Lighting a quarter scale house with LEDs and flickering fireplaces

There have been questions asked about how to light a quarter scale cottage and I’ve had a page in progress for some time now, describing how I do it but I thought I'd start again and do a post on it.  I have lit several of my quarter scale buildings and doing so certainly gives a lovely effect.  I didn’t blog in detail all the steps I took to light Woodnook Cottage but did in fact take step-by-step photos to show a friend how I was doing it, so will use them here with a description of the process.  First, here is a photo I posted in January of Woodnook with all the lights and both fireplaces working, before I finished the roof and put the furniture in.  As I said in the blog, I regret using nano chips in the lights instead of the slightly larger ones but apart from that I was really pleased with the effect.

First of all, lets deal with a flickering fireplace, which often needs to be done quite early on in the process of construction.   Read through the lighting instructions and decide when you want to do the fireplace.  I can't stress that enough - read through all the instructions first!  They might not make a lot of sense until you do this a couple of times, hopefully the photos will help, but if you just start straight in without reading through first, there's sure to be a step that needed to be done before and you'll be in trouble.  

You will need to have your fireplace pre-prepared.  That is, if you want a brick surface inside, do it now.  Also remember that fires blacken the bricks with soot so do some blackening now.  Most of it will be covered with logs etc but it does add to the effect.  I personally like to spread a very, very thin layer of interior filler over the entire surface and scribe the bricks into it when it’s dry.  Then  I paint the ‘grout’ colour, sponge on the ‘brick’ colours then distress with dark brown or black.  I tend to overdo the black but hey! - it's a very sooty fire perhaps.  It’s up to you.  Now you’re ready to go.

Step 1: Drill a hole in the bottom of the fireplace or chimney for the wires to go out.  If you did this before you did the ‘bricks’ with filler, you might need to clean up the hole a bit in case you got some filler in it.  If you are using the three wires that come in the flickering fire kit, the hole  will need to be wide enough to accommodate all three wires.  Because the kit now comes pre-assembled, you need to feed the chip lights up through this hole into the fireplace so it also needs to be wide enough to feed the chips through one at a time remembering that after the first one, there will be a wire or two wires already in the hole.  This sounds obvious but we are so used to making holes as small and inconspicuous as possible that it is easily overlooked.  Don’t worry, it will be covered by the logs in the fire later on.

Showing hole in bottom of chimney

Step 2: Feed the chip lights one at a time through that hole.

Those 3 white rectangular bits in a clump at the bottom are the fire chips.  You can also see where I scratched the black paint at the back when drilling the hole through so that had to be touched up.

Step 3: Hold the ends of the wires to the ends of the wires on the battery to check that the chips are all working.  You might need to twist them a bit to make sure they connect properly.  Don’t forget to press the on/off switch if it doesn’t work straight away.   There, isn’t that pretty?

If the lights aren’t working, twist the wires more securely.  Still not working? Might need a new battery.

Step 4:  Now carefully untwist the wires again – I stress carefully because these wires are fragile and too much twisting and untwisting and they snap off.   You were supplied with two thin rubber tubes in your kit.  These are shrink tubes.  Slide one on each of the wires. 

Step 5: This time you will twist the wires together again permanently. I like to check them again at this time.  Bend the wires flat against themselves

Optional for step 5:  I like to solder the wires together before I fold them flat.  This is not essential according to the instructions because the shrink tube holds them together but it gives me a bit of extra peace of mind.

Step 6: And slide the shrink tube over the tube.  Now you need a heat gun or something similar to heat the shrink tube so that it shrinks tight against the wires and holds the join secure.  Be very careful with this step not to overheat the insulation on the rest of the wires.

Step 7:  Now you can attach the wires from the fire to the battery and  ……

Step 8: Sit back and enjoy your flickering fire for a while!  Good job!  Put the battery aside for now though, so it doesn’t get in the way while you are working on the rest of the house. 

