My mini journey begins & The Arthur Disaster

This is a very, very long post.  But I want to tell you a little bit about how my journey in miniatures began.   I have always had an intense fascination for tiny things.  Even before I knew there was such a thing as 'miniatures'.  When I was in Primary School I was a terrible student.  If I studied and did well in exams they put me into the 'A' class and I didn't like the girls in the 'A' class so I would deliberately not work, get back into the 'B' class.  There I could just coast along and do just enough to get by while making paper furniture to line up along the front edge of my desk.  I don't remember where I obtained the paper - probably from my exercise books lol!  If my teachers only knew that one day I would do well at uni and end up teaching myself I would probably have to pick them up from the floor.  I think the furniture I made would probably have been about 1:24th scale.  Here is some of my story, skip the first part if you want to get to the nitty gritty about The Arthur's disaster.

Once upon a time....

Once upon a time, a little girl dreamed of owning a dollshouse.  In her mind's eye she imagined a typical British-style Victorian house, filled with period furniture and stuffed with accessories.  Her loving father made her a dollshouse as a surprise one Christmas, but she never really appreciated it as she should have.  It was a lovely house, about 4'6" long and 2'6" deep.  But it was single story, with a flat roof. The roof lifted off to give access to a perfectly laid out floor plan of a complete 1950's ranch-style contemporary house.  It was a great house.  But it wasn't the house I had dreamed of having and I didn't appreciate it until many years later, though I did spend lots of happy hours playing with it and letting my imagination run free.  When my mother considered that I had 'outgrown' it she gave it away, as she did with all of our things that she considered we were too old to have any more, or that we didn't spend time playing with any more. 

I didn't realise that there was an 'adult' world of miniatures until many, many years later when a magazine advertised a series of parts to construct a house part by part and showed that it was for adults as well as children.  I decided to subscribe and after a while, having received several issues, I browsed through the phone book (didn't have the internet on at the time) and wonder of wonders, found that there were shops selling things for dollshouses here in Sydney! 

My husband and I visited 'Small Pleasures' and it was like walking into an Aladdin's cave.  The items available were mind-boggling for both of us.  And the dollshouse that Nerida had in her classroom off the showroom made me gasp.  It was so beautiful!   She not only has a lovely house and is an extremely talented miniaturist herself but she has acquired many special and exquisite accessories to go into it.   I bought quite a lot of the 'cheap and cheerful' stuff to accessorise my house.  And I also bought some of the lovely furniture kits that Nerida at that time put out herself.  Over the years that followed I have bought many of these, several of most in fact.  This visit was an education to me.  I learned what was available, I learned that my dissatisfaction with the kit house that had already had Peter and me doubling the size of it was not unusual, and I gained a wonderful mentor and friend in Nerida and Christine who helped her in the shop.

That house still isn't finished!  And I'm glad - it is already large but will end up even larger, when I have that long-dreamed off studio.  I want to cut it in half both horizontally and vertically and add an extra floor and extra rooms in the centre.

I went on to build a Santa & Mrs Claus roombox, then started on 'The Arthur' by Greenleaf.  I was going well with this cottage, even have all the furniture for it.  I wired the lounge area, had the flooring cut for upstairs, did the kitchen floor with real slate pieces, built chimney breasts to take the Phoenix fireplaces, and covered the exterior with cladding.  It underwent a change of colour, and was ready to have the trims added to the window - but they don't match  the shape of the windows well enough.  So Peter said he would cut new ones for me.  After quite a long time of waiting....and waiting.....and waiting.....during which time I had built 'Coventry Cottage' and moved on to 'The Magnolia' - The Arthur was put on the top shelf in the hallway where I have a lot of my miniature books, magazines and journals.  And there it stayed for years.  I reminded Peter occasionally that I was waiting for the frames but gave up in the end and decided I would need to make them myself.

We painted most of our real life house in April last year, and everything was put into storage while this was happening. 



Complete Restoration Required.....

The other day I discovered that my Arthur was not in fact stored where I thought it had been. It had been stored where water and dirt could get to it. I thought at first that it was totally trashed and indeed it is a sad sight! I don't have photos available of how it was before - my 1:12th scale Journals are still in storage. Hopefully safely!!!

But it can be restored.  It will take a lot of work. 

Front of  cottage

This front view doesn't really give a true idea of the dirt and grunge on it, or the amount of mould on the shingles.  I had already wiped the worst of the dirt off before allowing it into the house, of course, but the photo is a bit washed out from the flash.

Rear

This rear view gives a bit of an idea of the devastation but again it is quite washed out and doesn't quite show the full scope.

