight lines with interlocking ridges (does that make sense?).

I searched online for mini-versions to buy or tutorials for how to make them. I did eventually find these from Miniacons in Spain. Real terracotta in the right scale - Perfect.... 

 

... only getting them sent to OZ was going to be more expensive than I was prepared to pay. Perhaps I could make them...?

For several nights, I had a production line going.

I used airdrying clay, rolled out really thin. To get the undulations in the tiles, I made up a board from scarps of plywood and wooden sticks. I could then lay my clay strips across the ridges...

...and press the soft clay into place. Once the clay was half dry, I scored the strips so that they could easily be broken into individual tiles. It was all looking every promising. 

But when I started laying them - and, I did (luckily) do a small practice run - I soon realized that they were nowhere near precise enough. Overlapping them caused more problems,  I would need to do so much sanding and tweaking along the way and I was far from convinced that it would be successful. Sigh.. 

So there the house sat,

and sat,  

and sat.

Patiently waiting for a roof.

I had right at the beginning, briefly looked at these wooden tiles from Mini Mundus, but had held off getting them because of the cost. 

Then, during a hardware store visit, I spotted a timber molding with very similar profile. Perhaps I could..???

I bought just one length to give it a try. And as the saying goes: 'the rest is history'.

I cut the molding into tile size pieces and got to work. I don't have any fancy tools, so I just used whatever was at hand to make sure all the tiles were the same length.

I originally had thought, I would tile the roof of the dormer window also. I felt the tiles were a bit heavy, so decided to cover it in zinc (painted heavy duty foil) before I started placing the tiles.

I glued down narrow coffee stirrer sticks above each row of tiles before starting the next row. This is to slightly lift the lower edge of each row, so it looks like it overlaps.

I am so glad, I had left the roof loose. It is so much easier to just lift the whole thing off while I work on it rather than having to move the whole house around.

Cutting in around the dormer was 'fun', especially the angles around the roof, but I think it looks ok. 

I still need to finish the 'ridge' tiles - just a piece of half round timber beading before I can paint. But at least it is now starting to look like a roof.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Anna X