An early 19th century room box

 When I decided to sell my 18th century Pennsylvania stone house, I kept all the furnishings so I could put them in a new room box, and here it is.

                                                             I love mood shots, don't you?

Here's the room fully lit.

Actually, as I post this, the exterior of the box is not fully complete. I need to add some trim molding to the exterior, and get a piece of glass for the front, but I really wanted to see finished interior, because I finally found a small enough LED tap light with a remote to fit between the beams.

And here's the light.

It's 1" high, but by taking off the plastic lens I was able to make it short enough to tuck into place.

I'm still looking for something smaller.

By the way, The ceiling timbers are cut from a piece of builders foam. Previously I've used either wood or styrofoam, but builders foam came out looking best, I think.

I wanted to build the room out of 1/4" Baltic birch plywood, but all I could find was 3/16", which I don't like as well. I bought 2 panels, so I'll be building myself another room box in the future.

I used styrofoam to built up the back wall with the window  and the fireplace. 

I also used miniature clay bricks, which I then tinted with color wash to give them a little more character.

The candle box on the wall is annoying me. It looked just right till I saw it in the photo, now it looks too big. I can't remember if I glued it to the wall or just tacked it with glue dots. Maybe I'll make a smaller one.

TIP

When you're not sure if your miniature room looks quite right, take a photo, or look at it in a mirror. If something's wrong, you'll usually spot it. For instance, I didn't notice the dust on the work table in the foreground till I saw it in the photo.

My Windsor bench was missing a slat on the back, so I used a scrap of fabric that looked like a colorful quilt to cover it up.

To make a cloth drape over the side of a table, soak it in a mixture of glue and water, put it into place and let it dry. I let mine dry over a piece of foil so as to not damage the tabletop.

The items in the laundry basket were also shaped using a glue and water mixture. I soaked them, shaped them in place and let dry.

The hanging cauldron is actually the wooden cap from a bottle of Cholula hot sauce. I drilled 2 holes through the cap, ran a piece of steel wire for the handle, then painted it black. After spraying it with Krylon Matte Finish, I rubbed a little chalk dust on it.

The twig broom leaning against the bricks is made from a toothpick and some rusted wire I had left from an old decorating project. I dabbed some gray paint on the bottoms of the wires to simulate ash.

A Room Box for a Maine Lobsterman

 The time is circa 1900. Amos Gooch is a lobster fisherman living in Cape Porpoise Maine. After he sold his cottage to a rich fellow from Away (anyplace out of Maine), he bought himself a new lobster boat and found himself a new place to live. You see him here in his cozy new digs, with his lifelong best pal, Cap.

I made the blue table and hutch on the left from an unpainted Town Square trestle table and the top half of a kitchen sink cabinet by Reutter. The table as originally designed was too wide for my purpose, so I took it partially apart, removed the trestle and made the table narrower.

I turned the top half of the Reutter cabinet upside down and added a little lip to finish the top. I had already used the rest of the Reutter sink for another room box. 

I wanted something to stick under the table, so I made a wooden crate. What could I put in there, that would add some more visual interest? Fish netting! I had a nice fish net made by Amy Robinson, but I didn't want to use it here, as I just wanted something poking up out of the box, and it would be a shame to crumple up a nice fishing net and hide most of it in a box, so I made a servicable substitution. By the way, Amy is based out of Biddeford Maine, which is the next town up from Cape Porpoise.

To make the net I used some cotton gauze. The stuff I had at home was too stretchy and had a funny pattern in it, I suspect it might have been polyester, so I went to Walmart's fabric and notions section and bought a new little packet of cotton gauze.

Next I mixed up a few colors of paint with water to make a grey wash. This particular wash was on the blue-grey side. 

I spread a piece of gauze on an enamel tray, then I dabbed on some wash on one end of the fabric, splashed on some water, dabbed on some more wash, patted the dry half onto the wet half, and when the color looked ok, I carefully lifted the fabric off and laid it on a couple sheets of paper towel to gently blot off the excess water.

Next I tranferred the netting onto a fresh surface so it could dry, crumpling and folding it to shape. I made a few of these. Once dry, they tend to keep their crumpled shape fairly easily. 

I dabbed a bit of glue on the parts of the crate where I wanted the netting to hang over, then pressed the netting down a bit over the glue.

Amos's chairs are Town Square's Chianti chairs. I had several of these that I had no use for, and didn't manage to sell on Ebay, so I pulled off the leatherette seats and replaced them with matting I cut from some old straw coasters I had laying around. I sanded areas of the chairs to give them a lived in look.

By the way, the flooring is a bamboo placemat. I just trimmed it to fit and glued it down.

The blue hanging wall cabinet is the top half of a Michael's hutch.