I like to add either a fireplace front or andirons to my fireplace, then place logs so that the flickering lights can be seen through them.  The glow does shine through it all and the overall effect is really pretty.  You’ll note in this photo that the spot where the wires go through the chimney floor is visible but since in real life the fireplace is much smaller and much further away, it is not noticeable in reality.  Of course if it was a problem, a few ‘ashes’ on the base of the fireplace would add a nice touch.

I find it handy to tape the wires in a coil underneath the base of the house to keep them neat and out of the way.

And just for the heck of it, here's a photo of the completed fireplace, all alight.

By the way, the andirons and the fireplace tools are from Gayle Baillargeon (petworthminiatures.com).  Grace Shaw (Virtual Dollhouse) also has some good fireplace tools etc.

LIGHTING THE HOUSE:

Step 1:  Is to work out during a dry fit of the house where the lights need to be, not forgetting a light over the staircase so your mini people don't fall down the stairs in the dark - we can't have any accidents during the night.  Mark the positions of the ground floor lights on the first floor floor/ground floor ceiling.  Since the first floor usually has a sloping roof, the roof needs to go on temporarily to mark where the lights for this level will go.  It also means that care needs to be taken that the roof is actually sitting correctly in place so that the marks can be accurate especially for the light above the staircase.  One solution for other rooms on the first floor is to put the lights in the join between the front and back roofs, and drill a hole there.  I did this for Woodnook.  If you do this, you don't actually need a lightshade if you don't want one, unless you have the light hanging down a bit.

Doing this during the dry fit also makes it possible to work out where the wires will leave the house and go down the exterior.  If there is a chimney that is a good place to take the wires down.  You could make a groove down the interior of the chimney and take the wires all together down between the house and the chimney; or you could take the wires down the exterior of the chimney and cover them with the same surface as the rest of the chimney; or down the side of the chimney and cover them with greenery afterwards.  One of the suggestions that Jennifer made on the Beehive forum was to use a fine tube and take them down that, turning the tube into a downpipe afterwards – great idea.  Decide now what you want to do, because you need to know where you will be taking the wires. 

Also mark the place where the wires will leave the house, level with the floor so that they can be hidden.  In the photo for step 2 of the lit fireplace above, you can just see a tiny bit of the hole in the wall above the fireplace where the lights for the ground floor will leave to go down the chimney for this house.

Step 2:  Once this is done  drill the holes for the lighting wires to go through.  Keep these quite small because most of them will only need one set of thin wires threaded through.  The exception of course is the hole where all the wires will leave each floor of the house – this needs to be large enough for all the wires from that floor to fit.  Mind you, that’s still not huge!  Sand off so that the top and bottom edges are smooth then remove any slivers that have got into the hole while sanding, it needs to be nice and clear.

Step 3.  Then make a channel or groove in the surface of the floor or roof, to take the wires from the holes to the point at which they will leave the building.  This is quite easily done by using a metal ruler and a craft knife, making two parallel lines then gouging out a v-shape between them and rounding it off with a craft knife, finishing it off with a piece of rounded sandpaper. 

After this you can go forward and permanently construct the ground floor of the cottage, painting and wallpapering etc and doing the floor on that level.  

Then you are ready to put in the ceiling of the ground floor (which is also the floor of the first floor). 

If you want to do a flickering fire in the fireplace, this is also be a good time to do that (see above) - before you add that ceiling and make it difficult to reach inside.

Step 4.  Thread the wires of each light through the bead that will be the lampshade, then feed it up from the ceiling side through the hole in the floor.

Step 5: The wires are taken along the groove in the floor towards the exit hole.  I like to cover the groove with a bit of masking tape or painter’s blue tape, to provide a bit of protection for it.  Don’t worry, it doesn’t interfere with the flooring that will sit over it.

In this photo you can see how I've worked out the centre of  each of the rooms in order to determine where to put the light hole and can also see the grooves from the holes to the exit point.