Mouldy shingles

Mouldy shingles on porch as well

when I constructed the cottage I followed the advice in a 'how to' book I had bought and dipped the shingles into some stain to get the colour I wanted.  That raised the grain to an unacceptable extent and I sanded each and every shingle individually before re-staining where needed.  This took forever and gluing them on individually also took a long time, especially since it was the first time I had done so.

When I look at the mildew on them now, the gaps that have appeared and the way they have buckled, and all the gaps where some have come off or broken I could cry.  However it can't be helped - they will all have to come off and be replaced.

Maybe this time I'll do slate instead of shingles.  We don't really have a lot of shingled houses in Australia so I am more familiar with tiles or slate or even corrugated iron anyway.

Porch is also mouldy

The porch is also mouldy and the boards will need to be replaced.  I suppose that will give me an opportunity to rectify an error I made, placing the boards lengthwise instead of laying them from the house to the front so the rain will run off them.  Maybe that's why they became mouldy?

Looking at the interior

Kitchen slate floor

On the ground floor right side is the kitchen.  This is a tiny room, a)nd will only have space for a stove, a small bench and little else.  I can't remember exactly what I had for it before, and a lot of it will all change now anyway.  
One thing I am very happy with though is the slate floor.  This is real slate.  We selected tiles that were the thinnest of those we had and Peter had fun cutting them to size with the angle grinder for me.  I stuck them in with proper tiling glue and grouted them properly.

Sitting room - ground floor

On the left side of the ground floor is the sitting room.  This is already wired up - I hope the light still works!  It probably won't, it has yet to be tested.  The stairs posed a bit of a problem for me before but I can't remember why now.  I think I wanted to add the carpet to them before I installed them and of course the flooring had to be put in before the stairs go in.  In the plan you put a wall in but I want to utilise the space under the stairs to put a little desk area.

Wallpaper sitting room

Bedroom - 1sr floor left side

Here is a closer view of the wallpaper I had in this room.  I really like it but of course it is quite formal.  I have some beautiful furniture that Rhonda MacDonald, an Aussie Artisan, made from Nerida's kits and painted burgundy then decorated with hand-painted roses that looked perfect in this room.  The paper determined the colour of the exterior and the burgundy in it determined the colour of the accents in the house.  At the time that is.  Now of course it could all change.


On the first floor left side is the bedroom.  I am proud of the chimney breast here and in the sitting room, both of which I made to accommodate their fireplaces which are also made and painted ready to install.

Closer view wallpaper in bedroom

Because the stairs come into this room it was a bit tricky to figure out the furniture placement but I think that everything I had for the original plan will in fact work for the new look as well.

This closer view of the wallpaper in the bedroom doesn't show the lovely burgundy that the roses originally were.  It was such a pretty paper that I might in fact try to re-do it in the same design when I renovate the house.

It is a small room - The Arthur is after all a small house - but it is fun.  And I think it will be a great cottage to try out my ideas.  How they have changed over the years!

Sewing room - 1st floor

Next door to the bedroom on the first floor was going to be the sewing room - and it might still be.  The furniture for this room is all built and ready to install, if I do decide to keep that function.  If it becomes something else - who knows?

Closer view wallpaper in sewing room

The wallpaper in this room picked up the touches of blue in the bedroom wallpaper and tones with the colour in the sitting room paper and yet gives a bit of variety.  I like a dollhouse to have an overall harmony when you open the doors or (as in the case of American style houses like this one) see the interior all at once.  Yet each room needs to have its own character so it doesn't become boring. 



Originally The Arthur was intended to have a Victorian interior, and I still love Victorian style.  My large (very large) house that I talked about at the beginning of this long, long post will be Victorian and will have everything from servants quarters to a scullery and Butler's pantry.

Coventry Cottage is also done as a Victorian cottage and I love it.  It is in my workroom just now, but the furniture is still packed up and in the cupboard in there until I can take the cottage to get some perspex sheets cut to protect the openings from dust. 

But how tastes can change over the years.  I was not at all attracted to modern decorating when I started miniatures.  Now I like to decorate my projects as contemporary living spaces.  And when I renovate The Arthur I've decided I'll attempt a 'shabby chic' approach.  A brave move for me because although I love the look I've never really done it before.  So those of you who have blogs showing your shabby chic style - it will be looking for inspiration from you!  I have been collecting pictures of settings that I like in this style and have a reasonable number of them by now but achieving the look is another thing altogether!

And if you've managed to perservere all the way through this post - you deserve a medal!