just what was needed

yay! the bathroom is now finished (or as finished as any room ever is). i've installed the bidet and toilet, along with a toilet paper stand. the toilet paper stand is a reclaimed fireplace tool holder, painted chrome, and now holding a roll of tp.

the only adjustments i needed to make was paint the bidet and toilet a warmer white. now they match well with the sink and bathtub. i keep thinking the space feels a little big, but if the roof were in place, it would be quite snug, so i won't drive myself kooky thinking about it.

the day was coming to an end, the skies loosing the light of the sun, so the photos are not as crisp as i like. i will take new ones tomorrow.

an army of miniature servants would be nice

i've been having a few late night dollhouse redecorating moments lately. the halloween decorating was just the beginning. now i've finally gotten around to ordering a toilet and bidet for the bathroom (won't that be a relief!), added a wardrobe to the master bedroom, and have an idea to create a fortuny dress for the lady of the house.

sometimes pieces of furniture you've had for awhile finally "click", and make a room feel finished and at the same time help to create a more sensible layout. i've placed a grandfather clock in the living room, adding height and warmth to a bare corner. a wardrobe i bought maybe two years ago, but is quite large and really can't go too many places without dwarfing the space, finally found a place which suites it in the master bedroom.

or, perhaps, the piece was in the wrong area this whole time and just needed to be moved into another room. in the upstairs hallway, i moved a master bedroom night stand to just under the window, creating nesting tables with the one that was there already.

i went with a nonconventional dining area; using a bench and three cork stools as seating, around a baroque marble table. i love mixing things up, and anyways, this provides easily movable seating for when the dollhouse people have company.

one thing which happens when a dollhouse is left dormant for some time, is dust. which takes just as long to remove as a full size house because you have to be incredibly careful handling pieces, there are multiple nooks and crannies, and things need to be put back where they were without knocking over other things. i find masking tape works well to remove most dust from the floor without leaving remnants of paper towels behind and a simple swipe of a tissue works fine for the furniture. as long as i don't take it into my head to start rearranging things, this housekeeping generally doesn't take the entire day.

more cowbell!

more halloween! i've created several decorations for the foyer and kitchen, going with purple, orange, and lime green colors. nods to witches, hovering bats, jack-o-lanterns, spiderwebs, spanish moss, eyeballs, candles, sweets, a vampire ducky, a black cat, candy corn, a candy apple dipped in caramel and chocolate, and a ghost. at this moment i may be finished, but you never know!

a new spin on plastic food

it feels funny to do baking for a dollhouse; let's just say you can fit a whole lot of cookies and cream puffs on a relatively small life sized cookie tray.

 i decided to bring the halloween festivities into the kitchen. to me this meant cookies, cookies, cookies, cream puff tower, and pennants. frankenstein green, pumpkin orange, and witch's purple were the main colorways throughout.

 i made all of the baked goods with some sculpey i've had for years (bought in bulk when i was making dolls). painted them with acrylic, and decorated with glitter. glitter is fantastic.

a downside to all of this decorating is that the dollhouse is going to feel empty when i take it all down. don't even tell me about christmas. just don't.

never too early

the days are getting shorter, cooler weather has blown in, and there's a crisper feel to the air. all this means one thing, halloween is coming! well, and fall, of course. but let's focus. halloween, the best holiday ever.

i've started early this year, as inspiration struck, to decorate the foyer of the dollhouse. bats made from pipe cleaners and paper, witch's broom and hat, cobwebs of cotton, and a paper jack-o-lantern. i'll add more as i think of it. but for now, it's very festive!

some spring in the dollhouse

i jaunted over to the southern women's show yesterday, and quite unexpectedly ran across a most awesome booth. it was the clay flower people, nana's clay flowers, who i purchased an orchid and plant from several years ago!

this time i added two more orchids and a charming foxglove. the craftsmanship and tiny details of these 1/12th scale miniatures is breathtaking. luckily, i nabbed a business card, so when the dollhouse is in need of more flora i can contact them!

make it work

i can never get a good photo of the dollhouse in its entirety; the angles get all wacky and you always lose one of the floors. so i made a collage combining nice shots of each room. it's a bit wonky and askew, but i like the results; it feels closer to how it is in reality.

