The Gammage sister dolls - Parian or Stone Bisque?

The dolls I've built my story around - because it is turning into a story as well as a blog documenting progress on the house , are not quite half scale. The tallest is 3 inches, which of course would be a very tall 6 foot person. I bought all of them on Ruby Lane at various times - I've actually got my eye out for some small nieces and nephews , and I would love to find a gentleman who could be Papa's old friend. Some of them were listed as stone bisque , and others Parian. I don't really know much about the time period when they were made . It's time to research them - do you have any information?

Are they ugly? My kids would tell you that they are, without a doubt. Particularly Althea and Julia . They definitely are an acquired taste, and you wonder if little girls really liked them . I suspect that their tiny size made them constant companions for some small grubby hands . Julia looks as though she were kept carefully clean and treated carefully . Don't I wish I really knew their stories!

Althea is just so good natured!

The Behavior Analyst and the Dollhouse

I don't think I've disclosed this yet, but I work with students with Autism , and I'm a behavior analyst as well. I also don't know if you are aware that behavior analysts use their own strategies to change their own behavior. All the time! Example, I know that if I show you what I am planning to finish today, it is more likely that I will do it. So today, I will trim the windows in the basement kitchen , outside the kitchen and also the ship captain' room that Althea has converted into her workroom. Remember that this is the room that the sister's father , Josiah Gammage used to let other Shipmasters stay in so that they could avoid the commotion of the usual boardinghouses for sailers waiting for the next voyage.

If I finish that, I can pick a new project. I wonder if Flylady is a behavior analyst. She surely does know how to use antecedent strategies and rule bound behavior. Now I'm being silly!

Kit bashing and kid's memories

If you read some of my beginning posts, you'll note that this house was played with in unfinished form by all 3 of my kids- who are now 20, 24 and 28. I bought it for the oldest boy when he was 2 , but of course finishing it was always in the back of my head!

My daughter came back from college at Christmas, looked at the house, and said, "Is that the one that Bani Ray made? "

My dad died last year- he was a woodworker- there is a post here somewhere about the new workable I have which has his old vice built in. But he never made a dollhouse just for her. The two that he made for me are long gone, and the one that she remembers as being made for her was actually one I asked for that he had started , but not finished , for my stepsister. We fixed it to the wall of my daughter's room, and I've heard her tell friends about how great the house was, because I purchased just the inserts of an old Barbie dollhouse and she would rearrange the rooms constantly.

So interesting that she would remember Gammage House as the one he made . And interesting that I really, really wanted to be able to tell her that he had made it.

Painting the house

The Gammage sisters have tired of the old green caked paint on the house, and have been fighting for months about the new color. Riding down Benefit street , Althea spotted the Hopkins House , which is a unique color of ..... Pink, red? Whatever the name of the color, it spoke to the unique color sense of all three sisters , and they pledged to have the house painted before Aunt Augusta returned from her concert tour in April. They also loved the enclosure around the property , and Althea ( remember she does cabinetmaking and carpentry) is to work on a fence after she finishes the Post Office , while the others paint.

Moving the Inn

This blog has gotten so confusing ! I have created the Inn its own blog, so this blog will be only about the Gammage House. This should be interesting, because my goal is to blog on each every day!

The link to the Inn Blog- QUARTERSPACE

Followers

I have a new follower! She has great little doll she is dressing, and you can see this at her blog at http://dallydominis.blogspot.com/ .

 Thanks to those who have followed a very fledgling blog. I have such fun following blogs- and I am a loyal follower of anyone making a Picket Hill by Suzanne and Andrew ( link to Picket Hill is http://andrewsmini.com/miniatures/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3_33&zenid=e1af001dc1e7f777cf84b5a3d83b339bhttp://andrewsmini.com/miniatures/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3_33&zenid=e1af001dc1e7f777cf84b5a3d83b339b ) I LOVE this house. It is funny because it seemed so expensive to buy , so I decided to do scratch building, but both of my current houses in progress have ended up costing much more than the original price of the Picket Hill House.

My very first follower, and only commenter is building a Picket Hill , Sandra at http://snippetsfrommystudio.blogspot.com/, is building a Picket Hill, and has completed much of the furniture, which I completely covet. And she does it all with LONG GROOMED NAILS! Before you think I am making fun, I want you to know that just like the Picket Hill House , I have always coveted groomed nails. I have to keep mine short for fiddle playing (at least the left hand) , and started keeping them short to play the piano at the age of 10. I bite them, use them as tools and pick at things with them until they have grooves in them. I  feel like I have to hide them at professional meetings.

Sandra's  work shows the same neat appearance.  I'm working on the neatness, but not the nails.
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Dollhouse ideas , converted church?

As usual on Saturday morning, I'm watching Sell This House. they're staging a converted church and I love the space . What a great house or room box it would make! It made me think of the current Creatin Contest at Miniatures.com. But I'm not going there because I have decided to do only one 1:12 dollhouse. it would be cool if the contest had scale option.

Here's a few converted churches I found online.

I love this one!

