I have posted some photos of the (almost) last part of the build for Bentleys. I do still have the flat roof to do but that is waiting on being able to get a fine strip of wood which I want to edge the roof with and also the right gravel. That might be a while, so we are moving in despite that!
The heat shrink tube arrived and proved OK for the job. It adds to the bulk of the wires but anything would and I am sure this is the least worst of the other alternatives. It was easy to apply and I shrank it with a hair-dryer despite all the stuff on the web saying pretty much to use only a heat gun as that is easy and totally successful. The hair dryer seemed to work just fine.
There are several photos to look at if you want to see this being done. They show me joining the wires by twisting them together, having threaded a piece of the tubing on one of them first. You then slip the tube over the join and heat it. Do this for each of the two wires and you are good to go.
I also added lead to the dormer windows as I managed to get a good buy from EBay. Initially I thought I was scuppered as the lead was all wrinkled when it was unrolled and just going at it with a rolling pin simply ironed the wrinkles in rather than out. I then realised the paper at the back needed slitting behind each fold and it worked fine.
My inspirational bit of work on the last lap was making a couple of 'floors' for the window displays. These are removable so I can do just that. Slide them out, window dress them and slide them back in. No-one in 1911 had shop window displays with items standing on the actual shop floor like we do nowadays. This window shelf has its own name.... it is driving me potty trying to remember it from my teenage years (when I was at school) working in dress shops. Circa 1960 not 1911!
The last of the glazing for three windows was put in and here we are ready to move in. I have sorted out what goes in each room ready to start dressing the rooms properly. I won't make a lot of headway with that as I still have a lot of furniture to buy and make and alter. I will of course keep you posted as I go. Meanwhile if you want to see the collection of stuff I already have you need to visit Bentleys - by room album.
This refers to a break in production not a hernia. Mind you I probably wouldn't notice a 1/12th hernia.
This is my view of Bentleys now and for the next few (hopefully) days. With help from Mr Muscles we turned it round so I could attack the electrics. I have four things which can plug straight in and five which need extending so they can be plugged in.
I have sent for some heat shrink tubing to cover the joins. I hope that is the least 'lumpy' way of doing it. I realised that the two on the top of the house might create a problem as their wires will be under whatever surface I put on the roof and might not lie down flat enough if they were wrapped in normal insulating tape. I won't blather on about it now as I am still awaiting its arrival. I'll show you how it works out (having never used it and not having a clue!) when I do it.
I have now formally declared the only thing I hate in doll housing and would pay to have done if I were possible, is taking off and putting on the rotten little plugs. I can honestly say it is the only time that I lose the plot and have mini tantrums. They make me so cross and frustrate me at every turn. In a way it is even more annoying that my husband, who has banana fingers when it comes to delicate stuff, can do these without a problem. Admittedly there is a strength issue involved in shoving the pins in and sometimes getting them out so that may be a major part of it. I have resorted to using a hammer to thwack the pins in place when I can actually locate them sufficiently well in their stupid little holes which are already full of wire. Aaaaarrrgggh! See, I am getting cross just typing it. Four down and five to go.
I also added this to the top left corner at the back - don't really know why as the house is for me and I know it is set in October 1911. I think I was just having a Lettraset attack. I know I said before that it is dreadful stuff these days and sticks where you don't want it to and doesn't where you do. It is such a pain it bears repeating.
An issue with Bentleys turning its back on me is that I can't do a couple of other little jobs, like touching up the ends of recently added skirting boards. Fortunately I am also waiting for wood to make the raised floors in the shop windows and the lead for the dormer roofs, so the bigger jobs at the front can't be done yet either. It is all on order so give me a week or so and hopefully the shop will be ready to move into. Now, doesn't that sound just like a builder!
I finally got the stairs in and done. Yippee!! They have been my all-time worry on this project and I don't feel much better about it now they are done. The only conclusion I can come to, even after the event, is that there is no easy way to make them or put them in place.
This was the first staircase of the four and I can assure you they are far from perfect. I'm not going through all the grief here in detail but I did try all sorts of ways of going about it.
Initially I drew a template and tried to glue everything in place by lying the stairs down against that. Nope, that's not the way. No glue seemed to do the job properly and I resorted to a hot glue gun. This wasn't great either but it seemed the least worse choice between itself and wood glue and super-glue.
Trying to figure out what angle to cut the hand rails at was a complete nightmare and I did sort of use the template for that. I then stuck the rail in place between the newels and threaded the spindles into it trying to space them out evenly. These needed a lot of cajoling and fiddling about with and they seemed miles too short. I didn't glue these in place. I then did a lot of wiggling and jiggling over the stair case itself to try and make the seven pieces line up properly. Very fast blobs of hot glue were added under the newels and spindles, followed by much praying and even more cursing.
I repeat they leave much to be desired but once in the building in the (unlit!) stair well they look fine.
If you want to see each floor in more detail have a look at the web album. While you are there take a look at the roof tiles going on.
