Dining Room - wiring

 Just a couple of quick pointers and reminders about doing wiring.  As always if you want more detail and videos take a look at these posts in my Dalton House blog.  You can also find some videos using the link you see there. 

Here are a couple of useful tools.  The first I would not be without if I had a a large project or I knew I would be making projects for years, is this handy wire cutter and stripper.  Saved a lot of fingernails and teeth over the years when stripping off the plastic from the copper wires.  I got mine from Small World which is now run by Little Houses Plus.  

The second useful thing here is either a fine knife, like a scalpel, or teeny, sharp,  pointed scissors like these embroidery ones.  I use these to just make the first snip between the encased twin wires which you can then just gently pull apart.  I have had them too many years to know where they came from.

Obviously the first thing is to decide exactly where the lights are going.  I do this by furnishing the room. If you are lucky it may be just a simple centre light and that's it done but, in the case of the dining room that would have set the chandelier of to the back edge of the table.  So I put the table where I wanted it to be and measured carefully from the front edge of the box to the centre of the table and transferred this measurement to the top of the box, centering it also from side to side.

Hoping this isn't a too obvious tip... I dampen a piece of kitchen roll and put below where I am  going to drill the hole.  I catches all the sawdust and being a bit damp stops it flirting about when you remove it and crumple it up.

When you drill the hole you often get a scruffy finish on the painted ceiling - generally this is easily covered by the light fitting and has never bothered me.  I suppose to avoid this you could drill from the ceiling side upwards rather than downwards especially when using a room box as you could turn it upside down easily.  

When you have your fire or light (etc) in place the wires will normally go in a groove to a suitable exit.  With a room box grooves aren't necessary - which is a small joy as they are a pain to do.  I simply taped them down with some masking tape.  I may swap it for sturdier tape I think.   They are being 'aimed' at the centre of the back of the box and a hole will be drilled through the book case at some time to let them pass through.

All the wires on the things I removed from the house are all sorts of lengths depending on the difficulty in removing them so they all need extending to exit the bookcase and travel on to the connector.   

The important thing here is to remember to cut one wire shorter than the other on both the extension wire and the fitting's wire..  

You then join the short extension wire to the long fitting's one and then via versa.  This offsets the exposed wires from each other to ensure they don't make contact.

.... a shrink tube is pushed over them and shrunk with a hairdryer.  Again, go to the link I gave earlier if you want more details of the process.

So, finally, the first room box room is ready to be lived in.  One down and five to go.

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.