Quick visit

So much scurrying around there’s barely time for a cuppa.

Couldn’t get the outline of the Arts and Crafts style build I fancied doing to stay still in my head so went back to some of the info I’d found out and looked at the shapes of English builds of the period.  An interesting site with such a variety of shapes and sizes, from re-imagined traditional C16 – C18th shapes to very Edwardian builds plus one or two that have a little more fantasy added from the outset.  The Barn in Devon particularly caught my eye along with a somewhat alarming arial view of Red House in Bexley Heath *.

Another mad idea?

I was looking for a rough pattern to work from that appealed to me and found out that almost anything goes.  A decision needed making and the easiest thing to do I feel is to make a number of room boxes which can be housed separately, taking up less room but will somehow come together to make one single storey building.  What about the roof, you may well ask.  Dunno at the moment but will think about it if I get that far.  If it gets a roof it could be one piece removable or separate bits.

With that in mind I decided on the probable sizes of each area, drew them out and shuffled the cards until I got a rough idea of what might work.

First run at a layout

Wasn’t fond of the shadowing of the entrance in the above try and the sticking out room corners tempted me to round them off.  Didn’t fancy playing around with bow windows or similar so

Rotated the sitting room giving an offset to the front door area and leaving a nice triangular porch area

The ghastly mess of the marked-up version means a lot to me as it shows where solid walls will be, where removable sections will need to be when they are separate boxes etc along with possible windows and door openings and where they will need to overlap each other when the house boxes are laid/layed out as one.

The triangular porch will have a pillar at the point and access either side I think.  If there is going to be any roofing, that whole area is crying out for a bit of conical roof over the top, or at least a bendy one.

I don’t know if this whole idea is do-able but it’s got to be a great deal easier than building a whole 1:12 scale building.

I’ll start with the construction of the boxes and see how they look (and for which I think I’ve got most of the materials) and see how it goes from there.

It will certainly be less of a guilt-trip strain as it is built bit by bit, as and when the time is ripe and should definitely  keep me out of mischief over the winter.

Oh, yes.  Where’s that Deco shop layout?

I certainly got a mood on about that piece during Covid and the lockdowns and the enterprise and I (along with mini-ing generally) just fell out with each other in the end.

I did both side panels and had plans for the shop name board.
Stuck on the side panels, hated them and took them off and papered in brick, slotted in the top board that came with it and sent it to quarantine on top of a set of cubby holes in the workroom.
Looks quite pleasant up there and I can see some of the bits I like while I’m tidying and working.

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* If you zoom in on the Red House link to Google Maps, you can see that the quite orderly look of the layout conceals a number of enclosed lead valleys.  Glad I don’t have to see to those.

Working away

tidying up and making room for things I’m buying in as the hours of daylight shrink and time available gets squeezed thin.

Finishing off

One side all but done and waiting for it to dry.
The other side waiting ready in the wings for its bits of wood and trim.

Fixed the back wall lights which sagged once more. Broke the wire of the one on the left back and am totally ignoring them for the moment.  They’ll work or they won’t.

Next one up – the research

My plans for a late Victorian early Edwardian Arts and Crafts style of build has been eating up too much brain energy.  It’s gone through many thought phases and I think I’ve reached a working solution for my lack of space etc while still giving the number of spaces I’d like.  More of that when we get to it.

Been bobbing around our house looking at the second-hand furniture we have that may have the right style of drawer handle with a small enough pattern that might take a rubbing that can be used.  Unfortunately the handle pull or the eyelets for it seem to be in the way on most of them.

Sitting room fireplace – we live in a farm cottage and this particular room was, I believe the housing of an assistant teacher back in the late 1800s-early 1900s.  I have no idea when this inner fire surround (obviously a later insertion) was added.

PS:  Just taken the measurements of the sitting room fire outer mantle which is cast iron.  It strikes me as wide enough to have held a small cooking range, which was probably what was there at the end of the 1800s and the arty insert set in there later when the room was absorbed into the rest of the building.  Perhaps the teaching assistant lived here a little earlier than I thought(?)