I was really pleased with these. My worry here was that they would run out of line and I can honestly say only one tiny bit was a touch off. I'm not telling you where because I think I've got away with it.
The problem is that you start at the bottom of the roof - obviously - and work your way upwards overlapping by half a tile as you go. This is relatively easy to keep straight as long as you keep checking until the work splits at the bottom of the dormers. Now you are working on four separate areas and there is no way to keep a single line check on what you are doing so by the time you get to the top of the dormers you want them all to come back together in a nice joined up precisely straight line.
I kept the line by using a strip of wood about 1 cm wide which I carefully held at the bottom edge of the last row of tiles and then stuck the next row in place by butting them up against the top edge of the wood. Three hands would have been useful. I used a long piece (seen here) for the full rows and I cut a piece off for the shorter pieces between and beside the dormers.
You might also notice I had drawn evenly spaced lines on the roof as guide lines. This is recommended by Richard Stacey on the tile packet but in all honesty it didn't make a lot of difference other than a visual nod now and again to roughly check how it was going. There was never a moment when the tiles actually lined up with those lines. You might be able to measure and mark up more accurately than me so don't let me put you off trying. I had already discovered I couldn't make this work for me when I tried it when I was doing the brickwork. As I said they are useful as a sort of double check insurance so I would still do it.
Just a reminder here for anyone about to do these roof slates - like the versi-bricks - make sure you have enough of them and tip them all out and mix them up. I forgot this with these slates and I did have a slightly different colour and finish on my brand new ones on the top two rows. It looks OK but there was a panic moment. That said I didn't manage to calculate any of the products accurately. I ended up with too many bricks and too many slates and not enough extra long bricks which delayed me. I might add I am good at the maths it is just that you don't really know which bricks you will want for which part of the build and I found I needed lots of the longer sort to get round all sorts of corners. Again having patience would save you money. Buy the least you think you can get away with and then see what you need if you don't mind waiting for the order in the middle of your build.
Also, do not make the mistake I made a long time back when I accidentally fixed the roof in place. It would have been such an easy task to put the hinges on two flat pieces of wood on the floor rather than on a built shop! What a fiddle that was. It also meant I had to stick the dormers in place, do the lead flashing and stick the tiles on when it was built as it would have been even more difficult to handle the roof flap with all that stuff on it when we were man/woman handling it into place, trying to align the hinges properly. I am sure we would have wrecked something.
All in all I am very pleased with how it is all looking. I need to touch up various bits of trims - change the white line under the roof to grey for example, add some skirting in the stair wells, and put 'floors' in the windows for displays and it will be ready to 'dress'.
The only largish task is the flat roof. As that should strictly speaking be gravelled (!) I am holding off on decision making for now. Apparently (cheap) Edwardian flat roofs were five layers of bitumen and felt on the rafters topped off with gravel. This shop certainly wouldn't have warranted a lead roof.
There is a sort of PS here - saying lead reminded me.... my lead flashing isn't really accurate I know but it was what I bought and it isn't cheap so I was determined to use it. The flat dormer roofs will be leaded when I can spring the cash for the lead. Could do with an Edwardian dodgy tradesman here I think.
Two suppliers have just come up trumps in a big way.
The wonderful Amanda made me these veggies, eggs and Dundee cake to order. I even got the variety of veg I wanted - a savoy cabbage and King Edward potatoes. Yes, I know I am silly picky but these were the seasonal veg for October and the spud for a Brummie could only be a good King Edward. She usually cuts cakes so you can see her extraordinary work inside - cake crumbs and fruit - but I wanted mine whole as it will be cooling on a cake rack. I also wanted all the eggs and veg loose as I haven't settled where they will be yet. The eggs will be in a bowl somewhere. They were bought loose in 1911 - no egg boxes then! As a child of the fifties I can remember buying eggs loose in a brown paper bag and them being put in an enamel bowl when we got back from the shops. I would like to devise a string bag to hang on the back door for the root veg but they may all just go in a box in the pantry or a wash tin under the sink. I am so very sorry my photography is so poor and you only get a flavour of the beauty of this stuff. Thank you so much Amanda.
PS - she also sent me a perfect little birthday cake with stripey (!!) candles for Nanny in the Wentworth.
The second supplier is new to me and I found him at the York show.
The Lyddington kit has some pretty crude MDF stair in it which need rails and newels and spindles. I spent a great deal of time debating whether to just bin them and buy some decent already made-up stairs. I decided I want to try as much as I can doing this hobby so stairs would be my next challenge. I was also dubious about getting stairs which would fit properly; at least the ones which came with the house were made for the house. They need to be the right width, slope at the right angle (and this varies hugely) and fit exactly between floor and landing: it seemed best to use what I had.
My staircase wasn't going to be carpeted so I didn't like the fact that they didn't have a proper tread on them and wasn't confident that the MDF would look good stained. I remembered I had seen someone who sold treads you could add. Huge search of the web and finally located (I am pretty sure) the one and only supplier of dolls house stair treads. It is in the USA so the postage would be prohibitive on a four dollar purchase.