Weekends again

Almost the weekend! I've got so many plans for the houses- we'll see what really gets done. When I have Saturday morning to "piddle", I truly feel off. I worked on some of the painted walls and paneling for the Gammage House- they are so primitive compared to those I see on other people's blogs. I just have to have faith that my skills will get better and better. although, one of my tasks this weekend is to complete an application for a doctoral program. It wouldn't start till the summer od 2013 though.

www.hypersmash.com

Creatin Contest 2010

In 2010 the miniature bug hit for good when I got an email from Miniatures.com saying that their Creatin Contest house , Lisa's cottage was on sale for around $29.  Which left me about a month to go to get the house ready if I really wanted to enter the contest. The minute I saw the cottage, I knew what I wanted to do- use graphics from a book I'd had as a child. Don't get any ideas, because the copyright of this book is in the 1920's - we bought this book at an estate sale in a mansion in Iowa City Iowa when I was about 5. I also got a very beautiful brooch the size of a dessert plate which was beautiful blue glass! I can't find the brooch, but have had the book for 50 years now. I scanned, cut, pasted, copied, until I had the right components to cover the house in paper. I can still smell all the sealer I used to keep the designs fresh!

If you've ever entered this contest, you know that you are judged by the 4 pictures you send in. I had a major photo shoot!  This is the book with the house. The teddy bear pic did NOT go in! I noticed that the winners from the years before almost always had some kind of background that showed off the house, so in this one, I used a piece of linoleum that looked like the one my grandmother had in her kitchen.

 Then I painted a BEAUTIFUL MASTERPIECE of a background on an old piece of paneling. 

 I actually do think the background painting added to the presentation. 

I added a few old pieces of antique furniture, but there was printed furniture inside. 

We combined printed and real in an interesting way. 

And as usual, I could not suspend disbelief, so we added doors, and dormers . But I managed not to add stairs. I'm pretty sure it is the last time I won't add stairs! 

I put a number of images together in the Paint program on my computer to make the doors, gate and railings. Tedious. 

I'm sure I spent as much time on my computer making the paper covering as others did doing everything else! 

As you can see, when I say that I had a major photo shoot, I meant it!  I think I had choose from about 120 pics, with multiple lighting options, from every possible angle and in three different locations in my basement,   to find the four I wanted to send in. The pictures from the book are mostly in the interior. 

The result: we got honorable mention! See the contest results here (and yes, I know , the other ones are amazing!) . 

Antique post office fixtures

I'm having to take a little break from working on houses. Last week I fell not once but two times 4 days apart while carrying my dog inside, on the same step , although I hit the right side the first time and the left side the 2nd. You know how, when you are carrying a small being your body adapts to protect it ( in this case a powderpuff Chinese Crested )? I'm thinking my ribs did that on the side of the brick step . The good news is that we are both perfectly okay, though I am very sore and lazy. If you've seen the movie "Groundhog Day" you know the feeling I had as I fell the 2nd time. I remember thinking, " Really?" "Again?"

And the look Josey The frou frou gave me gave away very similar thoughts!

Instead of working, I'm researching and planning. There is a wonderful antique post office counter I 'd like to copy in Forest, Virginia, not far from me. I'm going to have to go photograph it, as I can't find anything like it online. It is still in use, but is located in an antique shop which used to be a general store.

This is the closest I could come to what I remember.

I'll try to get out to see the one near me this weekend - I'm hoping it will live up to my memory of it!

Revelation- the basement store as a stationers and post office

I knew the Gammage women had to have occupations other than being ladies of leisure. The fancywork and domestic articles around the house are the work of women long gone. but even their mother, Cecile , preferred writing and illustrating botanical journals to prettying the house, which is why the decor speaks of their grandfather's lifetime more than the year of 1885.

The basement was used for years as an apartment for workers or temporary quarters for other shipmasters who weren't in Providence long enough to go home. For those who wanted to escape the drunken brawls of the boarding houses serving mostly sailers, the basement was a warm restful alternative. A somewhat primitive kitchen served both the upstairs and the basement living quarters. The current occupants of the house have done a bit of updating in the kitchen, with a new stove and inside sink.

Since the unpleasantness, the exterior room of the basement was converted into a post office and stationers store, with Julia as the proprietor. The shipmaster's quarters were somewhat preserved, but the larger part was converted as a wood shop for Althea, who makes beautiful clocks, sewing boxes and commissioned work.

So finally , I know how to proceed on the basement!

As you see, I am between color schemes on the house too, but I've added the beginnings of steps as well.

More house color choices

I went to images to deliberately find very different color schemes. As in not green and brick. I wonder if that color scheme is really as prevalent as it seems on Google images. The 2nd thing this exercise brought about was the realization of how far I have to go on the inn in terms of gingerbread. I suppose I could pretend that Max took it off, but I really secretly like the over the top houses.

Is that pink, or coral?

Mostly white.

A different green.

And here I go again with the green and brick. I'm thinking I like it because it downplays the ornate features.

I like the garages underneath on the row of houses.

K3ftwyvbnex9 My other Obsession ( well, one of them)

When my youngest left for college, I made a quilt. In about two weeks. After years of UFO's that inhabited my home, I was finally able to have time to indulge myself in all of those projects I would do " someday".

One of the someday undertakings was doll making. I fell in love with the work of Izannah Walker. I'm taking a hiatus from doll making right now, but I'm sure my dolls will show up on this blog- hence the name change.

My blog , which chronicles my trip in pursuit of information about Izannah Walker and her dolls , is FiddlerRock .