Dollhouse Decorating Ideas – Josie Bouwt's Fine Dining

Killer Cabinet

This lovely dining room miniature is another of Josie Bouwt's wonderful creations that she shares with us io the Beautiful World blog. Josie has provided a two-part post, dated April 4 & 17, 2015, where she shows the finished room box, and how she made the mantelpiece.

At the bottom of this post, is a brief video of a detail that might go unnoticed: the wall fountain that can be closed off by 2 sliding doors. Exquisite work, Josie. As always.

Click on the photos for a link to Josie's blog, A Beautiful World.

Dollhouse Decorating – Wall Art: 3 Spacing Ideas

I seem to have a followed a Rule of Three in my decorating assignments: Minimalist, where a single piece of art over-powers every thing else in the frame; Maximum, where a cluster of pictures give the impression of a single image filling the frame; and Moderate, which I was supposed to have learned at my mother's knee. You've got it, “moderation in all things.” To me that's the traditional way of hanging paintings, a few well-lit works being in balance with the room. The three pictures below show what I mean.

Maximum

A grouping of pictures should be thought of as one unit. Marshall Erb's use of space, not only accomplishes this in his cluster of pictures, but he maximized the limited space available by putting the dining room table in an alcove created by ripping out an unused walk-in closet in the room on the other side of the wall. Brilliant!



The easiest way to get the spacing right is to lay the pictures on a piece of paper and play with combinations until you get what you want. Trace around each object and use that as a template to attach the photos to the wall.

Minimalist
The sidewalk cafe fabric art in the dining area came from the Marimekko catalogue. The house had cathedral ceilings and that 12 foot terra cotta faux-brick wall was depressing. I convinced the client to paint it white and brighten the dining area with a piece of art that had a connection to food. Cool, isn't it? The client loved it too, when it was done.

For a piece of miniature fabric art, “audition” a large-pattern material with a window cut out of a piece of card stock in the scale in which you are working. Keep looking 'til you find what you want, and buy the minimum amount off the bolt that they'll sell you.



Moderation

You can't go wrong with the traditional way of hanging art, as shown in the Edwardian dollhouse drawing room below. In this case the 'frame' is the space to the left and right of the fireplace. In other room, the frame could be the space above a chair rail and between two windows. Remember, there is always a frame and it's your job is to place the art in it, just so.

Lighting

There are so many ways to light room boxes and dollhouse now, this should not be an issue. The spaces we deal with are so small, track and spot lighting should not be necessary. Try to build up the light level so indirect illumination is enough. Let the color in the art work do the talking.

Susan Downing

What Is the “Right” Kind Of Wallpaper For A Victorian Dollhouse?

The answer could start, “That depends. Which era? Which room? Town or country house?” When choosing the appropriate type of wallpaper for a Victorian dollhouse, it’s important to understand how wall coverings were used in the Victorian era, if authenticity is important to you.

In the Victorian era, wallpapers and wall coverings became an important element to interior decoration as they became accessible to the middle class householders. A wide range of quality and designs could be produced at high and low prices due to the introduction of mass production techniques, and the repeal in 1836 of the wallpaper tax.



Popular wallpapers in the early and mid-Victorian period had backgrounds of red, blue, and green printed with intricate scrolled floral pattern in shades of cream and tan. Later, rich, earthy tones with stylized plants became common. Embossed paper was used on ceilings and friezes to counterbalance the busy wallpapers.

William Morris was the most well known designer of wallpaper at the time. He was renowned for mixing strong, pure colors harmoniously, and giving a flat pattern an narrative quality. Other popular designs included landscape pictures, historical scenes, and papers imitating cut stone or fabric. "Fresco"imitated panels, cornices, friezes, moldings, and columns. The 1870s saw the emergence of geometric patterns and Japanese motifs.

With the introduction into rooms of the dado (chair) rails and picture rails to divide the vertical space in a room, which was deemed to be the epitome of artistic taste, so wallpapers came to be produced in sets of three, one for cornice to picture rail, one for picture rail down to the dado rail and the last for the bottom portion of the wall under the dado rail.

The Industrial Revolution had a dramatic impact on interior design in the Victorian Age. The prosperity of the middle class increased and allowed them, along with other new opportunities, the chance to change the decoration and ornamentation of their homes.

The pollution generated had by all those prosperous factories also influenced interior design. City dwellers tended to paint their walls more than their country cousin, who could also use lighter tones. Pollution also dictating how often one could change their décor. Except for the aristocracy. They could afford to change at will. The lower orders might have to put up with sooty walls longer than was deemed fashionable.