The buying

Meanwhile I must admit that I’ve been buying in like mad; not something I usually do at this stage of a plan when there’s nowhere to for them to ‘live’, but I seem to have formed fairly fixed ideas of where each room of the build is going and what it should contain.  I am using as much of what is lying around in my mini stores but I’ve a shortage of strip wood, card etc and various bits that I’m not up to making, plus ornamentation.

Today has been a bit of a mixed day one way and another but lunchtime was brightened by the arrival of the post containing

this lovely tea/coffee set which I feel fits in nicely with the Arts and Crafts design for use idea. And it’s just so lovely to look at too.

 

 

Are we there yet?

At last the remaining garden guest has arrived and is in his position and the scene is set
for The Hare in the Garden

Puppy sleeps

Hare slides in

Creeps warily …

and relaxes in peace

The tale of the finishing

No space too small …that it can’t be filled up a little more.

A wander round the nooks, corners and edges

This is a hop, skip and jump journey finishing off and trimming up the outer ledges.  First of all I spent the best part of a week trying to get the backdrop A4 sheets sealed, carefully aligned and all the edges made level wherever possible.  It still ended up slightly ‘off’ the preferred alignment – hey ho.

Street scene in place

Some collage added

Extra filler for clouds

Big tree in the way

Moved too much?

Fluffy tree added

The rubberised horse hair tree in the alleyway was ‘planted’ as a linking step from the 2D of the artist’s fluffy tree images to the 3D scene.

and a stream has also been added in alleyway space

Then carefully covered every edge I could find

Wrapping it up like a Christmas box

The artist’s imagained village drops off at both left and right back edges of the backdrop so to help to bring some continuity there I printed out sections, from earlier photos, of the different sorts of stonework used on the walls of the cottage.

Prints of stonework used

Roses, ivy and bird

The hidden bird

Side view of wall

The roses used came as a kindly included freebie with an order and they’ve found a home extending the floral decoration on the end building at the left corner.  I’ve added a very short wall attached to the end of the cut off cottage and put the rough stonework paper on the wall behind the roses.  The side view of the wall shows the beginning of a Victorian style scrapbook look I’m giving to the back face of the wall of the box, using other offcuts of the bits of the background image that we can’t see – mostly foreground and stream.

While I was at work at this end of the box, I added smoke to the cottage chimney, sort of over-egged the plant making putting Auricula under the back window, and made a string snail.

Sheep wool curling upwards

Auricula kit

Auricula added

and a scrappy snail

The snail has since been tidied up a wee bit and looks fairly happy in its flower pot.

Then I continued with wrapping up the back and doing a Victorian scrapbook look with more bits lying around from previous attempts to print the main backdrop.

The back face

Used a smaller, mirrored version of the front picture and letting it overflow the stonework frame at the bottom with some added grass here and there, gives that back face a bit of character as though we’re viewing it while leaving.

Water flowing at every corner

Smaller mirrored version of main backdrop

Finally remembered to add the Hare and a friendly bird behind her on the ladder

On the long ignored right side wall and ledge

A big blank brick space

Ignored this for as long as possible because it was boring and narrow.
Added a brick buttress shape to break it up a little, shading all over the brickwork and then tried out one of these fabric leaf streamers that seem to be around in all scales – including full sized.
As part of the experiment I had been going to add some shading to the leaves but decided the shine on the fabric leaves gives hints of other colours by itself

Built up a papier maché low bank at ground level, sloping into the drainage stream behind that bit of walling on the right, plus rocks and some very mixed vegetation which spreads more or less subtly round to the front edge of the greenhouse and in various ledges higher up on the wall.

And then more birds arrived …

Blue bird clashing with its surroundings

Food for all

Awaiting his turn

Nestling in the tree, checking on scene below

Managed some sort of view up the village street

Looks like auditioning for
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

while you can quietly read a little something in the late summer evening – before the Hare arrives

And today the little dog … now I think we’re there.

 

 

 

Hi, still here …

Been busily working away on The Hare in the Garden piece and am still waiting on one last item in the post which may, or may not fit in nicely with the scene.

Meanwhile I’ve been looking into a further project and, as that is going to take up more work space there’s cleaning and sorting work to do.