hmm, if i added cobwebs, some bats in the attic, dark shadows, and toned down the colors a bit i could have a really cool haunted house for halloween. photoshop here i come!

furniture and accessories

i've finally got around to purchasing the table for the living room. it's very much in the rococo style; all of the gilding and curls as well as the marble top are excessively over the top, it's great. i felt the need to tie it together with a rug from the heather ross fabric collection mendocino, the colors work well in the room and it anchors the furniture. the cork-like blob with the fuchsia pillows are individual seats that i'm thinking of using as chairs for the table; but until i find a painting for the wall behind them they're staying there to fill the space.

another addition is two chairs for the kitchen, painted green. i'm not 100% set on the white cushions, i may change them out for a stained cork. they weren't painted the day i bought them, but i can't leave well enough alone and the kitchen needed another color besides the blue. i took the green from the print hanging by the window. i also made curtains for the kitchen windows, very simple but bringing in the green again.

several days ago i made a table lamp for the little girls room. it's an adorable starfish bead that was yelling at me to make it into a lamp when i spied it in the bead store. it's a nice touch to the room; it lends itself to the modern theme i'm going with.

a little bit further

the bathroom is coming along nicely; all it really needs is that little piece of plumbing that would make it usable. what is that thing called? um, a sink? no, have one of those. a bathtub? seeing as it's called a bathroom? nope, criteria met. oh. a toilet, that would be nice. still working on it; it's incredibly difficult to buy a single piece of the bathroom trinity in the dollhouse world. they won't sell you just the sink, or just the toilet. no, you must purchase all three.

so instead of dealing with the issue of acquiring a toilet, i've instead chosen to focus on finishing details. like, a bright floor mat that matches the grass green of the wallpaper, and making a wooden bath mat for the tub. i'm wondering if i should stain the wood to match the stool? but then it may disappear into the flooring, as the colors are very similar. hm, another quandary to contemplate.

comfy bench that was once a coffee table

i love getting new pieces for the dollhouse, and checking the item off of my list of things that would complete it. while looking at the large room that is the living room/dining room, i pictured a lovely long bench to go under a picture to the left side of the future dining table. it needed to be low enough to sit on and to add cushioning, but thin enough so that it did not crowd the room.

while browsing a dollhouse store we discovered while going the wrong way, i came across a quartz topped coffee table that would be perfect. i was actually amazed that real quartz was used, and not a plastic alternative. it has quite a lovely sparkle and weight to it. i had a few scraps of orange dupioni silk that i was saving for that area and decided to make two box cushions; there not being enough material to make one to cover the entire top. i rather like it, and it goes very well against the wall.

a small milestone

wow! i've made it past 100 posts. interesting; i wasn't sure that when i started this blog that i would stick with it, or even have all that much to say. i've surprised myself. well, happy me! i think this is deserving of a samoas cookie from my last box i've been saving.

i was initially going to post about my butterfly sonata pincushion, before i saw the post #. it's softer in hue from what i have been making. we have a butterfly bush outside my window and it is humongous! it's all covered in flowers now, and attracting quite a crowd of butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. the color scheme is inspired by that as well as the embroidery on the backside.

the brown spots fabric i have been saving for several years now. i kept thinking it would make really nice towels for the dollhouse bathroom, but unfortunately it's just too heavy to lay nicely. i may still use it as a bathmat if it looks okay. we'll see.
i know there hasn't been any updates about the dollhouse for a while now, there just really hasn't been any changes. i have a table in mind for the living room, but it's in charleston and i usually head up that way once or twice a year.
it's funny, now that all of the wallpapering is done, there just doesn't seem to be too much left unfinished. mostly small details and that gaping hole of emptiness in the living room where there'll be a dinette set. i'm still searching for the goods to finish that area.

somewhere to sit and eat

the dolls in the dollhouse can finally sit down and have some breakfast. oatmeal, actually. the table hunt was successful; the cafe style table is a perfect size for the kitchen, not too big nor too small.
i also found a table for the living room, but i wasn't 100% sure of it at the time. i thought i was prepared to go to the dollhouse store, camera in hand, detailed list of needs and wants, in the vain hope of not becoming overwhelmed. i grabbed the above table right away, then saw one next to it that had real possibility for the main dining area. tables in hand, off i went to look for chairs to pair with it. and that, dear folks, is how one starts looking at the want list and adding things. but somehow after an hour and a half, i pulled through, two purchases poorer; purple flowers for the upstairs hallway and a table for the kitchen.