While looking through my stash for things to put on the shelf, I found I had one of those shiny, cheap tin buckets. I figured if I toned down the shine on it, it'd look just right so I sprayed it with Krylon matte finish. 

I also had a beige metal dust pan by Multi-Minis, nice pan, wrong color. I wanted mine black, so I gave the pan a coat of matte finish, then painted it. I bumped it a couple of times during the drying process, so I had to reapply color and finish it off with a couple more coats of Krylon before I was through. I did the same thing with the shiny tin ladle, turning it into a more antique looking black one.

By the way, the little wooden chest was made by cutting a piece of scrapwood and a small section of molding. I stained the molding a darker color, glued them together, and applied a dab of silvery paint to simulate the latch.

One more little tip.

I loved the style of this little plastic cabinet, but wanted to tone down that plastic shine, so I brushed on a wash of thinned down brown paint over the whole thing, including the white knobs. I think it came out rather well. 

If you'd like to see Amos's original cottage, the one he sold to the rich city slicker click here.

1:24 Helen Allingham Tudor Cottage Row

August, 2021

Well, I finally finished. I had thought I was finished several months ago, but the house kept niggling at my mind. I'd put it on top of my piano in the living room, but it just wasn't satisfied. I've begun to think of her as "She". She wasn't happy with her side views, wanted a bit more texture there. Now that that's been done she seems content.

Doors closed.

Doors open.

My half inch scale house sitting atop some 1 inch scale room boxes.

Side views.

The added texture she wanted doesn't show up well here. It was subtle, but what can I say, she wanted it.

I designed this building as a row of three 2 room cottages. The building I based it on was originally a single family dwelling, which was later turned into 3 small cottages, and in the 20th century turned into a restaurant. By the way, it wasn't unusual for even a single family dwelling this size to have several separate staircases.

Cottage #1

Cottage #2

Cottage #3

I'd previously described the whole building process, so if you continue to read down the page you can read about all the details.

However, I hadn't written how I made the slate roof.

I was having trouble deciding on how to do the roof. 

I wanted Sussex Horsham slate, but I couldn't find photos of roofs that looked in any way similar to the Helen Allingham painting that inspired this build.......

......until I finally did.

Now all I had to do was figure out how to make a 1:24 roof that looked sort of like these.

I ordered some Rust-oleum stone spray paint and tried it on some black card stock which was too lightweight, so I decided to try poster board. All I had was white, the only black posterboard I could find wasn't much stiffer than the black cardstock.  

 Below are images that show the paint on white poster board, and the effect on the black card stock. 

on white posterboard

on black cardstock

I thought the spray paint color looked better on a black background, so I started by painting my white posterboard black. When it was dry, I spray painted the sheet with the Rust-oleum.

Next I cut the posterboard into strips and used a black marker along one cut edge of each strip to darken the exposed edge.

Finally I made small cuts into the strips of posterboard. I found that using nail scissors worked best for me.

This photo shows how I had cut and applied strips within a roof angle.

You'll notice that although I darkened the cut edges of posterboard along the eaves, I didn't do so on the interior cuts. I had noticed in photos of Horsham stone roofs that mortar was visible to one extent or another, peeping out between the stones. Leaving these edges white seems to give that effect, and I felt added to the roof's overall texture.

And here's my final result.

I decided to cap the ridge with a different "stone". I used a piece of L shaped dollhouse moulding to simulate the real life caps that could have been used.

                                                     
The rest of the story can be found below.

                                                     
July 22, 2020
Started work on a new dollhouse in half inch scale. Still not used to working in 1:24 and it's a funny thing, once I started cutting the wood, the part of the facade I cut looked smaller than the drawn out plans. I checked it, but nope, they're both the same size.

The house will be a version of the cottage in this painting by Helen Allingham, done some time between 1880 and 1905. She painted this row of cottages three times, I guess it was a favorite of hers too.

Its titled Cottage in West Tarring, Worthing, so I looked online just for the heck of it, and I found out that it's still standing!

It's now a restaurant and bar called The Parsonage.

They've posted quite a few pictures of the interior on their sites, but it's been altered from the 1400's original floorplan. I've found quite a few old photos and drawings of the place, and read some historic society articles. It's believed to have been built in 1480 as a house for a merchant, and it used to be much longer. Later it was used as a parsonage, and later still was divided into three cottages.

Here's an old photo probably taken in the 1910s or 20s.

This interior shot was taken probably sometime in the 1920's or 30's when it was someone's home.

Back to my 1:24 version.

I liked the arching roof supports in one section, but didn't want to make the house three feet long, so I decided to move sections around a little. I used photo editing to get an idea of how the place would look with my changes.

I decided to move the left wing all the way over to the right, and make a house with two gables instead of one. Will building this house drive me crazy? Yes, it most assuredly will. 

