Furniture Kits - Dining Table and chairs

I am in two minds (or more!) as to the location of the fireplaces and the depth of chimney breast.  Traditionally one side of the house in a terrace would have the chimney breast in their rooms and the other side of the house would have flat walls (useful in the smaller rooms of my house) because the chimney went into their neighbours house.  Though this isn't a hard and fast rule.  Indeed Georgian chimney stacks were often in a void between the houses with a slight projection in each house - so they are generally very shallow chimney breasts.

With all that kerfuffle in my brain, I am taking a bit of a break from the build and turning my attention to making up some furniture to use in these rooms to see if they have a knock on effect on fixing other things like chimneys and cupboards in place.

So, starting with the dining table.....

Great table (even in real life) It can be a small square (seat 4), add a leaf and it becomes a small rectangle (seat 6).  You can then add in the two separate half moon ends and make it a big table (seat 8).  The half moons can be used against walls when not needed or put together as a round table.  Very versatile.  Would love one.

Originally I made it up according to the instructions and then discovered it swamped my room.  I had a mad moment where I converted the music room to the dining room just to get this in comfortably but, fortunately, realised that it was crack-pot to let a table determine the house layout;  so I sawed it up and pulled it apart where I could and re-jigged it into this size.

now the 'old' chairs swamp it!

finished table - have added another layer of stain and it looks better than this.

On to the historically correct chairs to go with it.  I have six of these but decided to just make four.  So glad I did!

Caveat:  If I ever scream and shout about not ever doing something ever again please don't let it stop you.  We all have different talents and yours might be chair-making....  mine is not.

These look nice

these do not!

I had a pig of a time and ended up with sows' ears rather than silk purses.  There are so many angles between all the pieces it is really hard to get things set just right.  then there is the issue of whether to glue first or stain first.  If you stain first and the glue won't take as well, if at all!  If you glue first and the stain won't take over any bits of glued that squeeze out of the joins.  As I am very careful when gluing I opted for gluing first.  I have umpteen patches where I must have got glue on the surface (no idea how) and the stain now won't soak in.  Then - the injustice of it - even with gluing before staining, they aren't well-bonded and I can knock legs off and backs out willy-nilly.

Even if I finished them off with their padded seats it won't improve them much and I hate to throw nice silk at them.  They have been consigned to the charity box in case someone can make something of them.

Good idea from another blog

I don't know the etiquette for passing on other people's blog links but on the basis they are in the public domain I assume I won't have overstepped the mark by directing you to a good idea.

I keep meaning to make a photo book for each of my finished projects; you know those things that Snapfish, Vistaprint, Asda, Boots do for you.  I haven't gone into it very much but they don't seem to offer an option to add a load of text (????)  Needless to say the months go by and I am still meaning to do it.  Meanwhile someone has done it using a purchased piece of software.  It is a lovely end product. 

Take a look at this

Small Packages


Caveat for out of the States readers:   I suspect that postage of the finished product from the States to the rest of the world might be off-putting.  They won't even mail a disc to the UK, so they may not even mail here.  You'd need to check these things before committing to buying and downloading the software.  However the idea is great and I will be on a search for a UK software supplier.  Watch this space.

Sorting Rooms

The rooms are - starting top floor and left - the student apartment sitting room, the apartment kitchen, the apartment bedroom
Down a floor - the large room is the music room and small room on the right is the library
Ground floor level - left is the dining room, centre is the vestibule, right is the sitting room
Basement level - the left is the children's Rec room, centre is the mud room and right is my old Hive (workroom)

If you read this blog online (not just in your email) you will see tabs at the top of the blog (under the title); one of which is 'Rooms', you can click on that if you want to know about all the rooms in the house.

Sometimes it is impossible to deal with the 'structures' in a room without knowing what furniture will arrive in the future and how it demands to be set out.  It might want a chimney breast on the side wall or on the back wall, a light might need centering over a table but where is the table going and how big will it be? etc., etc., etc.

Having reached the point where I can now start work on the ground floor rooms these were some of the issues concerning me.  I took a deep breath and decided to go through my stash and see what I had for various rooms.

This led me on to two different tacks......  firstly I realised I needed to make up some furniture kits so that I could set stuff out in the Dining Room to see what spaces the fireplace, dining table and chairs soaked up.  I made up the dining table and found some stand in chairs.

