Today I worked on finishing the sitting room curtains.

Finished hemming and sewing all three of them.

Started hanging them up.

I also added a slither of wood behing the painting over the fireplace, so it would hang at a slight angle.

And glued it up on the wall.

Then I cut out two strips of green fabric to hang over the doorways somewhat like in this photo.

I glued the trim to the edge of the cloth.

Then started pleating the fabric to see how it would fall naturally.

Tomorrow, I will have to pleat it correctly and see what I can do with it.

In the meantime, I took some photos of the sitting room with all the curtains up. From the outside…

,,,and from the hallway side.

I think in spite of the glue I put down the sides of the curtains, the curtains are a bit too billowy to look realistic. So I may need to use gluey water to pleat them a bit more.

But for now, good night.

 

 

I decided that gold was not the correct color for any cracks between the crown molding and the ceiling, so I repainted them all in a color resembling the crown molding.

Then, after gluing on the rest of the ceiling paper and trim, I drilled a hole through the ceiling rosette, glued in the rosette and the chandelier, and painted the chandelier with brass-colored paint. (This keeps the light fixture from looking too shiny and fake.)

Then I placed the ceiling back on.

Next, I painted around the top of the wallpaper trim the same color, in case of cracks.

Cut, stained and glued in half the crown molding…

…and then the other half. I also glued in the mantle piece. And emptied out the room in order to brush out any leftover construction dust.

Glued the ceiling onto the room, and weighted it down with whatever I had at hand.

That will dry thoroughly overnight. But for now, here is the drawing room.

The light in the fireplace is hanging too high up because the wires are too short, so I will need to rewire those. There will soon be a fern on the plant stand. Plus, that cabinet will need to be filled with plenty more knickknacks…

..as well as some stuff on the tables. And perhaps a shawl draped over a chair… And I still need to make a curtain for the window.

But for now, goodnight.

 

 

Today, I realized that embroidery floss would make a perfectly-sized ball of yarn for the house. So here’s the knitting basket completed.

Then there was a little crack between the drawing room floor and the door to the servant’s quarters, because the hardwood floor was lower than the doorstep.

So I filled that in with a tiny piece of wood.

Then I remembered that the middle boards of the sitting room floor, although stained and laid in place, were never actually glued down. So I did that.

And then there was the chair rail that was never finished in the octagonal part of the room. So I worked on that, using a carefully placed mirror to see what I was doing.

So the chair rail has been completed now.

I still have three window curtains to make for that corner, and a couple draperies for over the doorways and I will be “finished” with the sitting room for now.

But instead of doing this,  I got back to the drawing room ceiling. Finished the photoshop version of the ceiling and printed it out in pieces. Then cut them out rather roughly and laid them down.

Then I cut out the corner patterns carefully.

And laid everything out again.

I was almost done gluing everything together when I accidentally got some gold paint on the paper itself, so I had to pull the trangle section out.

I’ll redo that tomorrow, as well as glue in the trim on the bottom part in the photo.

But for now, good night.

 

Miniature-in-the-mail days are always exciting days!  Today, all this was waiting on the front porch when I went out this morning.

First, a tiny hydrangea bush for the sitting room table.

Then a tiny basket that is much more in proportion to the rocking chair. It will contain some balls of yarn, when I find small enough yarn.

Then a fabulous grand piano, which I got at a crazy low price because the feet and the pedal board had been broken before.

I glued everything back together carefully.

The music holder lifts up, and the piano even has tiny strings inside!!!

I fixed the stick for the lid and propped it open.

Then I placed it on top of the sitting room, where the music room will be.

It’ll fit perfectly into the room. Can’t wait to get to there when I’m done with this part of the first floor.

I also received a couple doors, which I was hoping to turn into the sliding doors between the drawing room and the living room.

Popped the door out of the frame.

Placed it in the doorway…the doors are too short, but they should work fine.

(My son decided Anna needed ot rest on the sofa in the drawing room….she fits pretty well, actually!)

Still needed to add a threshhold for the doors to slide on.

Stained that and rounded the edges, so no one would trip on it.

Then I added wood to the top of each door.

Sanded them together, and then stained them, a different stain on each side.

And inserted them between the walls. (The following photo is taken through the drawing room window, since the angle is better.)

I still need to add handles, but for now you can already pull them shut and push them open easily.

(I just noticed in the photo that I need to fix the stain around the crack at the top of the door on this side….I’ll do that later.)

I also received the door trim I was waiting for, so I started in on the rest of the trim in the drawing room.

Finished the trim around the window.

And that will do for tonight.

Good night.

 

Still waiting for the trim to arrive today, but I did try to stain the architectural details that will hang between the drawing room and the dining room.

Unfortunately, the stain did not take on it, because it seems to be made of cardboard with some plastic-like film. So I mixed a couple colors together and painted them instead.

Stained and glued in the doorway frame (not the trim yet) and then added these two filagrees.

Stained the window and added baseboard underneath (no trim for the window yet, either).

And then I spent an awfully long time on photoshop, creating the ceiling paper and trim to size.

I still need to make the dent around the chimney on the lefthand side and then I can start printing it.

For now, be well.

It’s been an odd day, so not much work on the house today. But I did print out and paste up the last sheet of drawing room wallpaper.

Then I printed out a little photo of an Edwardian boy to fit in a picture frame.

I’m not sure where this little guy will end up in the house, but he’ll be somewhere…

Then I started the trim work for the drawing room.

I ran out of the doorway trim and won’t be getting more for a few days, so I had to stop there. But it’s starting to look like a fancy drawing room now…

Good night.

Tonight, I started by printing out some possible paintings for the sitting room, as well as some old photos of two Edwardian people.

