Sitting Room

 Frabjous day, Calloo callay...

Having succeeded with the trial box,  I ordered and received the pieces for the other five boxes.  I am going to mention the company again as it was perfect service and perfect product and that is not something you can say often these days.   Cut my plastic   They offer many materials, colours, thickness etc and have lots of potential uses in your home and garden as well as your hobby.  Mine were cut to the exact mm, packed brilliantly so arrived in a perfect read-to-go state.

I am now trying to work at a good pace to get all the boxes made up for all the rooms.  There is no point in detailing how each is done as that will be extremely repetitive.  I will do my best to show you one a week furnished.  At the end of that time the plan is to draw all the electrics together and get those sorted and then it will be the fun part of dressing each room - again I hope to share one a week and then, my friend, that's me finished......   unless the mini itch strikes again.

Here comes the sitting room.... pretty much the same order of attack as the dining room but with small differences like half painted and half papered walls, a different fireplace fitting and table lamps exiting via pretend sockets.  

1. Glue

I made up the box and glued the chimney breast pieces together.

2. Paint

I painted the ceiling, two coats as before.  

For the lower half of the room which was also painted I marked up the line where the paint will meet the paper.  I do this by using a piece of stiff card cut to a three inch width.  I slide this round the walls and draw a pencil line where it comes to.  I then use masking tape to guide me when painting.  You could to this another way and roughly guess the three inches and paint and then mark up neatly for where the paper will go to and the paper over the excess paint.

The black splodge is where there is a gap in the fireplace for the smoke to go up the flue and you can see to the back of the box when it is in place.

I also paint all the trims and varnish the floor ready to go in place.  

3. Drill

There were four holes needed for the wiring in this room.  

The easiest was the central ceiling light.  

One was then needed on the back wall for the fireplace and was centred from side to side and at the right height for the wire from the fire to exit.

Finally two holes were needed for the table lamps.  This was a bit of a fiddle as I had to put in the lamps and tables to see if the 'usual' socket position would work for them.  

Quite often in my new build real house the sockets are about two feet from a corner and eighteen inches from the floor.  I cut a template measuring two by one and a half inches and put that in the corner each side and marked where the socket should go.  I then put in the tabe and the lamps and decided that would work OK.

4. Floor

I cut the floor to size checking carefully at each step.  You do need a template if there is any doubt that your room is not a good even shape.  Luckily with these boxes they are pretty true in terms of being rectangular.  For the first time I didn't do a 'temporary' fix for the floors as they will never need to come out to fix any lights 'below' as they would in a project..  This time I removed the sticky back cover paper from the walnut flooring and laid it straight down.

5. Chimney breast

This fireplace required a slightly different treatment to the one in the dining room.  This time it is designed to fit snugly edge to edge with the fire surround.  Needless to say when I originally bought these things I settled for the nearest I could get.  There is a very tiny gap around the edge of the fireplace (which doesn't show as long as there is no light there) which needs to be 'blanked out with a black painted paper trim.  Here are the components for this fire.  The chimney breast and painted cardboard inner hearth as before, the blanking piece of paper and the fire.

I absolutely love Phoenix Model Developments for all kinds of thing.  Over the years I have bought tons of things from them - cookers, fires etc.  I did paint this one with a touch up nickel paint  but it isn't really needed

The chimney breast was painted and papered.  I make all the folds in the paper before gluing and used a paper scoring tool to make good creases and keep life simple.

 

The whole chimney breast and fire unit  was assembled and glued in place.  I hope you can see the little folded out edges on the paper that are glued to the back wall.  I do this for all wallpaper joins so that you get a really neat join with no gaps.  (PS I can now see in this photo how the fireplace is not set exactly centrally - sadly I didn't spot it before completing the room.  It now annoys me and sometime I have to work up enough courage to see if i can push it out and adjust it now everything is all glued in place.  Right now I can't see how.

6. Paper

The rest of the room was papered.  Please click here if you need lots of information about how to paper a mini room.  Wallpaper. and here if video is more your thing   Wallpaper video  I think there are a couple there.

7. Trims

Trims went in as normal - coving then dado rail then skirting.  The coving was a bit of a pig as it is dentil coving.  I had a lovely one when I did the original sitting room but it seems to have disappeared.  I found one vendor but it was 'out of stock' so I got a slightly different one which proved challenging to paint without gumming up all the spaces between the  'teeth' and, like its predecessor it can't be cut to make super clean corners as there is to much detail on it.

