Happy VD!

                     HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY !!!

                   From your friends at Merriman Park!

13 February Update

 Like my new, updated banner photo? 

Really got a lot done this weekend.  I finished bricking the front of the house, and three of the chimneys.  Actually, I did paint and etch all four chimneys, but the first one turned out ghetto so I'm re-doing it!  Seriously, I don't know what happened to it but compared to the others, it looks like an ape painted it!  A drunk ape.  On acid.  Oh well --practice makes perfect, right?

            Is it just me, or is there a ghostly specter hovering in the drawing room window?

Here also is the new olive-green door.  Still going back and forth about the knobs.  I just found out the new carriage lamps are on back-order --grrrrrr!  Hate when that happens.

Believe it or not, I got the two end walls both gessoed and base-coated.  I know!  things are moving along...

            Miniaturist diva Karin Corbin says I have to flash the chimneys!

Not sure if I'll be posting any photos of Merriman Park for a while.  I'm going to have to take most of it apart so I can turn it on end to brick the two end walls.  Wish me luck!

Tutorial: How to Etch Bricks

Though there are many ways to simulate brick on a dollhouse --beautifully printed papers, embossed wood or latex veneers, intricate stencils, and many other methods-- perhaps the most realistic way is by etching individual scale bricks into paint.  Nothing can quite compare to a "brick" surface finished in this manner.  It is a cost-effective, but highly time-consuming, labor-intensive process. It is the method favored by the dollhouse deities, Mulvany and Rogers.  And if it's good enough for them, well then certainly it's good enough for Merriman Park!   

                                 (The dollhouse Holy Bible)!


 Deborah Knight of my dollhouse miniatures chat group asked how I do it and I thought, "How funny, didn't I already explain the process in my blog?"   Guess I'm spending too much time blabbing on and on about Dark Shadows, and not enough about the nuts and bolts about Merriman Park.               

How to Do It:

Step One:  With any project, surface preparation is key.  Seal your surface with a quality primer.  I used to be on the enamel-primer-only team, but recent improvements to latex primers have brought me around.  (Cleaning up with soap and water, as opposed to chemical solvents was a big factor in my change of heart). 

Step Two:  Two coats of gesso make up your mortar base.  Be sure to tint your gesso with acrylic paints --the au natural gesso is a bit too bright for most projects.  I used a drop or two of burnt sienna for Merriman Park.

Step Three:  On top of the gesso, apply two coats of your brick base color.  Bricks come in many colors and I mixed mine from artist's acrylic paints, but any latex paint will do.  Keep in mind that your finished bricks will look considerably lighter once the bricks are etched into your base coat.  Let base coat dry for at least twenty-four hours.

Step Four:  With a ruler, mark the horizontal mortar joints.  I used 3/16th" for Merriman Park.

Step Five:  Using a small woodworker's gouge, etch the horizontal mortar lines.  I found it helpful to go up two or three inches at a time.  That is, mark your lines for two or three inches and then go ahead and etch them in.  Continue marking and etching.  If your lines are off by even a little, it will show.  You can always paint out any mistakes and do over, but that is such a drag!  The gouge will leave miniature curlicues of acrylic paint all over the place, so be warned!  Use a small, stiff paintbrush to keep them at bay.

       (One of the first brick mock-ups for Merriman Park.  Always     experiment on a piece of scrap before tackling your project)!


Step Six:  Mark your vertical lines.  This creates the "individual bricks" so take your time and be accurate.  Merriman Park is an eighteenth-century house so they would have used the flemish bond, which is what I reproduced.

              (Photographs do not show the detailed, 3-D effect that etched grout lines produce).

Step Seven:  Have a cocktail, rest your eyes and appreciate your work! (Most important step).

I haven't done Step Eight, yet, which is to go back and highlight individual bricks in a random pattern. I'm working on bricking the chimneys right now.  (Chimneys with pots, I might add, thanks to Karin Corbin!

English Style vs American

The American dollhouse is typically two-sided:  there is the outside "front" elevation and the interior of the house is viewed through the open "back."  I designed Merriman Park in the English dollhouse tradition in that the house only has one side.  The back of the house is unfinished and is meant to sit against a wall. The front facade opens up like a cabinet to reveal the finished interior.