I placed the photos in a tiny double frame I had.

And set it on the sitting room table. Glad to know this house now has a family associated with it.

Then I tried out a new, smaller version of the portrait I had tried in the frame over the fireplace.

It still overwhelmed the room a little too much. So I tried a portrait of a sitting woman (not sized correctly for the frame, but the idea was there).

That was already better. But then I tried a landscape from the turn of the century.

This, I really liked, although it would need to be sized a bit bigger to fit the frame.

Then I added the next two sheets of wallpaper to the drawing room.

Added yet another sheet.

And then the printer went funny on me and refused to print, so I’ll have to do the last sheet tomorrow. But here’s the drawing room for now.

I’ve decided against using wainscoting in this room because it cuts the tall lines of the room, and, after all, this IS supposed to be the most elegant and feminine room in the house. But I will add trim around the doorways and along the floor before I get to the ceiling.

And while I was printing out the wallpaper, I also printed out a larger, final version of the landscape painting, which is now in its frame over the sitting room fireplace.

Good night.

Today I decided that the drawing wallpaper was truly too yellow for my taste. So I made it more cream colored, printed it out, and taped it up to see.

I liked it a lot better this color. I also added a small piece of trim between the wallpaper and the wallpaper trim as planned, to see what it would be like (I photoshopped it longer in this photo to be able to see it better).

I decided I didn’t like that at all. So I would not use that in the final design.

Then I started pulling off the yellowish wallpaper.

Removing wallpaper is about as much fun on a miniature house as on a real-sized house…except it gets done a lot faster because it’s a lot smaller surface area.

Although with all the sanding and the pulling, there’s just about as much mess to clean up in the end.

Then I painted just under the trim to take the place of the wooden trim I had decided not to use. Thus any space between the paper and the trim would become a pretty line. (Because of repetition issues, I could not print the trim and the paper together as one.)

Then I finished gluing on the rest of the trim and put up the first sheet of wallpaper.

I took a break and tried out a few things that had arrived in the mail today. First, the frame for the painting in the sitting room. I tried two different paintings in it. Not sure which one I’ll use, or if I’ll try something else instead.

Secondly, I’ve been looking for a long time for something that might work as a servant call box for the kitchen, as well as a kitchen clock. Something a bit like this:

I found this little, inexpensive and cheaply-made clock online and decided it would do great for the project.

Took out what was inside,

Added a more Victorian-looking clock face.

Then created, on photoshop, a servant callbox board that corresponded to all the rooms in the house.

I printed it out and placed it inside as well. It’s written in really tiny print, but with a magnifying glass, you can still read the words.

Then I hung it up in the kitchen so the servants could tell who was ringing for them and what time it was…

Then I went back to the wallpaper. Added a second sheet around the fireplace.

Before doing the next sheet, I had to restain the door leading to the servant’s hallway, since it did not match the rosewood stain that will be used in the drawing room.

I kept the old stain on the other side of the door, to match the hallway.

Oh, and I had to add the tiny doorknobs which I had never gotten around to adding.

And finally, I added another sheet of wallpaper around the door and corner.

So here is the drawing room so far…

Good night.

 

I’ve been looking for a pretty blue and white china set that wasn’t too expensive for the dining room, and I finally found these plates (and cups and saucers etc.), that arrived in the mail today. So I set the table in the yet-to-be-constructed dining room. They’ll be ready for dinner parties soon enough.

Worked more on the drawing room wallpaper today, and finally came up with the following pattern.

The wallpaper size was right but the ceiling trim was too big. So I made the ceiling paper smaller.

That looked about right to me. So I printed out the wallpaper and wall trim on matte presentation paper, cut it out, and started gluing it on. (The line between the trim and the wallpaper will be covered with trim later.)

The result is just a bit more yellow than I had wanted…I was looking for a more creamy look. So I might still change it. But for now, this is what I have in the drawing room.

Then I started making another set of curtains for the sitting room.

I also decided to make a couple pillows for the sofa. Sewed up the sides.

Filled it with seed beads, a trick I learned to make the pillows look more natural, since they are so small and weigh so little if you stuff them with stuffing.

And sewed them closed.

So, after hanging the set of curtains behind the sofa, the sitting room is looking even more home-like.

And after I added a lace trim to the pillows, the sofa looks even more comfortable.

Good night.

 

Today I finished off the wainscoting under the tower windows, pulling off the bottom of the windowsills as I went to make it fit.

Still haven’t finished the chair rail between the windows…

…because the curtain rods came in the mail today, and I got sidetracked with curtain-making.

I took the leftover pieces of the scarf that I had used for the top of the crib in the nursery. It seemed light and airy enough. Used fabric fusion to hem up the sides of the curtains because it takes up less bulk than actually hemming (the bottom of the curtain had already been machine-hemmed on the scarf).

Then I folded over the top of the curtain, put a bit of fray guard across the top, and used a tiny slip stich to make a little place where the curtain rod could go through.

Stitched a second one.

And had my first set of curtains completed.

Screwed the eye hooks into the wall by the window…

…slipped the curtain rods through…

…then hung the curtains.

Then I pleated them and tied back the bottom of the curtains so they would fall more naturally. (I probably should have done that before I hung them, but I forgot.)

That was a lot more work than it looks, so I decided I was done with curtains for the day.

Then I printed out a different possible Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper for the drawing room and taped it up to see.

Wasn’t sure I liked it, so I combined it with the wall trim I had previously printed out.

Not so sure the pink on the wall trim and the peach on the ceiling trim match. Maybe I’ll do some combination of the two papers…we’ll see.

For now, I leave you with a photo of the sitting room with one curtain completed…

Be well.

.