At the York show I was looking at various trims on the Dolls House Cottage Workshop stand and told this tale to the young man manning it. He said he would make it for me and, hey presto, within a few days it was in my hands being chopped into treads.
It is totally brilliant. Slightly too deep for my stairs but so easy to cut that I cut twenty-four of them without error. It took stain without any nibbing - so no rubbing down and only needed one coat to get a good colour. In a nutshell it is perfect for the job and has transformed my MDF clunkers into a potentially nice looking Edwardian staircase. That's assuming the chippy (aka me!) can do a decent job with the rest of it.
There are a few more photos in my web album showing the process if you are interested.
Check out his site, it has some terrific stuff.
I have finished and hung the doors so Bentleys is, at last, starting to look like a doll's house. The bad news is I then began to think about doing the roof and this reminded me that I had celebrated too early when I crowed about doing the last brick..... mmmm.... what about the ones on the dormers?
I am one happy bunny today; I have finished one of the 'doors'.
In summary:
On the outside: I'm not thrilled with the quoins. I love the bricks and the pavement. The shop sign is OK, but it's a bit pubby. The rest of exterior trim is OK. I'm not fond of this manufacturer's plastic window frames and the lack of trim inside and out; although, on this occasion they don't really need any outside trim and after painting the window frames they look OK. After more negatives than positives I am still really pleased with how it has turned out.
On the inside: I am glad I made a window frame for the shop windows. The windows would have needed mullions to support the weight of the plate glass; indeed they were often made of iron. It looked very dolls-housey without it. I will also add a 'shelf' at the height of the sill to raise the window displays off the floor as they would have been in 1911. Ellen will have taken the backboards down from behind the display but there would have been a curtain to afford some privacy for the customers inside the shop. I am pretty sure I am going to attempt to add the wood trims such as the skirting and cornice to finish it off more. I think the upstairs windows will look OK pretty much as they are. If I add a window sill at the bottom of each window the drapes will cover the top and the sides and they should look OK.
Just for the record this is the last brick about to go in place. I am still undecided whether I loved or loathed doing the brickwork but I really am pleased with the finish and I will certainly use the Richard Stacey versi-products on any future builds.
The build from flat-pack to here is recorded in pictures in my web album if you've only just found this blog.
I have pretty much completed all the rooms. The stair wells and the shop have a bit of trim missing because the stairs need to go in place before they can be finished. Other than that, they are good to go.
I am very pleased with the end result even if I can see where things could have been better in some way or another. As a second try at a doll's house it's not bad and I have learned loads of stuff ready for my third go! Yes, I am already imagining number three and this one isn't even built and dressed yet. I just LOVE doing this stuff.
If you want to see each individual room go to Bentleys - the build web album.
Also in the album is a photo showing you how I painted the spindles for the stairs using my golf tees, Blu-tak and styrene method.
I will share this image with you here just to show you what a perfectionist I am. Others change perfectionist to nut-case!
When I did the trims and finished the wallpaper, I couldn't see behind the chimney breast however much I tried so I came up with this as a solution. My husband's logic was, if I couldn't see - no-one will ever see, so pretty much anything would be OK. I had the appropriate fainting fit at the suggestion and explained just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't have to be perfect.
That said let me just give you a couple of tips if you are thinking of doing chimney breasts. Don't try and trim the chimney breasts before putting them in place. It is very unlikely you will be able to make the room trims come to a good meeting place with the ones on the chimney breast. I gave it a lot of thought but decided that as every plane - vertical and horizontal - will be slightly imperfect it was no good assuming you were always working with lovely perfect ninety degree joins. If each one is only out by a degree or two that shows in one twelfth world when they come together and you need to be able to cut and fiddle with each one as you go.
Another thought.... always make sure you are doing a chimney breast which can be papered or clad in some way. Like a chump I decided the parlour in my premises would have a painted frieze - the only one in the place! I have a teeny gap between chimney breast and wall which, therefore, can't be hidden with wallpaper. I have filled it in a bit more than on this photo with excess paint pushed into the gap, but it would have been easier and better to have just been able to paper it.
I am now working on finishing the two front doors/walls. This entails finishing the bricks, laying slabs on the pavement, finishing the shop front and windows and making the inside match each room as its fourth wall. I am not adding wood trim (at this stage) as I think it might prove nigh on impossible to do well. I shall see if I am happy with the inside of the doors just having a nod to the room or whether I really do need to finish them properly. Opinions welcome as always.
This blog's title has taken on a literal stance. I am truly all over the shop doing jobs in every corner, so I don't have much of a complete area or job to show you. I find I am doing bits of painting of stairs, signboards and edges of doors etc, fixing bits of trim when the floors go down, putting the floors down and putting in the lights and fireplaces.
I thought I'd share the fireplaces so far and the shop name boards.
