Suspension of Disbelief

I have always disliked fantasy books and movies. And even as a child, those movies and tv shows with talking animals! In the words of my teenage niece- that's just wrong! I also have a bias against broccoli or pineapple on pizza, but that is another story. 

My 28 year old son, who is a photographer, saw the Josiah Gammage house when he came home for the holiday. H e's generally hypercritical, but has  learned a bit of tact at William and Mary where he is studying to be a school psychologist. He first said, "I'm trying to decide if it should be another color", which got me thinking. and then, "How do they get to the basement from upstairs?" Well of course I had talked myself into jut having an outside entrance to the basement, but what was I thinking? I have the kitchen down there now! So now I have to cut a hole from upstairs in the hall to the kitchen. I tried with my Dremel Trio- which I have recently started liking better but can't control well, but it was too big . Back to the drawing board!

I forgot to ask my son how he feels about talking animal movies.

The Staircase

The other project of the day is the staircase wall. A bit more that just a staircase and I'm hoping to even things up with trim. I'm very proud though that I created the whole thing from scratch- my lines are getting straighter, but surely not there yet.

The addition is coming along- I hope to get a porch rail on and a door  on the end despite the virus that is plaguing my holiday . Five days off and two in bed is not good!

Meet Persis

The youngest of the three sisters ... so I might have changed this already, is Persis. She is a tiny stone bisque or parian doll , and was the beginning of the house makeover . Here she is undressed, and then with her new clothing . She's dressed in antique fabric scraps from an unfinished crazy quilt. I've quite lost the knack of miniature sewing!

She's surveying the addition construction in what will be her room.

The Addition

When I started running out of imaginary room. I built an addition to be the kitchen and bedroom. One is still a bedroom, but the lower room is to have a different purpose. It may end up being an office
depending on how the upstairs remoldeling goes.

The dormers bite the dust

I got brave, and the dormers are history. Then the rest of the shingles. I 'm still trying to decide if I want to replace the dormers or close up the front of the roof.

There's an app for that - Dollhouses?

There are three dollhouse apps in the app store- no advertisements here- but check them out! I'm not sure if I like the magazines on the Ipad or paper version best. I guess I like to read the paper version better, but hate storing them . I've also found that the Ipad will put a number of items into Ibooks now- for example, anything you download as a PDF I think, and I think I might have seen my download of the Artisan in Miniatures magazine in there. Better check!

An eventful evening here-my impulsiveness ?  First I pinched my finger in the jigsaw (handheld) while removing the dormers. YES! I removed the dormers. I kept looking at them and realized they were too big . I also couldn't stand looking at the messed up roof shingles- so off it all came. 


And then, I set off the fire alarms. It was much easier to get the shingles off with a little heat from the heat gun- but then some glue got on the heat gun. I guess we know they work now! 


Progress though I think. I worked on the door more , then changed the pitch of the roof in front . Which of course put the dormers at the wrong angle . But I'm pleased with the change , although as usual I gave myself work to do.  

The story beginning

I don't know how many people have a story that goes with their dollhouse- but I had a hard time even thinking about the house until I imagined the characters. I'm a dollmaker, and had originally planned to make dolls, but then found 3 wonderful little antique china and stone bisque dolls about the right size. I'll introduce them soon.

Right now their names are Althea, Aurelia and Augusta , but we'll see if I can even remember those names tomorrow! Althea however, will be first, because she has been named for some time.

I remember I said that the era of the dollhouse is 1885 - but that is for the story, not the house. The house is meant to be built much earlier, although I haven't completely thought that out.

The search for interior space and roughing out the story

My mom used to tell me about her "greatmares" , which were usually about finding more and more space in the house she was living in. Wonderful ballrooms, and multiple attics filled with wonderful treasures.

The original Houseworks shell had approximately 4 rooms. I've never figured out why the staircase hole was configured the way it is. When I started planning to redo the house, I realized that there was no way in the world that I could squeeze in the music room, map room, workshop, sewing room that I wanted in addition to the large kitchen  and three women's bedrooms. I was hoping to find a space for the Seamaster's bedroom, but he might need to sleep in the Map room. Here are the original spaces in the house (please forgive the renovation mess) .

On the right bottom is the parlor/music room. Up top is the prissy sister's room. One bedroom is in the attic, along with a small storage room and a nursery converted into a sewing room. 

On the left was originally the kitchen , but it just wasn't large enough when you put the staircase in the place designated (see to the left of the upstairs wall). So you'll see I added an addition onto the right side of the house . But it didn't stop there!