Step 6:  Check that the lights are working by gently twisting the wires from the lights one by one to the wires from the battery.  Do this one by one so that you can easily locate any areas of difficulty.

Step 7:  I use commercial scribed wooden flooring for my houses usually, but very thin balsa wood that you have scribed and stained works fine too.  So does a sheet of cardstock that you have painted and marked floorboards on to.  Or individual ‘boards’ made from cardstock that you have painted and done yourself.  If you just wanted to have a painted floor, then it’s a bit trickier to hide the wiring but possible by running around under furniture and rugs and along walls, I guess.

Now cover the whole floor with your chosen flooring, clamp it and weight it so that it dries flat, and leave to dry.  Be patient – that’s hard for me!  Do lay it on the table with the floor face down, don't make the mistake of laying the ceiling flat on the table and weighting the floor with the lightshades between it and the table.  Ask me why I say that too!

Step 8: Insert the floor into the house, feeding the wires from the lights through the holes in the rear wall carefully and being careful not to get them caught between the floor and the wall while you are placing the floor.  Glue in place.

Step 9: check that the lights still work!

Step 10: take all the red wires from the lights and twist them together.  Take all the green  wires from the lights and twist these together.  This will involve carefully untwisting the ends of the wires a bit to allow enough free wire to do this.

Step 11: Take the wires down through whatever method you have chosen to hide your wires on the outside of the house.  For Woodnook I chose to take mine down the outside of the chimney and to then later go over it with the finish to match the rest of the chimney.

Wires going down the exterior of the chimney

For now, coil and tape the wire under the house to keep it neat and out of the way.

Now there is a bit of a hiatus while you complete the rest of the house to the stage where you are ready to install it onto the base.  Once you have finished the house and are ready to put attach it to the base, proceed as follows:

Step 12: Take the wires  through the holes in the base and work on them threaded through.   If you are not using a base of any sort, you will need to work out another way of hiding that battery/batteries.

Step 13: You were supplied with two thin rubber tubes in your light kit.  These are shrink tubes.  Keep any spares for further use.  Slip one of the shrink tubes over the red wire from the battery, and one over the black wire and slide up out of the way for now.

Step 14: Join the red wires from the lights to the red wire from the coin battery by twisting well together.  Be careful, as I said above, these wires are fragile and do break if twisted too vigorously too often.  Ask me how I know!

Step 15:  Do the same with the green wires from the lights to the black wire from the battery.

Step 16: Solder these with a drop of solder if that is your preference.  As I said before, the instructions say that the shrink tubes will hold it securely enough.  I'm just super cautious.   Fold the wires flat and slide the shrink tube over the join.  Heat with a heat gun and shrink the tube securely over the join.  This takes only a couple of seconds.

Step 17: Attach the leads to the battery and turn on.

Woodnook sitting on the base.  Note the blue painter's tape over the wires in the roof and chimney

Another view of the house with the painter's tape covering the wires, sitting on base and lights on

Step 18: Admire the effect of your house all lit up and looking lovely!  Congratulations, you are a pro!

This photo shows a standard lamp in the sitting room.  Since I did this as an afterthought because the nano chips were not as bright as the chip lights for quarter scale (much better for micro or 1:144th scale I think) my mini person wasn't happy with the amount of light in there.  I converted a non-working light kit to a working light and drilled a hole through from the underside of the cottage to take the wires.  This meant that a groove needed to be made in the base from the hole in the floor to the hole in the base to accommodate the wires so that the cottage would sit flat on the base.  Now my mini people are happy that they can read or do hand crafts in comfort!

Step 19: Attach the battery to the underside of your base with double-sided tape to keep it secure but available for when you need to change the battery.  Coil the excess wire and tape that also to the underside to keep it from getting in the way. 

I hope this helps, if you have any questions please feel free to email me and I will try to clarify the matter if I can.  Or I am sure that others on the forums will be able to assist too.