a 2 hour car trip later, upon arriving home and putting said table in it's new locale, i had second thoughts of the other table. about how the glimmer of that mirror, the shade of that frame would correspond fantastically against the table. about how dark the little nook is, how this one piece of furniture would brighten and draw attention. and i doubted my choice in not getting both tables. alas, good thing for telephones and the mail system.
the little table looked alone in the kitchen, so i pulled out my box of old furniture and placed two chairs from the previous dining set along side the sleek new marble top. looking at the pairing i thought, "this actually doesn't look that bad, i actually like the warmth of the wood in correspondence with the cool steel and glossy white." and so they stayed.

everything but the commodore

inside joke. i'm actually referring to the commode. anyways. the tub and plumbing are completely movable in case i decide to rearrange the placement. in keeping with the vanity, the tub faucet is encased in cork as well. perhaps i will get a bidet along with the toilet. if and when i can purchase just those two units alone. i don't really care for another set of bathroom appliances.

the wallpaper has come home

let me first start off with saying that contact cement is a pain. and that the angle of the roof is a pain. and that applying wallpaper on a small scale is still a pain. the wallpapering job is not perfect. nope. because the thing with contact cement is that once contact has been made, it stays, imperfections and all.

but other than those things, i likes it a lot. it's very balanced when all is said and done. and enveloping, like a green house. the star nook is lovely as it's set off with the lavender paper.
i decided to install the cork covered sink, and there's a stool in the room for towels. today i shall go a bathtub hunting. hopefully this venture will be successful as i generally stay away from most if not all forms of mall, be they strip or otherwise.

the mini reveal

i decided to scan the wallpapers before i hang them on the walls. of the three i have to say the first one is my favorite. i like how the rock and planter came out, also the standing bird. i'm not sure how they're all going to look together and set at the angle of the roof. enveloping perhaps.

next step is to adhere the panels to the wall using contact cement. there are two reasons for this choice; one, i can later remove them if i would like, and two, the paper isn't 100% flat so i need an instant bond for it to be smooth. one reason against using contact cement would be the long term archival properties; i'm assuming contact cement isn't good in that department.

this armoire was made for living

when i settle on the right paper, i plan on wallpapering the inside of the armoire. i think it would be a nice surprise. i know it would make me happy to see such a pretty detail in a somewhat plain exterior. like the hidden world that's inside people.

getting the armoire turned out to be a good mistake. it feels so at home in the master bedroom. thanks to elizabeth at elf miniatures for crafting such an exceptionaly fine piece; the wood finish is so smooth and the doors slide like butta.
as a treat i'm leaving you with another peek from the bathroom remodel.

just a peek...

...of what i've been up to. i am in the middle of finishing the bathroom in the dollhouse. i was inspired by an armoire to conclude that the bathroom must have chinoiserie wallpaper. and that that wallpaper was to be lavender gray. how i came to this juncture is still somewhat a mystery to me. as you will see tomorrow, the connection from this armoire to the fanciful imaginings of chinoiserie wallpaper is peculiar.
this is a sample of the drawings that will act as guide to the later application of paint.

a kitty bed!

on a recent visit, my sister made a suggestion for the master bedroom; that it needed something that was low to the ground to fill a space by the fireplace. she suggested a dog bed or cat tree. as there aren't any dogs in this house, a kitty bed would be nice. a chance to get those little hairballs off of the main bed.
i had a scrap of nani iro fabric that was too big to toss, and the color scheme worked well enough; little pink roses on a white background. so with some thread, a couple of cotton balls and a little bow, i made a nifty little bed. i like it, i think kitty does too. now if she only had a ball of yarn or a mouse toy.

pillows

the living room needed more orange in the pillow accents, there was a little bit too much pink going on. a floor cushion would work nice, and fill an area that was looking empty. using needlepoint on linen, i stitched out two different patterns on either side of the pillow; one side mostly a soft pink, and the other cubes. i also sewed together a simple orange silk pillow for the couch to replace a magenta one.