Schloss dining room in progress

The dining room is the first room I'll work on, since it has been on my mind the longest and the ideas I had for it where the clearest.

I'm working on 'presentation cardboard' whatever that may be (It was the closest thing to foamcore the local craft store had).
The fireplace will be pitchblack, the overmantle off-white just like the panneling. The yellowish wallpaper will be on there and all the corner and framing wood will also be off-white.

I think the floor will be wallnut, but I'm not sure yet.

This picture was the main inspiration for the dining room. It is the frontroom of 'Hid Hero Hiem' in Bolsward. It used to be an orphanage and now it is a monument. I worked at a school nearby and a colleague was involved in the restoration of the whole building and it's rooms. So we went to visit. Needless to say it was very inspiring!

I've written about my compains to the company, I'll post the outcome.

Last but not least I've been having some problems with my proxxon table saw. Perhaps someone can help me out?

Whenever I put it at an 45degree angle, it starts smoking after a short while of sawing! Attaching the vacuumcleaner or not makes no difference. The smoke is not from the wood that is being cut, but comes from inside. The blade is not touching anything as far as I can see... It doesn't seem to be good or normal for such a saw as this one to be smoking at a certain angle...

Today after this happening again, it also gave me little static shocks! I don't feel save using it anymore now... any advice or experience on this matter?

The 'Schloss' in progress

An entire year has passed since I received the building plans for this dollhouse.
I've put many hours of my time into calculating, measuring, sawing, building and imagining since.

So whats the score at this moment? The dollhouse is almost completely put together. I have all the parts cut out, but I wont assemble it completely. I think I'll be moving in a few years, and I wouldn't be able to get it out of the room or out of the house ever again if I did assemble the house permanently!

So in the pictures the large library wing is still missing, and the huge roof and tower are not included in todays pictures either.


But the good news is that I can start with the interior, and along with that the exterior and neatly finishing all those odds and ends. And it is never to0 early to make flowers for the Schloss!

It's still going to be a german castle/mansion in the middle of the woods, meadows and mountains. So that's why I'll call it a 'Schloss'.

Some of the furniture you see is actually meant for the Schloss, but most of it is from my modern house to help my imagination.


I've bought some wallpaper and other supplies to start the real work. Oh you should see the stock of fabrics I've gathered! It's unhealthy! (I'll show that later!)

Please forgive the messy-ness of it all, the paper things in the hallway is to help design a good stairway.


I wanted to make removable walls but I can't find the material that I'd like. So for the first room I'll try a special thick cardboard, so that I can work on a flat surface and afterward install it into the house.
The house is way to deep to be making everyting straight onto the walls inside in a neat way. And I don't think I want to hear anymore funny comments about being a 'dollhouse-gynecologists'! :P haha

Byzantine miniature icons and tiniest seashells ever!

I'm back home from a very wonderfull holiday in Greece. Surprisingly and unintended I found lots of wonderfull miniatures during my trip!

First of all, these copies of old Byzantine icons. My pictures don't do justice to the detail in them. They are so small and precise, the pictures don't show it but you can see the relief of the paint strokes, they are so unbelievably small!
This is Saint Demetrius if I'm correct (and please correct me if I'm wrong) and his story

Please do click on the pictures to see the large original size, to see more details.
These icons will go in my new dollhouse in the making, a small castle.

This is Saint George (and here is his story klik)

I found these lovely little statues of the goddes Aphrodite/Venus de Milo and Nike (the headless one) goddess of victory. I think these will look good in a library or garden or something like that in my new dollhouse castle


Last but not least! We were on a beach, for a lazy day in the sun and some snorkling. I was happily bored and I was lazily running some of the grit/sand trough my fingers. I suddenly noticed a tiny tiny seashell in it!

So the rest of the afternoon we've been searching (again, very lazily) for these tiny shells and found many more in the most fantastic shapes and colors!


Please click the pictures to see them larger. I think nature made the most precious mini's ever and I'm glad I found them!

Bedroom finished!

Can you guess what this will become? I've been playing with the tablesaw again, there was something in the Ikea catalog that was still missing in the bedroom I'm giving a make over.


And what's a dollhouse room make over without new modern lights? So I rummaged around in my hobby drawers and found what I needed.


Did you guess? The woodbits will make 2 nightstands, inspired by these.


I painted them black, because that would match best with the other things in the bedroom. Because they'd become black I didn't mind the non-matching wood.


And here is a little nightstand, with a new modern nightlight on top!


It was evening when I took these pictures, so they aren't very sharp and bright.. But I wanted to show the bedroom and how it looks right now. I did a LOT of work on this room and I love how it turned out! The new bedding, the curtains, the floor, all the furniture I made, it was quite a bit of work and it all came together very nicely if I may say so myself.


The dresser I showed in the previous post was inspired by this one and is now finished up.

bedroom makeover in progress

I've been working on the bedroom, I got really caught up in it and by the time I remembered to take pictures it was already dark outside. Please forgive the poor quality of the pictures, my camera doesn't work to well when there isn't enough light.


The pillows where to small to make on the sewingmachine, so I stitched them by hand, and filled them with this black grit, meant as decoration in vases for example. It makes the pillows nice and heavy and easy to manipulate into a realistic 'fluffy' shape.

The blanket covers where made on my sewing machine and the extra blanket is felt that I fringed at the ends. To make everything look as if it is heavy and fluffy, small strips of double sided tape turned out to be very helpfull ;)


I also made a new floor for the bedroom. I used 3mm triplex and my new proxxon table saw to make the woodstrips, and I really like this much better than making floors out of lollipop sticks!

Behind the floor on my table are the curtains in progress and a little dresser. The dresser was my very first try with the proxxon saw and that machine scared the cr*p out of me! It even shot a tiny bit of wood onto my forehead! lol! But the end result is nice I think, and I learn a lot playing around with the saw, growing less and less afraid of the thing each time I use it ;)


Last, this blurry picture of the made over bed. I stained it a little more, raised the mattress and dressed it completely anew. I like it much better this way, more mature than the green don't you think?

This bedroom is going to get a make over

Here is a picture of the bedroom in my dollhouse. The bed is made from a cigarbox's wood and some other pieces of wood I had left. It is based on the 'Aspelund' from Ikea, that I happen to sleep in myself :P

The blue carpet and green bedcovers started to bore and annoy me, it just doesn't seem right... I want it to look more mature and stylish, so this bedroom is being made over at the moment! Most of it is done but I'm still testing finishes for the new woodfloor. I hope to post pictures soon.

Giveaway from small-talk and kitchen pictures

Here is the outer brick wall, and kitchen behind it. The kitchen stairs and cupboard I finished quite a while ago, but I never showed decent pictures here. There is also a little light inside the cupboard, I forgot to turn it on.. I'll turn it on for a next picture, promise ;)


I won the fabulous giveaway on http://smalltalk-minilover.blogspot.com/
I could hardly believe it! But it's true! I picked some wonderfull items from Sophia's webshop smalltreasuresminiatures.com and received them last week. The items I picked are the three copper pans with lids on the top shelf and the cookietin on the mantle.
I'm so delighted with these! My pictures don't do justice! I want to use them in my new dollhouse but that one is so far from finished, and I don't want to store them away. So for now they'll sit here.