(More regarding the imagined new project further down the page.)

In order to clear more elbow room I decided to face my bugbear and finish the Deco department store room box.  It still needs the externals dealing with; the left and right outer walls, any covering needed for the top surface and the store’s name signage.

The story so far – ie, my exuses for not finishing.

Lowness of spirits due to lock down saw off any energy for mini-ing, but the time has come …

But first of all the big clean up of the large mat
Not often one of my most favourite jobs, though today was fun

Here it is as it was left, peeping out from under its protective coverings

I had previously been having terrible bother trying to get the back left wall light to stay upright.  It kept falling forward, hanging of its wiring.

And now, all back wall lights are hanging off at interesting angles

I’ve not yet worked out how I’m going to get at them in order to provide a satisfactory result with the full depth of the box in the way and oh so many display areas ready to be knocked over by my elbows, but am thinking on it.  While doing the think, I’m starting on the missing outer wall covers and signage in the hope that a solution will present itself to this problem.

Meanwhile while that’s brewing away, allow me to share with you some of my airy plans for a further project.

What’s next?

I needed something to get me over the darkening autumn and winter months:  occupy idle hands and mind and all that sort of thing, and decided I owed myself a house shaped build.

Another attempt to use up more stocks lying around rather than buy in more.  Though I’ve already bought in items for this non-existent build, so I’m going to have to get something done with them at the very least.

I’ve nowhere to put it, should it ever get finished, but the prospect of stewing in the juices of my own mind for the next 4-5 months do not appeal, so house build it is.

• I do so like dollhouses that have large bay windows, large enough to have their own bit of floor with room enough there to house furniture. It’s a fixation; I’ve no other explanation of it.  In particular the ground floor frontage of C E Turnbull houses recall various houses seen in childhood.
• I’ve a fascination with old bungalows; both the original ones of the Raj and, much more available for me to see, the ones built at the end of the C19 and the very early years of the C20 centuries in the UK.
  • Many of them have a small dormer or two designed in from the beginning but I’d like to stay away from staircases if I can.
• With a particular style of bungalow in mind, I want to add a pinch of Arts and Crafts – a little Red House interior styling,  etc – and so I set about doing basic research.  Online also throws up the lovely Craftsman built American houses, many of which are bungalows, but I shall try to ignore those, I think.  Also I plan to stay away from Frank Lloyd Wright, except where he overlaps with Arts and Crafts.
• Being practical about this enterprise, the general pile on pile of the Victoriana feel may creep in as it will be cheaper and easier to do than try to make or buy in lots of A and C or Art Nouveau items. I shall try not to get too sucked in by the fringes, tassels, objet d’art and aspidistras and keep my eye on ‘useful’ and beautiful wherever I can.
• Oh, and then there’s the Medieval ‘thing’ that many of the Arts and Crafts movement had going on and the possibilities of an addition of a little stained glass, leaded windows, ironmongery and large hinges, tapestry and other hangings and general Romantic Revival  — plus a possible nod to the Pre Raphaelites

Having rambled on about this ‘great’ plan, it will be what it decides to be once I get it started, all being well.  Haven’t even worked out fully the floor plan nor if it may have a small gabled dormer over the front door; all still a bit wooly.

I suspect the inhabitant of this imaginary build might be a bit of an aesthete, not in too good health and given to poetry, but we’ll see.  William Morris and friends in a bungalow, here we come … well, possibly.

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Some further blather you might find interesting.  I came across this site which draws together some of the relationships, in particular William Morris household and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Speaking of whom and a history of bungalows in the United Kingdom …

I came across Heritage Calling which has a lovely quote from a Professor Erasmus Wilson, “one of the most eminent physicians of the day” giving the early UK bungalows his approval.  I think it had more to do with new housing that had all the plumbing for hygiene.

More startlingly was a photo of The Rossetti Bungalow!  The whole idea of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, he of the obsessive personality, living, towards the end of his life in what seems to be a mostly prefab structure.  Great as prefabs are in many, many ways,, they don’t come easily to mind as having any connection with Mr Rossetti.

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Apologies for there bieng not many photos here, which will be heavily made up for when the last parcel arrives – soon.