I am very unsure about the signs above the shop. Right now they are (long-term) temporary until I can find something better. They cost all of two bucks in materials so will be fine until I can devote more time and interest to them and I am able to find someone to make me some decent ones.
Basically I think they are a bit OTT and look more like a pub than a dress shop.
If you want to see how they were made there are pictures in my web album - Bentleys the build
So far I have only managed to struggle a couple of fireplaces into place . The first one, in the bedroom, was something of a nightmare in that I had to get the lighting wire set in its groove in the floor (which I had cut a long time ago) before I put the floorboards down; BUT you can't put the floor down with the fireplace in its place. This results in a bit of a one-handed jiggle between the two things. At the same time you have only one chance to get the floor lined up perfectly with the front edge and the sides because the double-sided tape grips like fury once it touches anything.
I cut the wood for four chimney breasts for the four fireplaces I am putting in and then I decided that my original idea of only two being needed was the right one. So there will be two going up for sale on EBay. £3 each pretty nearly covers the materials, so fingers crossed.
I only need two because in terraces the chimneys were shared. Each terrace had one side of their house with the whole chimney breast for both houses in their rooms and their neighbours flues and theirs went into this space. On the other side of the house they shared the chimney that was in that neighbour's house in the same way. The fires in the workroom and salon, therefore, don't need chimney breasts in their rooms as their flues are in next door.
I hope you can see the parts to the structure. It is made from four-inch wide Bass board with one-inch sides. These are joined together and supported by trim from B & Q. It is MUCH cheaper to buy it from there than any craft shops, if you can find what you want.
It has been papered (on the underside) and I cut a slit for the wire for the bulb. As it happens it didn't need a slit for the wire because the grooves I had cut in the floor went from the wall to the centre of the floor to join the lighting grooves rather than to the back wall.
On the above photo you might be able to see that I have deliberately left a small turned edge of the wallpaper to be stuck against the wall. This is important for a neat finish. The paper which will butt up to the edge of the chimney breast looks much better with this good 'seal'. I'll chronicle this better when I do the parlour one - I forgot to record it this time while I was making it. This isn't a bad thing as I learned something.
After I put the chimney breast in place I did the left and right pieces of wall paper. As I said the front one on the right of the fireplace looks great because of the slight underlap of the chimney breast paper and was a cinch to do. Not so with the other side. I struggled to stick down the teeny edge of paper on that side because I couldn't see a thing; it was, of course, on the far side of the chimney breast. This was followed by trying to cut and fit the left piece of paper which was also a bit of a fiddle for the same reasons. Eventually I realised that I didn't need the same degree of finish as the visible side. The only possible way the far side join can be seen is with a mirror. Yes, I did check it with one and yes, it is perfect (!) but it didn't have to be. So next time round I will put the back piece of paper on the wall first and then put in the chimney breast with just one turned underlap edge and then add the right side piece of paper - so much simpler.
The workroom fire is also in place but the other two are still waiting for me. I cut out a space for the fire and its hearth from the floor of the workroom before sticking it down but this time I decided to run the wire around the edge of the room before the skirting goes in so I didn't need to cut a grove and therefore no jiggling of floor and fire. I just cut a space for the fire in the floorboards, stuck them down, stuck the hearth and fire in place and ran the wires to the back of the room. It made the whole job much simpler and looks just as good. I managed to cut a hearth from the piece left over from my very posh parlour fireplace (more of that later) and I had a bargain EBay fender which I bought ages ago, so that fireplace is complete.
I have saved the very best 'til last! I received my lovely Art Nouveau fire from Sussex Crafts yesterday; talk about efficient and helpful and just down right nice......
I emailed them on Monday and said I wanted the fireplace but I was dithering about which tile insert to choose. This became a couple of email conversations. They answered my emails immediately and also offered me additional choices of tile to the four on the site. I finally settled on a dainty blue cornflower. I really wanted something not too bold as it would 'fight' with an already fussy Art Nouveau fire surround and would definitely have a tussle with the Voyseyish wallpaper. I ordered and paid on Wednesday and, as I said, there it was safely in my hands on Thursday.
Besides being spot on for my 1911 shop and Ellen's refurb in 1906 it is just gorgeous. The little ash pan even comes out, so you could have a maid cleaning the hearth (?). Even the bulb has a little wire carrier. The hearthstone proved to be enough for two fires and the detail and finish on the fender is also really nice.
It does need a chimney breast as it is properly constructed. It needs the space as the fire is set back from the surround as it should be. Hopefully I should get enough time this weekend to get it in place. Watch this space.
Meanwhile I urge you to have a look at the link (above and in the right hand column) to Sussex Crafts they have a plethora of wonderful things and couldn't be more helpful. They get to go in my (almost) Hall-of-Fame links to suppliers. As I have said before I am being super-selective about recommending folk for stuff. I don't think I have had a bad experience buying anything for both my projects so anyone I point you towards has to be stand-out exceptional. Sussex Crafts isn't a difficult choice as my source for fireplaces and hopefully more things too when I've saved up some pennies.