After I drew out my plans I figured I should make a foamboard mockup so that I could see everything more clearly in 3D. After tackling the big piece of foamboard and finally getting the ground floor front cutout done, I said to myself: You fool! You fool! you cut it a quarter inch too short! It should have been 4 1/4" high! .......Well, I guess it was a good thing my first mistake was on a piece of foamboard.

This is what I have so far.

The center cut out area is where the bump out window will go.

July 27. 2020

Well, here's what I have so far.

I'm planning on some areas being bricked or brick revealed under worn or fallen plaster. After trying some home made 1:24 brick, I decided to try using a printed brick sheet by World Model. The paper is fairly heavy and there's just enough texture to it. 

Half inch scale bricks made from egg cartons were just way too thick for this project. Bricks cut from a foam plate looked good, but I was concerned they might still be a bit too thick when I tried to do the bricks showing under worn plaster. 

The half inch scale diamond pane windows were made using wire modeling mesh. I used Active Wire Mesh by Activa, which comes in a silver color. I also have a package made by another company in copper. I painted both sides of the mesh with black paint before adding wooden muntins and mullions and acrylic "glass" panels.

August 2, 2020

The ground floor front is almost finished, I'll be adding the central window and a few bits and pieces a little bit later. 

I'm happy with the brick paper, but now I'm wondering if I should have ordered 3 sheets instead of 2, if what I have might be enough? I'll find out later. The next step will be to flip the wall over to finish off the other side of the window and door areas, and after that I'll cut out 2 new end walls. After I cut out the original ones I realized I had made a mistake, so I need to cut new ones. Then I'll be able to glue the 3 exterior walls to the floor base.

August 9, 2020

I've added hinges and latches to the 3 doors. The hinges are small clock hands which I've glued onto the doors. The latches are painted on using Tulip Slick dimensional fabric paint. I used the same paint for the hinges and latch of the nonworking door under the stairs.

Speaking of stairs..... here's the unadorned staircase while in the works.

I cut it from a piece of dense builders' insulation foam. I decided to use the foam instead of wood, figured it would be easier, and it was. The treads aren't quite even, but it doesn't matter since I'd planned on encasing the stairs with a wall. 

I cut the wall out of matboard, and I plan of giving the fireplace a plaster finish, not sure if I'll want some brick showing or not at this point.

The building holds three, two room cottages, and I thought it would be better to work on one at a time because I need to have the two end units close to finished before I can insert the bumped out windows in the central unit. 

Next I'll have to apply timbers to the inside front and staircase walls, and do the stone floor. A wooden floor would be easier, but I felt the cottages needed stone or brick floors, and I'm not willing to do a 1:24 brick floor. I'll go mad if I do that. I've done 1:12 ones, and that was allright, but 1:24 - no way.

Today, among other things, I did the stone floor with joint compound, also known as plaster.

I spread on a thin layer, then let it dry for a while. I think I let it sit for about an hour. Then I carved  out a pattern of stones with a pencil .Afterwards I left it to dry thoroughly for another hour or so.

If you click on the picture you'll see it's bumpy from the carving. Next I smoothed out the bits and pieces with a piece of foam backed fine sandpaper, followed by a gentle rubbing with a dampened cloth. The cloth softened a few edges, so I used a blunted pick to redefine them.

Then I goofed. I started coloring the floor and when I finished I decided I didn't like the colors I'd used, so I took a wet cloth and rubbed off most of the paint and started over with a new color palette.

The colors I'd just used were all wrong with the ochre-ish staircase woodwork.

I changed the stones to gray.

I used a palette consisting of a warm white, a dab of dark gray, and hints of medium Hauser green and stone blue. First I applied a layer of colorwash, then added color to individual stones to help define them. When everything was thoroughly dry I buffed the floor with a piece of brown paper til it felt smooth.

I painted the fireplace white because I wasn't sure if I wanted it to be plastered or showing brick. Once I got to look at it, I decided I'll brick it. I stuck a piece of brick paper within the hearth for now.

Here's an idea of how the room will look. I was holding the lefthand wall in place for the picture. I didn't want to glue it in till I'd finished the floor.

August 21

The ground floor of the first cottage now has the other wall and a fireplace.

I did a black wash over the fireplace bricks to soot them up. I also aded a little smoke to the ceiling above it. I'll be going back over everything to add a few more enhancements later. The traditional bit of ruffled fabric above the hearth is made of a quarter inch wide strip of paper. 

I wet the strip, then arranged it in ruffled folds on a piece of styrofoam, and pinned the ruffles down. Then I brushed watered down glue over all and let dry. When I carefully peeled off the strip, bits of styrofoam stuck to the backside of the ruffle. Note to self, next time pin to dense builders' foam. I was able, however, to pick out the bits of styrofoam. When done, I glued it into place under the mantel.