8. Electrics

The centre light went in just fine.  I threaded the wire through the hole, put tiny dots of super glue on the ceiling rose and gently and carefully pulled it upwards until the rose made contact, just then need to press for a few seconds and Bob's you uncle.

I wish I could say the same about the table lamps.  i have always loved these lamps but they have given me problems from day one - missing one ball foot when purchased, wonky lampshades, one light flickered until I could get the bulb seated properly and most of all the very fine wires are a real challenge.  I have had them for so long I had forgotten how to expose the wire from their painted (?) coating.  Too fine to use wire strippers, teeth and nails didn't work, knife pretty much just cuts right through.  Finally light bulb moment and I rubbed them gently with very fine grade sandpaper.   Note the magnifying glass which got used at every stage of exposing the wire and then joining it to some more wire once in place so that they can reach the connector strip.

I used the sockets (I invented) for added realism.  They are made by Delph Miniatures.  Basically you thread your wire through from front to back, exit th wall and stick the socket in place.  Extensive explanation is here.  realistic sockets.

Tah dah - light, fireplace, lamps all in place and all working

The comes the task of adding a couple of feet of wire to the back to be sure of being able to connect to the power supply eventually.

So, another box prepared and awaiting its furniture.

Dining Room - Chimney Breast and fireplace

 I have made chimney breasts quite successfully with thick cardboard  but I have also bought a fabulous kit from Dollshouse Cottage Workshop so I did so again.

It comes in three simple pieces which you just glue together, making sure you have a good right angle join.

You can just paint the back wall of the room where the fireplace will go for the back of the fire box but, being fussy, I like to make a brick back.  Again this should be made 'dirty' with some smudgy black paint but I am choosing to cheat a little as my 'Georgian' style dining room is actually modern and with a real flame gas fire so I am happy to leave the bricks pristine.

The brick sheeting is a very nice one from Jennifers of Walsall

I have nipped out at the bottom so that it can sit neatly behind the hearth.  The side 'wings will be glued inside the chimney breast on the side walls so they are cut to fit.

My fireplace will have a hearth extension in front of it so I need something to level up the internal hearth area to the same height as the outer hearth extension in the room so that the fire will stand nicely with its feet on each part..

This inner hearth is just cut from a lump of good old thick cardboard, after using the chimney breast to draw round as a pattern.

This gets painted black.  I don't do jet black as it sort of 'shouts' at you, so I use a blob of green, black and white and blob them on as a mixed colour

I papered the chimney breast

The cardboard hearth is then put in place behind the front face and the brick back is glued in place.  It is glued along the back edge of the hearth (covering it) and glued in each side of the chimney breast.

This brick panel back will eventually be glued on to the back wall of the box

This is the finished front view.  I have made a hole in the centre of the back piece and at the right height to accept the wires from the fire and pass them out through the hole which has already been drilled in the back of the box.

This photo shows how I line it up with the back wall and get it centered.  I push a toothpick through the hole in the back wall and jiggle the chimney breast in place until the hole in the back of that lines up.  Obviously I need the walls papered before the final fit.

I cut and glue in the coving pieces either side on the back wall.

I then cut and dry fit the pieces that will wrap round the chimney breast.  the 2 cm pieces for the sides can be fiddly but I was lucky this time and all went right first time on everything.

I then take away the pieces and construct the wraparound piece.  I did the usual paint touch up after this photo was taken and it looks perfect..

The breast is lined up as I showed above using a toothpick to locate its position and checking the side measurement quickly before the glue takes.  Again, this should just be easy and spot on. The wraparound piece is glued in place and all joins touched up with paint.

To finish off the hearth the wire is threaded through the bottom of the grate and the coals settled in place.  They can be held with tacky wax if you want to but I suggest you don't glue in place in case you ever need to change the bulb/

The hearth extension is glued in place with a few dabs of UHU  this is a lovely piece of Decrastone.  Sadly the man who cut these has retired and I haven't located a replacement.

The wires are threaded through the hole at the back of the hearth and the fire is stood in place.  Again, this can be left freestanding or fixed with tacky wax but I don't glue in place in case I need to make any adjustments or changes.

Finally the fire surround is fixed in place with glue.

In Dalton House I did wrap the skirting around the chimney breast but it is a real challenge to cut the front piece to an exact shape around the hearth and in real houses of the period I have seen it left off.  Seems like the wallpaper would get easily damaged in real life when cleaning so I am not comfortable with the solution ....  but if a grand house would risk it who am I to argue.  Decision made.