Some of the nouveau riche, unsure of how to best portray their new status and wealth, chose to use architecture and furnishings that had previously been used only by the upper class. In these homes, the owners crammed in as many pieces of furniture, fabrics, and knickknacks as possible, in an effort to flaunt their new status. Also, it was fashionable to believe that bareness in a room was a sure sign of poor taste.

So, after you have decided the era, and who the householder might be, the answer to “what is the right wallpaper for my Victorian dollhouse“ might be: How vivid Is you Imagination?

These pictures are from a wonderful resource, Bradbury&Bradbury Art Wallpapers


Susan Downing

Dollhouse Decorating – Conestoga Wagon Scene

Okay, I admit to blowing my own horn. But I am so flattered that the editors of American Miniaturist magazine included my Conestoga Wagon scene in the “History Recorded In Miniature” issue. Click on the link to read a “flip book” of the article. http://www.flipsnack.com/paddydale/conestoga-1.html

Susan Downing

Amazing Artisans – The Mysterious Sweetington

If you search the Internet for images of Victorian or Edwardian dollhouses, you will be offered links to Sweetington on “Flickr,” a photo streaming website. Click on any of them and thumbnail pictures gorgeous images of apparent miniatures fill the screen.  Click on any one to expand it, and the odds are you will be led to a Pinterest board or someone's blog. Click on the image again and you are usually transported back to Flickr, not the website of the artisan named Sweetington.

 My confusion continued when I chose to option on my browser
, “Search the Internet for this image” and got the message, “Best guess of this image: brighton pavilion interior”

Then a friend sent me an email with a photo of the real hand placing the chair in the supposed Regency Chinoiserie room box. The subject line of the email was, Great Photoshop Work.

That did it. I marked Sweetington off as a talented architectural / interiors photographer, until one day I  stumbled upon the blog, All Things Jane Austen. It caught my eye because a few years before, Patrick had a business trip to London. Over a weekend, we were guests at Godmersham Park in Kent, a former stately manor house that his client had turned into a conference center. (It's now the home of the Association of British Dispensing Opticians College).


Wow! Maybe Sweetington is miniaturist! I got serious about tracking down the elusive Tim Sidford, who turned out to be not so elusive after all. If I had read more carefully, I would have noticed that at lest a few of the Pinterest boards mentioned his name.

Tom Sidford is a classical musician, painter, interior designer, piano teacher, who also happens to make wonderful miniatures. “My most popular items,” Tim explains, “are quirky miniature dollhouses designed to sit on a shelf or side table.”

This very Renaissance man goes on to explain, “My bonkers hobby is creating miniature interiors. I love the drama of many historic interiors. Creating these models allows me to indulge my ‘inner designer’! The rooms are constructed from wood and card and wooden moulded decorative trim, as well as bits of old cereal packets, drinking straws, balsa wood, beads, plastic food packaging etc. The most enjoyable bit is painting the floors, walls and ceilings. Most of the furniture is by playmobil, although I will often customize it.”


Miniature enthusiasts applaud Tim Sidford's work, but his reach goes beyond our universe. There is this mention on the BookPatrol blog. “We all know good things come in small packages, but British artist Tim Sidford takes the cake with his meticulous miniature interiors. Bordering on unbelievable, Sidford recreates the stuff that dreams are made of within the smallest of structures.”

And from TheInFill: “They are all [Tim's miniatures] so mind-blowing beautiful and precise, I think they’ve filled me up for the day.”

So there it is. My search for the artisan behind the pseudonym Sweetington is over. Now I can just enjoy Tim Sidford's work.


Susan Downing

Dollhouse Decorating – Rugs: Make Sure the Hand-Knotting Is Real

Note by Susan
If you are going to lay out big bucks for a hand-knotted carpet, this guide by Laura and Ludwina will help you know the real thing.


Techniques Used In Dollhouse Miniature Carpets And Rugs
By Laura and Ludwina

As in real-life, I can not imagine a doll's house without carpets. Carpets, or rugs as a lot of us call them, give a warm and cozy feeling to any room. With this guide I do not want to explain about styles and Periods but about the different techniques used to make miniature carpets, with the hope that if you understand the length of time and the level of skill required to make some of these carpets you will appreciate their value.

You can find a carpet for every period or style.  If you want your dollhouse to be authentic you will have to do some research to find out what style of carpets were used in the period you are working in. But you also can go for a piece with colors which match the rest of the room's decor.

It makes me very sad when I see the low prices petit point carpets sell for sometimes, and once I saw a machine made piece sell for quite a high price.  Therefore, I will also give you some tips on how you can see the difference in a handmade or machine-made carpet.

