However, at one and the same time my dolly house is coming along very nicely, and I have gone a bit eBay-tastic in the process.
There are more characters. We now have a nursemaid to help with the baby, and a new cook, who is an older neatly capped and aproned lady who looks more far capable than the original slightly fey kitchen doll, so the latter (directly below) has been demoted to general maid, to her slight chagrin. Lastly we have a visiting playmate for the older child. These new dollies are tucked away safely in their boxes until we have done more doing-up of the rooms.
I have also acquired far more furniture, a lot more lights, which The Husband has assiduously fitted as they arrive in the post, and the beginnings of the wallpapering and decorating supplies are arriving with every post.
The Kitchen floor will be quarry tiled after a large fireplace has been built
around the range. Most of the kitchen equipment is still in boxes.
around the range. Most of the kitchen equipment is still in boxes.
There are now chairs in the Drawing Room, so grandma has a seat.
They also enjoy the light of a large chandelier and even candles on the piano
They also enjoy the light of a large chandelier and even candles on the piano
There armchairs, tall bookcases, two pendant oil lamps
and a large Turkish rug in The Study
and a large Turkish rug in The Study
I have floor boards and parquet flooring (which come printed on paper) and even some actual genuine terracotta mini quarry tiles for the kitchen (3/4" square) that have to be laid on tile cement like real tiles - well they ARE really tiles, just in miniature - so that will be my particular labour of love as I really enjoy tiling.
But I also have yet to acquire lengths of 1/12th scale skirting board, dado and picture rails and cornicing for the ceilings. I already have several moulded plaster ceiling roses, so as each main light goes up in a room, a suitably-sized ceiling rose has to be chosen and fitted (see The Drawing Room, above).
Without a doubt this dolly house will be grander and better appointed than any house I have ever lived in, or even stayed in.
So the dollies had better appreciate the time, trouble, effort and expense we are going to, and not trash the place with wild parties, bizarre amateur science experiments or any other silly shenanigans, when the house front is closed and we are fast asleep.
Or I will line them all up and scold them severely and put them on short commons for a month.
Don't let the dollies near Facebook....
ReplyDeleteA sensible word of caution, Fly!
DeleteThe nearest the dollies will get to Facebook will be a silver salver with visiting cards on the hall table, or an in-tray and an out-tray on a desk, though I am not sure if the Royal Mail was up and running by 1840, so the penny post wasn't available, was it?
Must check!
The GPO was started sometime in the C17th, but the Penny Post was actually introduced in 1840, so you can have your in and out-trays without being anachronous.:-) Indeed you will be bang up-to-date. :-)
DeleteIt's starting to look very impressive, not to say addictive..... After all you have to have something to do when the weather's too bad to take the LGD out for a spin. :-)
Ooh, I'd better get/make a sheet of them thar noo-fangled stamp thingies for The Master's desk, then! And I can have stamped letters ready for posting on the hall table, as well as the silver dish of visiting cards.
DeleteI think the busiest room to set out will be the kitchen, which needs so many pots, pans, moulds, dishes, etc. I have some prints of Regency - Willim IV - early Victorian kitchens to research, as a house is never just of one decade, is it? There are always things in it from earlier eras that have either never been superseded or are too useful to discard.
For instance I may have a tap AND a hand-pump at the kitchen sink, as piped water was available in 1840 in towns but if one has sunk a good well I doubt it would be abandoned immediately.
Just spotted this in the News. And so yet more of the UK's family silver is sold off...
Deletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/21/royal-mail-profits-324m-pounds
I saw that too. Grrr!
DeleteIf you make those stamps Penny Blacks that will date your house very precisely as they were only in use for just over a year. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black
This also mentions that envelopes weren't usually used back then, just the folded and sealed letter with the stamp stuck on it. So no fiddly miniature envelopes needed. :-)
Hari Om
ReplyDelete...I know, I know, this is going to sound trite, but I was truly thinking about your dolls house only last evening and wondering about additions and improvements!! (There's another project going on in Canada in which I have particular interest, so am living vicariously through others!)
Has hubby thought about going into stop-frame filming? This story could go 'viral' 8-0 YAM xx
I am the photographer of the family, although the Husband does have a nifty digital video camera which may well offer a stop-frame option. It'll be just like The Woodentops if so! That'll take you back...
ReplyDeleteHari Om
DeleteOOHH THE WOODENTOPS!!! (YAM grinning from 'ere to 'ere). Golly, talk about reliving childhood. &> Could the family's name be Topp? Then the show might be "The Topps at the Copse".
...hhmmm, time for bed YAM...
It's very strange, but the dollies don't have names yet, even though their comples network of familial relationships has been decided.
DeleteHowever the elder daughter, who is about eight or nine, has got an identity as far as The Husband is concerned. He calls her Miss Van der Graaf, because her hair has an alraming tendency to spread out and stand on end, however hard I try to tame it. He has decided she has been doing experiments with early electricity and has designs to be a scientist when she grows up, which the father is encouraging because so far there is no son.
With The Husband's imput and encouragement I shouldn't be at all surprised if she blows up the whole shebang one day. I have suggested a shed at the bottom of the garden (ie in his - The Husband's - office next door) for her chemistry experiments and maybe even some very early amateur photography when she is older.
But meanwhile, maybe she can have a telescope set up to look out of the nursery window in the attic. Must have a poke about on eBay and see what they've got...