Drawing room floor completed....

Finally managed to get the Drawing room floor looking the way I want. After trying out about six stains I am now happy with the colour and the finish. Don't think I'll be able to duplicate it though for the other rooms as it has so many colours on it and I decided to wax it with oak furniture wax and it came up brilliant. Really pleased .

Now on to the Dining room ....got it started today so should be done by next week

I had a dummy fix of the chandelier just to see how far down it hangs looks amazing.

Next week I will be building the basement, I need to see the whole house together before I go forward with the lighting of the rooms. That's a big job and really expensive too so won't happen for a few weeks yet but I can go ahead with the build anyway.

The basement will be changed from the original design as it is meant for a town house and doesn't suit a country house, a few changes to the front to make a garden instead of a pavement but that's further down the line. So many ideas running through my brain. I'll update again when I have the basement built and the dining room floor completed.

The crystal chandelier and more entrance hall work

I was determined to have a feature chandelier in the house but when I saw how expensive they are I decided to buy a plain 6 arm one and add the crystals myself using my jewellery stash. I recon I saved myself around £90 pounds, .......yes I'm not joking ........the cost of a miniature one is as expensive as a full size one. Here is how I made it below

the plain 6 arm brass candle chandelier 

I hung the light on a jewellery stand while I was adding the crystals. I used fine gauge jewellery wire and gold coloured jewellery findings

 a selection of various size crystals

 The finished chandelier I love it so much and can't wait to hang it in the gallery area of the stairwell

Before I can put the light in the stairwell I have to finish the upstairs railings and also need a window on the back wall. I.ll update you on that part next week.

I have inserted a wall in the entrance hall and added a door to give the illusion of a staircase down to the kitchen in the basement.  The wall and door have still to be painted and then I can add the cornice and skirting and any other trims.

The wall was cut from 5ml foam core board

the space before

and after

How it looks now with the door in place, still to be painted and trims added

A bit wobbly looking on the right side but its only just placed at the moment so not permanent yet it will be removed again for decoration and then set in place properly.

I will update again next week with the railings in place and hopefully have the wood floor stained and finished in the morning/drawing room, busy week ahead.

Entrance hall, floor and stairs....

Hello again a bit more progress this week in Dalton Manor, painting the balusters and newel post and developing the staircase. The entrance hall has a lot of work needed to get it looking authentic Georgian and this week I have been researching Georgian interiors and have come up with an idea for the floor in the entrance hall.
In grand houses they were normally floored with marble tiles and although you can buy the dolls house equivalent in specialist shops it can be quite an expense. You can of course also buy the floor paper sold in dolls house shops but I wanted to make my own floor.

Here is how I made my tiled floor.

First of all I made a template of the floor so that I had an exact measurement to work with. Next I decided that 1 inch squares for the tiles was the size I needed, 1/12 scale to a real sized tile.
 I used a craft punch to make the tiles from pearl card stock and silver marbled heavy duty wallpaper   ( a freebie sample from the DIY store ) next I marked the centre of the floor and laid the tiles diagonally from that point. I used UHU glue which is the glue I always use for most of my craft work it will stick almost any material and gives you time for any adjustments that you need to make.

the craft punch 1 inch square

the finished floor you can see the silver sheen

staircase in situ not finished yet 

the free wallpaper sample

Also today I painted the balusters with another coat of white acrylic, the nails in the bottom are just to enable me to handle them and stand them in polystyrene while they are drying

the handrails were also painted mahogany

I cut up some metal filigree corners to make some faux plaster work for the side of the staircase as you will see in later photos they were primed first and painted white to resemble a plaster finish

side of staircase showing the faux plaster and the marble column under the stairs

balusters painted with white acrylic

A busy day for me today so much so that I forgot to have lunch........I get so engrossed in what I'm doing and I really wanted to get that floor done today. Tomorrow I may install the balusters and handrails or depending if the postman brings my parcel, I might lay the hardwood floor in the drawing room. Till next time

Veronica

The Dalton house

More progress made this week and a lot of painting. Another coat on the windows as I wasn't happy with finish and I still might put on a coat of eggshell mainly because the emulsion is soaking into the MDF and is not as white as I would like.