There has been ten days work since my last blog and there's not much to show for it. The brick process is very slow.
When I'd top-coated the window frames and the bay window roofs I suddenly registered I had actually stuck the roofs on upside down - or had I? On the one hand I wanted to see the moulding (and didn't it need the slope for the rain to run off?) and on the other I had a niggling feeling the moulding should be underneath. I emailed Barbara's Mouldings asking them this and for advice on how to remove something which had been wood glued together if I had indeed done it wrongly. They contacted their supplier (I thought they made them?) who said - yes, it had been designed for the mouldings to be underneath but most people like it the other way up so it can be seen, so ... please yourself. Neither offered any suggestion as to how I could remove them.
I had a bit of a go at getting one off but decided it would just make too much of a mess all round and I have left them as they are. I should have emailed someone I have been talking to about the Lyddington (she has done one) when I was dithering about - this way up or that way up?
The shop bays don't look too bad but I think the porch cover over the front door will look very odd stuck on upside down and even odder if I put that one the right way up - it will demonstrate that the others are standing on their heads. Hey ho! I just need to convince myself that only I will see it.
I am glad I added the little stone window sills. I thought they might be a trim too far but I think they look good. However, I wish I had stuck to my guns and not added the quoins, I still think they are odd/unrealistic. That said I still don't see how I would have either filled in the gaps behind the bay window roofs or cut and routed some new roofs to fit and perhaps I wouldn't have been happy with the ensuing gap between the two doors - the left one does, at least, cover that.
If you are considering Richard Stacey's versi-slips I can commend them to you but only if you have a lot of patience. It is certainly a very slow task and not an easy one. Having finished one dormer I began another but I soon got brain ache having to work out what size was needed where so I gave up on them for a while and started on the front walls of the shop. At one point I calculated I was doing about twenty bricks an hour. So just sixty hours work left then! I lived in hopes of it speeding up considerably when I stopped fiddling round window openings and doors. I then realised the whole of the area I was doing was around windows and doors. Some people are very slow to catch on.
In the future I would certainly use them but I'd try to cut down the number by perhaps only doing the upper or lower half of the building in brick and would use masonry paint for the other half and I would certainly choose the half with the least windows.
A big problem is that the underpinning structures won't be designed for a specific amount of bricks, so it is impossible to line them up satisfactorily. For example, these windows take 13 vertical bricks above them as a trim. The bricks which will be in a line above them should have one brick lying across three of the vertical tops. Clearly this can't be done with thirteen bricks.
Another issue was that the space between the two windows doesn't work out conveniently. The edges alternate with a half brick and full brick (have a look at the photo above). This leaves a space to be filled between the two windows that was just a smidgen wider than a normal brick. A brick and a bit of a brick would have looked very odd. I just cheated here and used a versi-corner (a brick and a half length) and cut a slightly longer brick. I then just crossed fingers and toes and hoped it would not show when all the other bricks were distractingly in place. I think I got away with it.
On the right of the door I was left with a row of bits to fill in which were something like an eighth of an inch. The gap was too big too ignore and too small to fill easily. I devised a method of stabbing a likely looking off-cut with the point of the craft knife and working my way up and down the row to find where it would fit without any more trimming needed. This was then very carefully touched on to the top of the blob of tacky glue (on a plastic box lid) and then pushed into place with a variety of tools - finger nails, cocktail stick, knife blade, edge of ruler - basically, whatever did the job.
Add to all of this the intricate cutting to size of almost every brick used and you might now appreciate why my work speed is twenty bricks an hour.
None of this is intended to put anyone off. I love/hate working with tiddly bits of stuff for a doll's house and somehow having that frustrating pleasure is the very thing which gives me a great deal of satisfaction when the job is done.
I have completed the larger side of the front of the shop so the other side doesn't seem too daunting.
The dominant pale line of mortar on the right of the centre window will be over-painted with some mucky coloured wash and will look fine. It is there because I managed to cut my template brick slightly too long and therefore all the rest followed. I then also stuck them all in place before stepping back and having a look; at which point a loud aaaarrrgggh! could be heard. It actually was solved by cutting off the surplus. With a steel rule and knife it wasn't too bad a job but it removed the dirty based paint - hence the pale stripe.
As 'bricking', as it is now known in our house, drives you quietly nuts after a while I have interspersed it with bits of painting such as these trims. The gold lining is not as good as I would like. This is down to a few factors. The grooves are a more complex cut than you would think and they have sloping side edges as well as the groove itself, so it is hard to keep a line just in the bottom on the cut without getting paint on the sloping sides. Handling a very fine paintbrush and drawing straight lines with it requires a level of skill and practice which, obviously, I don't have. Even if those two problem were overcome I am not sure how you can sand/smooth the cuts so they don't soak up the paint like blotting paper which gives a very rough finish. I did try a couple of sanding passes but they didn't seem to make any impact. I ended up knocking back the gold trim by scratching over it when it was dry and it looks better for not being so in-your-face gold. Again it is a case of convincing myself I am being overcritical and am up too close to see it as others see it and that these various issues are acceptable or, even better, invisible to most people who look at the shop.