The easiest to make is a machine-woven textile.  If you can find a narrow strip or ribbon with a nice design, you can simply fray both of it's ends to create a miniature carpet.  When you have a thin woven piece of ribbon it will even work for 1/4 inch scale.

If you have a bigger piece of textile you will have to cut the edges to the size you need.  You can glue under the edges so they will not fray.

A lot of 'Turkish woven' carpets are sold for dollhouses.  These are the same machine weaving techniques as a designed ribbon but are cut up and sold as 'carpet', they have a fringe on both sides and exist in several sizes and a big range of designs and colors.  Those which I have seen are all machine woven in a synthetic fiber.  Sometimes they are shiny to give a 'silky' look, or have added details such as gold color thread.

If you look well you will see that the color of the design is positive / negative for front and back. This is very typical for machine-woven pieces.  All the different colors “float” on the backside in layers where they are not needed to make the design in the front.

There are also machine woven pile carpets.  These pile carpets are usual bigger.  I have not yet seen these special made as dollhouse carpets:  They are  thicker than the previous type and are used for chairs or as coasters or place mats.

How can you see the difference between a machine-made or a handmade pile carpet? Always look at the backside.  If there is no picture of the backside, ask for one.  The backside will show a different color than the front.  When a piece is without much color it will have the positive/negative look.  For example when the front is blue it will be red on the back.  And where the front is red it will be blue on the back.  When more colors are used it will look more complicated on the backside.

When you look at a handmade pile carpet on the backside you will see horizontal rows on the warp which is originally vertically on the loom.  In machine pile carpet you have vertical rows on a vertical warp.  But these miniatures are often smaller pieces cut of a bigger weaving and it is often difficult to see which way the warp was.  These pieces will have a machine made overcast to finish the cut off edgings.

Another way to make a miniature carpet is printing.There are some different possibilities in printing: on flocked paper or on textile.  I am no expert in printing so I can not give you advise on 'how to' make one, but I am sure that a good-looking carpet can be made like this quickly and inexpensively.

If you work in 1/4 inch scale this is another way to have a carpet in your 1/4inch scale room.
Using Bunka: By fraying out Bunka you get a fine kinky thread, what you can glue on a paper or textile base, using the different colors to make your design.

There are crocheted and braided rugs.  For a more rustic style or kitchen they will look great.  They look similar back and front.

Some other techniques to make miniature carpets are: punched or hooked carpets, created by making a 'piled' design on a piece of cloth or mesh with French knots or using a punching tool or hook.  The backside of these different techniques will look very similar on the back.  Here again you should see the same color front and back.  Practice and skill is required to make a fine piece which is finished nicely and lies flat.

Some very dedicated miniaturists make their own carpets in 'petit point'.  There are some very nice kits and several books with patterns of miniature carpets available.  The accuracy of the scale will depend on the size of the gauze you are working on and the material used to make the embroidery.  The color and design will be the same on the front and back.  You can be sure it takes a lot of time and skill to make a nice embroidered miniature carpet.  A piece made in a nice design and color by somebody with experience is a piece of art and I feel a lot of respect for those artists!

And now the “hand knotted' carpets.” To make a real pile carpet you need a loom.  Warp is stretched on the loom and weft made.  The design is made by a line of knots, then the weft is added and pressed down.  Finally the knots are clipped to get an even thickness all over the pile.  Working this way line after line to build up the carpet.

A small carpet is not the same as a miniature carpet.  Everything must be down-sized in proportion and the design must be miniature as well. The weaving is about as thick as a nickel and the pile is the same thickness, so the total thickness is 2 five-cent pieces, one stacked on the other. With a “small carpet,” the total thickness is only equal to one nickel.

We hope by understanding a little more about techniques used in miniature carpets you will be able to value them in proportion to the work required to make them.

Laura and Ludwina

Dollhouse Decorating Ideas – Victorian Dollhouse Accessories and Furniture

Susan's Note:
Idy Keeler gives a good basic list of the types of accessories and pieces of furniture to use in a Victorian dollhouse. I especially like the open paragraphs where Idy describes how the Victorians got to be so … should I say eclectic with their decorating, inside their home and out. The picture used is of a dollhouse purchased by Malcolm Forbes in the late 1980's
as a Christmas present for his granddaughters.

Here is Idy's article:


VICTORIAN DOLLHOUSE ACCESSORIES AND FURNITURE
By Idy Keeler

The Victorian Era (1837 to 1901) was known for its flamboyant, romantic, and excessive decorating style.  It represented the wealth and opulence during the reign of Queen Victoria.  A Victorian Home was meant to showcase the social standing of the owner . Ornate and excessive touches on everything from furniture to greeting cards marked this period.