The Entrance Hall, Photographed

The facade of Merriman Park

The other rooms look so bare!

What a fuss I made about lighting!

"And where have you been all evening, little mister?" Check out the new floor medallion, and note conspicuous absence of center table.  Most of the furnishings in this room are from New England Miniatures (hi, Grazhina)! and our local dollhouse shop, Little Enchantments (hi, Karen)!

I swear I did not kill any of the animals hanging on the wall! (They all committed suicide just so they could become gorgeous accessories in this glamorous room.  The cameo was in a box of trinkets my friend Carolyn gave me ages ago.

I made faux marble plinths with seed-pearl feet for the pair of gilded sphinx on the demi-lune tables.

That's my 'real life' kitty, Whiskers, photo-shopped  into the room.  I adore trick photography!

I should have had my friend take my Halloween photo!

Never did get around to building a new cabinet for Merriman Park to sit on...it sure needs one!

And that, dear Reader, concludes our little tour through one of the Stately Homes of America!  Special thanks to BFF Eric Lindahl for the awesome pics!

Additional thanks to: Giac, Simon, Irene, WB Design, Andy, Fiona, Pedrete & Madelva, Karin Corbin, Anneke, Jeffry, Josje, Iris, Cassandra, Barb in MN, Kate Merchant, my partner, Glen (who puts up with this madness) and so many others!  Without your advice, support, enthusiasm (and sometimes hand-holding) Merriman Park would have no doubt been cast off to the basement, gathering cobwebs. 

Curvy Molding

I came up with this one on my own!  The Problem:  How to fabricate matching trim to go around the arched tops of my niches?  (Especially without a workshop full of fancy gadgets),  The Answer:  Make a mold of the straight, wooden molding and cast it in leftover DAS clay and then bend the pliable, cast molding to fit the curve!

 I know it looks a little rough, but I'll work out the kinks.  BTW, the second attempt with the DAS and wine bottle went a lot better, with a little vegetable oil spray to loosen things up a bit.  Guess I'll chalk the first attempt as a 'practice piece.'

Happy Halloween!

From the boys of Merriman Park!  There will be lots of Tricks & Treats, bobbing for apples, and maybe even ghost stories in front of the fire.

I'm living vicariously through my dollhouse for Halloween, since it falls on a Monday this year.  There was of course the usual shenanigans planned for last night at all the bars, but yours truly could not decide on a costume for the evening.  And last year was such a dreadful bore!  Everyone was dressed the same:  either you were a sexy pirate, a sexy cowboy, or a sexy policeman.  Blah, blah, blah!

So I stayed home and worked on my niches.  Anneke was kind enough to pass on the information about DAS.  It is an air-drying, modeling clay that doesn't shrink.  I have to say, it was the perfect solution!  Thanks, Anneke!

This was my first attempt.  I left the clay on the wine bottle overnight and it stuck to the bottle as I tried to remove it.  But the clay that was pressed against the glass was still fairly soft, so I was able to repair the minor damage.  Maybe I should grease the bottle a little next time?

This photo shows you how large the niche is.  They will support two 'life-size' statues, hopefully of Roman gods or goddesses.  That is, if I can find some!

I also received my photographs of the Entrance Hall!  They are burned to a CD so as soon as Glen gets up this morning (usually at the crack of noon, on a Sunday) I will post them later today!

I think I solved my niche dilemma!  Whilst pouring the evening cocktails I just happened to glance at the vodka bottle and then it hit me:  The vodka bottle is the same shape as my niches!  So I placed my handy niche template over the bottle and guess what?  The vodka bottle was too big.  Rats! But you can't  foil the likes of me that easily, I'm here to tell you...  

A dash to the recycling bin produced two new contenders: wine bottle versus super-sized, cheap-o wine bottle.   And the winner is: super-sized, cheap-o wine bottle!

Now that we have the mold, what to use to fabricate the actual niches?  We've already poo-pooed  papier-mache as being too difficult to obtain a smooth finish.  I want my niches smooth as a baby's bottom!  Laugh not, gentle Reader, but I have just recently stumbled across a blog posting extolling the virtues of using laundry dryer-lint as a papier-mache substitute!  As unlikely (not to mention unsavory) a prospect this may seem, your intrepid amateur miniaturist has taken a solemn vow to leave no stone unturned in his never-ending Quest for Fabulosity!

But seriously: what am I going to use?  Fimo?  Plaster of Paris?  I've heard that Fimo shrinks when you bake it which might be problematic.  I remember as a boy in art class mixing saw-dust with glue and making a paste that you could model and I assume, sand smooth.  Decisions, decisions! 

Opinions?

Anyway, enough about my tiresome niches...I grow WEARY of them!  In honor of Halloween which is, after all, right around the corner, and since this is a dollhouse blog, (right)? I bring you this macabre little gem.  (Warning, Fiona!  This might give you the hebe-jeebies)!  Happy Halloween, everyone!