I think I want the fireplace in the dining room on the back wall with two shallow cupboards flanking the chimney breast to display glass and silver.  This idea has chopped and changed umpteen times and I still don't have a decision.  Whether this happens or not I did have to re-jig the table by removing an extension leaf; sadly, it was far too big for the space.

The sitting room is a real mystery as I have no seating for this room at all - I simply can't find anything I like at the right price - kit or ready made!  I have just shoved all thinking about that room to one side.

So, pretty much already defeated by the two rooms I need to make a start on I decided to take a break from the deliberations and make up some furniture kits and add 'dressing' details in the basement area where most of the furniture has been decided on.

For newbies - when putting small stuff in place it is best to add some 'tack' to keep them where you want them.  Remove the table, cupboard, whatever and add a tiny bit of tacky wax (museum wax) to the bottom of the object you are going to add to it and press it gently in place where you want it to stay.  This wax holds it in place any time you want to move the piece of furniture - or accidentally knock it over! - but it will allow you to move the object if you want to and it will clean off fairly easily if you need to.

there are a few different makes

I make a teeny roll and just nip a bit off the end for each object

As I said the generic term is tacky wax - there is  a product actually called that which gives it the name (like we say hoovering for vacuuming).  It is also known as museum wax.  Basically it is the consistency of warm wax and is very malleable.

Shopping at shows

If you want to see how I go about shopping at shows here's a post I just did: 

Dollshouse Trips and Shows

Finishing the trims in the hall

Note the doors are now in place ready to finish the trims.

Here is another little trick to avoid having to measure accurately with a ruler.  

Dado rails are 2' 6" to 3' above the floor.  The lower measurement is the more usual Georgian one.  They were very decidedly functional rather than decorative and so needed to be the height of most tables (2' 6") as their purpose was to stop chair backs and table edges marking the wall.  Paint and paper were expensive items and needed as much protection as possible, hence skirting boards and dado rails.  Modern houses tend to have a three foot rail as it is better proportioned on the wall.  Mine are three feet (three inches high).

Rather than fiddle around measuring and marking up the wall for the rail to go in, I cut a piece of stiff card (old folder in this case) into a three inch wide strip.  Place this snugly against the wall with its feet on the floor - it is just leaning at a jaunty angle doing nothing here.  Draw a light pencil line across the top.  Go right round the room.

Cut dado rails (like you did for the coving) and use the guide lines to stick them accurately in place.  Cut and stick on the skirting boards.

Here we have one hall - just a light fitting away from finished.  I am holding off on that until I have been to the NEC and bought a simple Adamesque ceiling rose.  (Typing this in March a week away from the show).

Tiles for hall floor

I bought my tiles for the hall a long time ago from another favourite vendor.  He sells lovely materials at a great price and is super-helpful - Dolls House Tiles (just click on the name).

They are a very thin accurately cut laminate which give a great marble finish.  You decide on the pattern you want.  I do that by playing around with ideas on some on graph paper.  I have a very small hall so it demanded utmost simplicity, but the tiling world is your oyster if you so wish.  What you need is easy to calculate and the vendor will help if you are struggling with something - he also is happy to do bespoke.

It is then as simple as sticking them down with PVA.

I left a hefty book on mine overnight (on non stick paper) to make sure they were as flat as a pancake.

So easy and a great result.

Door knobs and plates

This is a nice little door knob and door plate set - pretty easily available, these came from Dolls House Emporium.  I always like door knobs with a screw thread fastening one to the other.  The usual kind with a short stem on the knobs often need a bit nipped off their stems because when you shove the two of them into the drilled hole they prove too long for the thickness of the door and won't lie flush.

Fitting them - decide where the knob should go - check the ones in your house as a guide and/or research where they went at different times in history and on different style doors.  I am nothing if not pernickity about these things.  Mark the position with a pencil and hold the plate in place, keeping the hole for the knob over the pencil mark. 

 You can now make marks through the screw holes in the plate and a larger mark through the keyhole.  Take the plate away and colour round these marks.  I colour the screw holes with gold felt tip and the keyhole with black permanent marker.  They are done over-sized to be sure no white wood shows round the edges of the holes when the plate goes on.

top and bottom marks for screw holes

Put tiny bits of superglue on the door between the marked areas.  Thread the plate on the rod which has been screwed into one of the knobs and set it all in place.  Keep everything spot-on vertical.  Finish off with the addition of the plate and knob on the other side.  I do believe you can get screws small enough for these holes if you want to seek them out but the gold finish underneath does a good enough job at a distance.