I used a plastic bead to make the cauldron. Using my dremel sander I sanded the top of the bead down till it looked right, then I drilled holes for the wire handle. 

I sprayed it with Krylon matte finish to prime it, then followed with a couple of coats of black paint, topped with more Krylon finish. 

The pile of ashes below the grate is dryer lint.

I'm working on the upper floor now, and have been cutting floorboards out of basswood.

Very old floorboards are wider than the boards we've grown used to. Old floorboards varied in width, and can be up to 2 feet wide. I started out cutting some of the floorboards 3/4" wide which would be equivalent to 18" in real size, but it just didn't look right in the room, so I started recutting some so that the widest boards would be 1/2" wide, or equal to 12" real size.

I'll be distressing the floorboards and staining them next.  Whenever I do random width boards I write a code number on the underside so I can glue them in the proper order. I also need to make a chimney for this floor.

August 31

Work on the cottage has been proceeding slowly. It took me a while to build the central bay. I also kept running into the problem of  --- I measured three times, cut carefully, now why doesn't it fit? OK, it fits if I turn the piece upside down. There were also the moments when I realized I had used the wrong thickness wooden sticks for the timbers I had just glued to the wall. Wait! Idiot, it's ok, the house is early Tudor, they didn't use standardized lumber, the timbers don't all have to be the same thickness.

 I did wind up with a flaw on the front I'll have to disguise later, though.

After a few false starts I managed to build the second set of stairs. I can't glue the top and bottom halves together until I glue in the next wall, and I shouldn't glue that wall into place until I make the floor.

I made the stairs from a piece of balsa stripwood. I'm still not sure of how I'll treat the underside or what I want to do about a stair rail. I have some vague ideas, but nothing's quite solidified in my mind.

Guess what.

I just stuck the staircase along the other wall and realized that I have to change my floorplan. When I drew up my plans I was using 5/16" risers for the stairs, but I wound up using 1/4" risers because that's what I had. When you build your own stairs, the size of the risers and treads changes how many steps you actually wind up with. In short, I wound up with too many steps. The other staircase had 12 steps, this one has 17.

It's ok, I'll just move the steps to the other wall. It actually makes things a little simpler for me.

PS

I thought it would be helpful, for people who are new to building dollhouses and miniatures, to post a picture of the difference in 1:12 to 1:24 scale.

Sept 10

I finally got the ground floor of the second cottage finished. I got held up by my miscalculation of the staircase and needed to change my floorplan. My next step will be to install the upper floor. I shouldn't have placed the staircase all the way to the end opening, should have left room for a support post for the ceiling, but I'll figure something out.

I added a very diluted black colorwash to the stone floor to better define the cracks between the stones, patting a bit to wipe the watery black off the stones' surface while allowing it to settle in the cracks.

You can see the brick fireplace and hob in the next room. I forgot to rub a little graphite along the brick edge to tone down the shine.

When I went to glue the stairs in place I found I had a small gap between the two steps at the final turn, so I sanded a sliver of wood to fill in the gap.

Tudor architecture can be so forgiving.

I decided to make this fireplace be covered in plaster without visible brick on the front. Instead of a brick hob, I decided to make this one look like cast iron.

I had an uh-oh moment after I finished making it, though.

I automatically reached for my can of Krylon matte finish to give it a protective coat, and as soon as I sprayed it, the black paint began to come off and the purple foam strated peeking through and was slightly pitted. Stupid, stupid me forgot she was spraying foam. Foam and most sprays do not mix well together. The pitting was very slight though, I guess because the foam was so dense, and I decided to just repaint. Now it looks like a cast iron hob (or range) that had become rusted and pitted and then salvaged and reblackened.

The little ruffled curtain over the fireplace is another strip of paper. I just gave it a light coat of green paint before I shaped it. I also made another cauldron, but I forgot to hang it in the fireplace before taking these pictures.

BTW, back in the olden days, most poor and working class people cooked most of their meals in cauldrons, which were just large cookpots. Most often they were iron, but they could also be shiny copper or brass. Cooking your food in a single pot was economical, you used less coal or wood. 

Nov 3

I must confess, I've grown tired of working on this house, and think I'll take a break from it for a while.

The roof panels are all in place and ready for the roofing material, but I'm not sure of how I'll proceed with it. It may take quite a bit of experimentation to get what I have in mind.

There are details I have to attend to on the front too, like maybe some shutters, pents (small roofs) over a couple of windows, aging the colors of the bricks and timbers, etc. The area just under the central roof needs some finishing too.

I ordered more brick paper for the side walls, but later decided that plaster and timbers would be visually more interesting after all. However, I need to install the exterior chimney before I begin to timber and plaster. You can see where I drew in its position on the wall. Right now the first coat of plaster is drying on said chimney.

Back view. I glued in the last roof panel over the central portion this morning.