Drawing Room ReDux

Hope I'm not mixing too many Orders!

Still working on refining the plans for the Drawing Room.  I found a similar cornice that Thomas Jefferson used in his own house, Monticello, and I think it is appropriate here in Merriman Park.  It features a favorite motif of Jefferson's: the ox skull(!) interchanged with a rosette medallion.  I think the ox skulls are just  too butch for words.

I'm also still stewing on how to fabricate the niches on the back wall.  They are quite a bit larger than what I can find commercially available and I have resolved to attempt to create more of my own components in the other rooms.  I suppose that I could break down and buy the smaller-sized niches.  Problem solved, right?  But I really like the larger scale of the ones in my sketches! 

(I have a fab surround from Sue Cook for the door).

 I figure, if I fail at the niches, I can always just fill the arches with mirrors!  That might be pretty awesome!  I am for sure going to put a mirror over the fireplace mantle.  Oh, I just noticed I forgot to pencil in the sconces on the pilasters.  Ooops!

This room is starting to remind me of one of the 'period rooms' at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.  That room , I recall was a Music Room from a grand house in Paris.  The walls were painted cream and all the moldings were gilded.  And it really has arched mirrors in all the corners, too!  Spooky!

Definitely going to put another corridor beyond the door opening!

 I'm not yet sure what colors I will end up using in this space, but there is plenty of time before I have to worry about that.  What do you think?   I know that a parquet wood floor would look stunning in a room like this, don't you agree? 

Anyway, back to the niches...Mirrors would be lovely, but right now I have my heart set on niches with statuary!  We're talking Roman gods & goddesses!  Thanks to everyone for your great suggestions on how to pull off the curved and rounded tops of the recesses.  Andy mentioned papier-mache and that is something I have worked with in the past.  I've never been very good at getting a smooth finish with papier-mache.  Here's a puppet head I made a few years ago out of the stuff:

Mr. Punch!

See how the surface is rippled from the layers of paper?  I just don't like that!  (Guess that's why I abandoned this project!

I made the head by sculpting it with clay and then papering it over the clay and then slicing the papier-mache, removed the clay and re-joined the halves.

Probably should have made a cast of the clay head and papier-machied the inside of the cast.  Anyway, if I attempt this technique on the niches, that's how I'll do it.

Guess I can always go back to the mirrors if the niches don't turn out!

Funny thing is that Thomas Jefferson has two similar niches in his Drawing Room at Monticello.  But while he was stationed in Paris as the new American Ambassador, he purchased two matching pier mirrors and sent them (along with a whole warehouse full of French furniture) and where do you think he hung his brand-new Paris mirrors?

That's right --he hung them over the niches and covered them up completely!

Isn't that rather ironic?

Addendum:  OK, after I posted this, there was something nagging me and I think it's that the cornice and the pillar capitals don't really go together.  I don't want the neighbors of Merriman Park to titter behind their fans that I mixed Doric and Corinthian Orders in my principal room!  So I am going to use the Thomas Jefferson cornice in the Library and chose a more apropos cornice for the Drawing Room, which, by the way, seems to be morphing into the Music Room.  Opinions?

Confidential to Karin Corbin:  W.W.K.C.D?

The Drawing Room--Preliminary Plans

I finished the Entrance Hall!  My very first room!  I feel just like a parent must feel when their child graduates from high school.  I have a photographer friend coming over in a few minutes to snap a few decent photographs.  Its 'unveiling' I fear is going to be somewhat of an anti-climax, as you've seen most of it.  All rather like that old Peggy Lee song, Is That All There Is?  Let's have a listen, shall we?

Is that all there is to the Entrance Hall?  Is that all there is? lol!  I LOVE that song.  Bette Midler does a nice version, too.

So, on to the next!  The Drawing Room!

The Drawing Room is located immediately above the Hall.  I chose to do this room next so that when the center component is open, it will look like the house is finished.  Funny that I chose to start with the two most difficult rooms in the house!  Maybe I should have practiced on a bedroom or something?  Oh well, too late for that now... I have been busy drawing up some rough sketches of the new Drawing Room...here is a sneak peek:

That's my Sue Cook door surround in the center which will be flanked by two Corinthian pilasters. I don't think the pilasters are as wide as I drew them --(the catalog describes them as being 2" wide at their widest point so I was guessing at the width of the column part).  Moving outward, two arch-topped niches will fit into the back corners of the room at angles.  I'm not sure yet if there will be fabulous statuary in the niches or shelves for more gorgeous little things.  I'd like to do curved niches with a scallop shell in the arch, but I haven't quite figured out how to make that idea work in reality! 

That's about it for now...I'll post photos of the completed Entrance Hall in a day or so.

Have a great week, everyone!