I am not sure if I mentioned that the green outside paint on this project is a Cuprinol outdoor wood finish - left over paint from my summer house/shed/workroom. So far it is excellent. Goes on very smoothly - better than any other paint I've used - leaves no brush marks. I do three coats rubbed down between each. It also has just enough sheen. If it lasts well I intend to use it on all my wood (if I can find the colour I want!!). I have just looked on their website and they offer one pound test pots.
I am also in the throes of messing around with an idea for the shop sign. The signage is my biggest headache - how to get something which looks real. So far I have looked at all kinds of clever, tricky and expensive computerised routes and even then they don't satisfy. I can't find tiny brass letters any where and I would love some very small gold Lettraset which also seems to have dropped off the face of the planet. My shop has two name boards - one over each bay. I want it to say E. Bentley (in gold) inside some sort of frame/border on each and then on the fascia just below the bay roof the right one would say Milliner and the left one would say Dressmaker. Sounds simple.
I bought these one dollar items to mess around with to see how I might want it to look and I had a sudden inspiration that I could probably paint the white letters and they might actually do for the final job. The sample one worked well. The other packet contains all kinds of very fine gold trim which might make a frame of some sort around the letters. I'll have a bash and see how they turn out. I may just make them as a long term temporary solution until I find a better one. A couple of hot glue spots to hold the boards in place would mean I could take them off later without too much damage.
I can hold off until after Sunday and the York show where I just might find inspiration. I have a heck of a shopping list and I really must try to stick to it. I am dreadful for going armed with a very precise list of needs and end up buying wants instead. I have the list in order of priority so I can see how my money goes and when to stop. There are some things I must buy so the rest of the build can continue, such as a couple of black walnut wood floors and three fireplaces and the wood to make the chimney breasts. I really must do those. To be honest that is pretty much my budget blown. I'll probably stretch to a little treat so it isn't all just the practical stuff. Choosing the treat will take all day!
I am also intending to say hello to Lucie Roper the editor of Dolls House and Miniature Scene magazine. I can give her my second article which I finished last night. I am working months ahead of myself as I want all six articles completed before October.
Happy shopping to anyone who is going to the show. I will be easy to spot as I shall be the old lady sitting on the floor blubbing because she can't have everything she sees.
This is today's work. I have pretty much assembled the main part of the front of the shop. I have also undercoated the inside and outside of the bay windows. I haven't added any of the trims for now as some of them are a bit teeny fiddly and need painting before I glue them in place. Even these few pieces would have been much easier and much faster to paint before assembling. I really should LEARN to listen to myself and not try to dash on with stuff just because I can't wait to see it coming together. I talked myself into painting the bays after the build because it was a simple structure and would be easy. It is until you come to do it. Hey ho, you can only work with who you are. For everyone else just remember every time you are about to glue one piece of anything to another piece of something just stop and think if painting/papering first would make it much easier and neater later.
I haven't stopped work on Bentley's, though I confess to having spent some time answering the call of the sunshine and the garden, so I haven't given the shop as much time as usual; also it wasn't worth blogging as there aren't a lot of changes taking place. I am just doing more and more of the same. Painting all the trims (two coats plus sanding between the coats) takes a heck of a long time and it certainly isn't worth recording in any way.
I have different mixes of skirting, coving, picture rail and dado rail for each room. I am getting much better at cutting mitres on funny shaped pieces of wood, although picture rails seem to be beating me. Believe me you will need a small mitre box and good sharp, fine-toothed saw. Neither are very expensive and the difference between what you can manage with them and doing it without a box and using a junior hacksaw is beyond belief. Pleased with how they were turning out I decided to sidestep my order of build schedule as I couldn't wait to see some of them in place. Catastrophe!
I completely forgot that the roof wasn't glued down and blithely added the coving in the top floor stair-well, thereby anchoring the centre of the roof to middle walls. After a bit of a struggle I finally managed to lift the side edges of the roof a little and squeeze in some glue. Here's hoping that when the mansard roof is hinged on and it gets opened and closed to look at the top floor it doesn't flex the (very minimal) roof joints too much!
In the same vein, I finished two coats of satin and two sandings on a piece of flooring and was so pleased with the result I stuck it in place and stepped back to admire it. Clunk, I then remembered I meant to cut a groove in the floor first for the wire for the (future) fireplace.
After this I decided the best way every time I though of something 'not-to-do-because' was to write a note on masking tape and stick it in the appropriate place and stop relying on my terrible memory.
So, I am still unable to complete a whole task. With the exception of the kitchen, the trims in the rooms are only partly done because they all depend on something else before they can be completed, such as fires, cupboards, shelves etc.
Frustrated by all this, today I decided I'd go off at a tangent and tackle the dormer windows. This picture shows them all ready for the bricks. Decorating them turned out to be incredibly fiddly.