I believe the English have it all over us Yanks when it comes to dollhouses.  For one thing, you don't have to turn an English-style dollhouse around to view the interior.  I can't even imagine having to flip Merriman Park around every time I wanted to see the inside --it weighs a ton!  Even on a turntable it would be cumbersome. (You would still have to pull the house away from the wall to make the clearance).  And then there is the dust factor.  An American dollhouse interior, being open and exposed to the elements, would collect a lot of dust in contrast to the English dollhouse, which is closed off when not on display.

When it comes to space-saving measures, the English dollhouse style again reigns supreme.  Designed to sit --or even hang-- flat against a wall, the slim and trim English dollhouse leaves the bulky, American style wanting.

I am planning on setting Merriman Park on a future cabinet of shelves in my dining room.  The shelves will house my ever-expanding  library of books as well as my aforementioned rapidly-turning-obsolete stereo equipment. (Should have just stuck with the Victrola).  LOL!

More Changes Afoot...

Merriman Park has undergone a lot of changes since I first conceived it in its first, crude sketches as a Palladian mansion inspired by the architecture of Thomas Jefferson.  But that's OK.  After all --it's my house!  I can't imagine if it were a commissioned piece for some client and I wasn't free to make any last-minute alterations to the plan as I worked along.  I have decided to implement yet another change: this time to the Entrance Hall, which is the first room inside the house that I plan to decorate.

              Rough sketch for Merriman Park drawn on a napkin.


Thomas Jefferson was not fond of staircases.  He felt they were a waste of space.  When he traveled to France, classical, one-story houses were de rigueur at the time in Paris and staircases were tucked discreetly in out-of-the-way spaces.  Jefferson brought this idea back home with him when he designed Monticello and many of his other American works also feature a "suppressed" stair.  My Jefferson-designed, inspiration house also lacks a grand stair, and so I opted to leave a staircase out of Merriman Park.

But I want a stair!

I mean, do I really want to explain the the whole story above every single time someone sees the finished Merriman Park and inevitably asks, "Where's the staircase?"

So I am going to put a stair where a staircase ought to go in my Entrance Hall.  Jefferson may not approve, but again --it's my house.

So there!
                               
 Joan Crawford (Faye Dunway) on a "Hollywood Regency" staircase, showing how classical design is adapted to contemporary styles --in this case, the Art Deco.   

 

Bricks, Bricks, Bricks!

I just finished two coats of gesso and one coat of "brick base" on the right side of Merriman Park.  (Or maybe instead of saying left-side/right-side I should start referring to it as the West Wing/East Wing)? 

It's cool how the brick color lightens when you etch in the mortar lines.  Reminds me of my former costuming days when a red dress with white polka dots could read as a pink dress on-stage, if the dots weren't large enough.

I'm thinking olive green for the front doors.  As far as hardware goes I'm going back and forth between either brass handles or round knobs centered on each door (which is very Regency). I've got a brass kick plate for the bottom of the doors, but they need to be cut to size and frankly, I'm a little scared to do the deed, lest I bend or scratch the little things.

All in all, I'm very happy with the results so far on my very first dollhouse! (Unless you count the ones I made as a kid for my sisters.  My brother Greg: [spoken with utter contempt] "Yeah, right.  It's for the girls."

Barnabus Doll in Dollhouse!!!

OMG! I want a Barnabus Collins doll/Action Figure!  Did you catch he even has the silver-handled walking-stick and the black, onyx ring?!  Only, I want my Barnabus in 1/12th scale so he can live in Merriman Park.  There IS a small cellar space under my house, but is it big enough to keep Barnabus' coffin?  I LOVE this guys ham-handed version of Josette's Theme played on the piano (at 1:30). His arrangement is much more complicated than mine --though I was only ten or eleven when I made mine up. (No future Mozart here).  I was rather disappointed in the Josette doll --her dress was a little bit Kountry Kitchen, when Josette's trousseau was supposed to have come from Paris, France and NOT from Walnut Grove, Minnesota.  Seriously, she looked more like Ma Ingals than Josette duPres.  I think with all the clothes available in Barbie's closet, we could have done much better than this ensemble,  um-kay? and can we talk about her hair for a moment?  Two words: UP DO!  But I'm pretty sure that some of these dolls were actual Dark Shadows merchandise available in fine stores everywhere when the series aired back in the day, so you KNOW today they're worth a gazillion dollars.  Speaking of which, I so wanted this game but had to settle for a Ouiji Board, instead:

"Milton Bradley makes the best games in the world and the Barnabus Collins Game is the scariest! So get it!" LOL!