I decided to make the Morning room/ Drawing room Wedgwood blue, I have seen a room like this with the white panelling and it looked lovely. At last some paint on the walls but still a long way to go.

 Next the ceilings were given 2 coats of white emulsion and so far they look fine, which led me on to ceiling roses.  I can buy these online and I have looked at them but decided to have a go at making some.

 At the moment I need 10 so I started looking for supplies in my craft room.  Firstly I found some air drying clay and using a fondant rolling pin I rolled out enough to make 3 to start with.  I used a rubber stamp, a cutting die and various little tools in my Dremel tool box. I made two different sizes as the attic rooms are a bit smaller the large ones would have looked out of place.  They look okay so far so we'll see how the are when dry. These will be painted white.

The Stairs

I wanted a longer bottom stair so I added a small piece of MDF and shaped it with the Dremel once it's painted you wont even notice it was added, and I decided to turn the stairs, this enables me to fit a door underneath on the right which will be the door leading to the stairs to the kitchen in the basement....which is not there yet but it's in the plan......

Before

 After

 A few coats of paint later.  The idea is to have a white marble staircase.....that's if it works out.  I have always loved these stairs in Georgian houses so my house just has to have them. Another coat of white and then I will try the marbling effect, fingers crossed it works out.  Now I have to get Newel posts and banisters.
 

A busy few days and I can definitely see some progress now but as I said there's still a long way to go and my head is buzzing with ideas.  Stop by soon for more updates on the Dalton House.

Veronica

The Dalton House progress

Moving on with the build this week I have inserted the room dividers and made the grooves along the floors for the lighting wires.  Using a Stanley knife I cut a line to the centre back wall of the house as this is where I intend putting the control switch and cut out a channel deep enough for the wires to be below the level of the floor, these will be covered with tape and whatever flooring I choose for each room.... now I can continue with the internal painting.
 Firstly I painted the walls and ceilings with a watered down white emulsion to seal the MDF this dries in about an hour if you are in a hurry to paint on further, but I left it overnight while I decided what to paint next.

Channels for the wires leading from the drilled holes to the centre back wall

Next I decided to make a start on painting the 15 windows (insides) that came with the kit this is quite a lengthy process  as they need painting on the insides round the panes and on both inside and outsides , I used vinyl silk emulsion for this meantime but I may use eggshell as a final coat it depends how they look when dry.

That's it for today I'm off to paint more windows.

A New Dolls House, Georgian era

Hello again, It's been a long time since my last post it seems that life sometimes gets in the way of crafting.
I have been retired now for 2 years, which has completely flown by, but it now affords me the time to devote to my crafting hobbies one of which is miniatures.
  My Husband bought me a new dolls house for Christmas and I will be posting my progress building and furnishing it here as often as I can so I hope you will join me and enjoy seeing how it all comes together. No doubt there will be a few mistakes made along the way but as I found out over the years of crafting it's part of the fun.
 The house is called The Dalton and is in kit form and was purchased from Dolls House Direct
Below are a few pics of the build so far.

the kit as it arrived very well packed and all in good condition

The kit is laser cut so there should be little or no sanding required

pic of the finished house unpainted

I have built the shell, drilled holes for the light fittings and at the moment I am doing a dry run fit of the staircase, not easy as it turns out, mainly because I want to put a door in at the back of the entrance hall and the stair platform is not high enough for the door to fit under it so some kit bashing is on the cards. It will work out I'm sure It's just a matter of working out the height I need and configuring the stairs to suit.  Sounds like a plan.

I'll be back soon with more Dalton updates.Take care

Veronica

It's been a while since I added to this blog so I thought I'd update with a couple of pics of my new Fairy garden. Thanks for popping in

Vee x