The flat roofs are just grey paint as I can't afford the lead to cover them just yet. The ceilings needed three coats of paint before they stopped looking patchy. The outside walls were painted with the mortar coloured paint and some scruffy splodges added to show between the bricks so it wouldn't be all one clean colour. The inner walls needed to match where they will be going - one is papered and two are painted. Then the inner window frame needed painting (two coats) in the silk creamy white to match the other woodwork.
I am using Richard Stacey versi-bricks which I have seen on a couple of houses at shows and they look wonderful. They don't look quite as wonderful done by me.
The dormers were probably the wrong things to choose for starting my bricklaying career. They turned out to be incredibly complex.
I'm afraid I don't have any great tips to help anyone who is considering using these versi-bricks other than, if you can, choose the easiest, flattest, most hidden area for your first go at them.
You are working with a 1/16th inch (or 1mm) tolerance on all your cuts. Quite a few of the bricks were trimmed as often as four times to get the fit precisely right. I needed to turn them round the window frame very accurately; if they were too long they would stop the window frame going in properly. If they were cut too short all the gaps would be on show.They proved impossible to trim once they were in place so I just had to cut precisely.
All the cuts and the scoring needed for folding have to be a perfect ninety degrees to the perpendicular or the brick ends up on a slope making the next and subsequent bricks equally lopsided.
Spacing is incredibly difficult. I used the ruler edge as a way of checking the gaps between each brick. I do recommend you find something to check each gap as doing it by eye is not as easy as you think. I also needed to get from the top to the bottom of the wall starting and finishing with a whole brick and the bricks need to be on a line with the bottom and top of the window opening. As you can see from the photograph I tried measuring and ruling lines for each brick but, for some reason, that didn't work; they were never on the marks.
I pretty soon realised I didn't like the brightness of the grout colour I had chosen. I had spent ages comparing paint charts to the grout in our house walls and ended up spending four pounds for a sample pot of Farrow and Ball paint as it was the only make I could find with exactly the right colour.
Probably the problem is that our house is only about five years old and what looks right on a house now doesn't look right for the brickwork on a Victorian Shop .
Here are the before and after fronts of the shop. One is in the nice clean cream mortar colour and the other looks pretty dirty. I made up a grey/green wash and almost dry brushed it onto the creamy paint. That was OK but then having to fill in the 1 mm gaps between the bricks which were already in place was not so much fun.
Something like 150 bricks later and this was the end result. I am hoping that I was just too close up and personal and that it will look fine when it is in place on the building. We'll see.
It seems virtually impossible but this actually took the best part of a day! I started around 11 am and finished around 6.30 pm. It didn't have all my attention as laundry and cooking and eating lunch and other minor chores had to be done too, but it certainly took all my free time today. Only about 1,300 more to do and then..... the roof slates!
I've done an assortment of bits and bobs the last couple of days some of which is lovely, some OK and some I'd rather hide.
Firstly - the lights. Other than Ray Storey's wonderful lights which sadly I can't afford, I haven't been able to find any (or not many) which look like gas lights. I ended up buying various chandeliers (with some sort of a stem) hanging on chain links which really wouldn't be much use in terms of gas lights. Gas doesn't tend to flow through chains! I am surprised as to how many of them are described as gas lights when clearly they could only be oil lamps or (retro style) electric. A bit of adaptation was needed and planned.
The two main lights (for the shop and salon) were duly dismantled. I was then left with an odd construction on the top of the stem which didn't lend itself to sticking it on to the ceiling. I had read that some plaster roses were still being used in this period to hide the gas connections in the ceiling so that seemed a legitimate idea to hide mine. The roses are plaster and stuck up with wood glue and the lights themselves are super-glued in place.
I found a couple of references in dolls house chatter about not using any glue with lights other than the foam tabs they come with, but no explanation as to why. I can see that some glues won't be happy with the heat when the lights are on but, hopefully, super-glue isn't one of them (????). Actually my lights in the Wentworth which were all attached with their little white pads are endlessly falling off the ceilings. I have been thinking about re-doing those practically from day one. Anyone have any comments/ideas?
So here is the salon light in place.....
and here's the one in the shop.
They both look a bit wonky here but, honestly, they aren't.
The other advantage to removing the chain is that they are also a better height above the floor. All my lights have a six foot (six inch) space beneath them so my little people can actually walk under them.
The sitting room light was cobbled together in the same way. The piece attached to the ceiling was separate from the stem and just linked with a chain. I snipped out the chain and shoved the two pieces together and glued it to the ceiling - now it looks like a gas light.
The kitchen light came like this, other than the foam sticky thing which, by now, I decided could just go. I don't like the looks of them, even when they are working part-time.
I am still waiting for the delivery of one of my upstairs lights and I also have to cut a channel in the roof to take the wiring so they are a long way off being installed.
I guess the lighting makes it to the good category.
The floors are pretty good too.
Handy tip - if you know at the beginning, before the build, that you will be laying some flooring on any awkward bits - do it then or, at least, make templates for later. Not being a contortionist, I found it a bit of a challenge wiggling about at the back of the house, between floors trying to cover the landings with paper and drawing round the shapes and then sticking the wood down accurately. Double-sided carpet tape is very unforgiving if you get it wrong. This photo is at the template stage.
Spot the before and after. One coat of satin varnish brings out the walnut beautifully. DO
rub down gently before varnishing and, if you are going for two coats (I did) do the same again between coats. In fact, I even lightly sanded after the final coat. It is a lovely silky finish and not super shiny (like in this picture).
I weight down all the flooring for a day after I have put it in just to be sure it lies flat. As you can see a bit of heavy reading is never wasted. In fact Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is backed up behind with (appropriately) The Victorians by A. N. Wilson.
This is the completely nutty item in the 'good' category . I drilled/filed out the overflow so it was more realistic. Yes, I know, totally crackpot as no-one can see it or care, but I like it better.
It also gave me a chance to play with my new little rotary gizmo - such fun.
Now for the bad - the evil shanks on the door knobs were slightly too long. If you tried to stick them into the door on each side they met in the middle and stuck out. You might just be able to see that I had to nip a bit off one of each pair (the one on the right) with some pliers. It was such a teeny bit to demand such an effort. Big jobs always seem worth doing, but spending time snipping bits off door knobs don't.
It is also pretty bad when you drill two holes in a door! Hole number one was on the wrong side! Door knobs generally go on the side of the door which opens, rather than on the hinged side, methinks. Pretty fundamental error.
I've actually managed to fill the bad hole with a couple of minute blobs of paint as the prospect of using wood filler in such a teeny hole on an already painted door filled me with terror.
This leads me to the 'bordering on ugly'.
If you look at the paintwork on the door you can see that I have had a rotten time with the silk emulsion. It is gloopy and refuses to be pushed around easily. I finally realised that it is non-drip. I didn't choose it for that property (and, indeed, hadn't even noticed that's what it says on the tin!) I chose it because it was slightly cream rather than a bright white, silk finish and the cheapest.
Because I was getting such a poor finish I rubbed it down viciously between coats with wire wool. Every coat I put on went on grey and streaky. Eventually the penny dropped - it was the wire wool!! It leaves a sort of metallic smudge behind - like faint rubbed in pencil marks that kept leaching through the paint which led to more rubbing down and applying more paint. You will gather I'm not thrilled with the doors.
The other issue with them is they are too small all round for the holes which were precut in the Lyddinton but no doors supplied! A careful person would work out how she could fill those gaps successfully. Me, I just partially plugged one side of the door jamb with some off cuts of wood I had and glued them in. This resulted in a load of gaps. Even the gaps would have been improved by remembering to paint inside the cut-out door spaces. Not my best days work. Admittedly this photo is before the trims are put on, they don't look as bad as this.
[Today, when painting the trims, I have discovered the answer to the gloopy paint and I could kick myself. All I had to do was let it down a little with some water. So simple]
Fitting the floors isn't as easy as it promises either. The gaps in front of the doors (on one side only) need to be addressed. Basically it means cutting teeny strips of flooring to shove into a very small gap. A most annoying job as they are fiddly to cut and even more difficult to get the exact shape needed. I did OK with it though in the end so maybe they can leave the ugly section?
I did a poor job laying the lino though. I was so focussed on getting it lined up at the back of the room (Why???) that when it got to the front it was skewed and left a small gap. It isn't possible to lift it and refit as it would just tear it to bits if I tried.
Overall though, the end result was OK and I am fairly happy with it all, so far.
I think the stair landings, floors and walls look good.
Please ignore the flooring in the attic in this photo. It is just loose laid and needs painting before it goes in.
It was commonplace to have very nice narrow walnut or oak floorboards through the good part of a house or shop, which I've done; but the attic room would have just had simple, wide, cheap pine floorboards that would have been painted or stained.
White painted floorboards in bedrooms were very fashionable at this time and Ellen will have those.
The kitchen came in for a bit of a tweak. All along I had planned on the sink unit going into the left hand corner, facing forward and I tiled the space accordingly. I then realised that the skirting board was going to look a bit odd running up to it and why would the back edge of the draining board be going against an un-tiled wall. I nudged it over a foot (an inch). There is still enough room for the cooker and I can shove a dustpan , brush and broom into the gap if I can find good ones (!). This meant I had to do a bit of re-tiling without any tiles, so I pulled some off from an area which wouldn't now be seen and moved them to the newly visible strip of wall. Here's hoping I don't change my mind again.
I do remember sinks and cooker always being near each other - maybe because of boiling a kettle for the washing up (?). A cooker near the back door wasn't unusual either even though it meant that if the gas was tuned down low it sometimes got blown out by the ensuing draft from the opening or closing of the back door.
I have just done a load of boring painting of trims today. That isn't worth recording either visually or in writing. I'll get back to you when most of them are in place.
