La patine (ageing a project)

 Ageing a building or a room is one the most difficult exercise I know. If you cut a piece of wood too short, you can always cut another one. But once the pigments have reached the wall, they'll stay.... Number2, you have to work quickly. Layers of acrylics dry fast.

Yesterday, I started with the fireplace. I had a good photo on my computer.

The smoke had stained the mantel of the fireplace...

Here we go....

I use large brush, little color, a lot of water and a sponge. The rest is luck. As I work alone, I can't make a video but I'll try one day.

Today, I will do the hearth. The fire looks a little bit small. I know... I will have to use bigger logs.

For the walls, I used a pale yellow tone with burnt sienna in it. The colours tend to be brighter the 1st day because they need to dry. If it is too yellow today, I will put a white wash.

Ageing takes a few days until you're perfectly happy. 

The wooden floor is temporary, as well as the table. I have a table at home in France. I'll bring it with the tiles next March. Tiles are quite heavy to send by post and the price of sending parcels is outrageous today. So you will have to wait.

I only have photos of the two tables

The first one is for that room, the second one with the benches for the kitchen, next project.

 

The kitchen table

Both were custom-made by Jan Grygiel, whom I met at the SIMP in Paris. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a website.

I like this corner:

On the other side, not much. I put a mirror behind the door so that you can imagine, there's another room next to it.

I will have to find something to put on this side....

The mirror trick is something I used in another box, the actor's dressing room under construction.

I haven't finished this box but you can see that on the right, behind the tulips is a mirror that gives the impression the room is bigger. This box is waiting for chairs. They're in France as well.

I discovered this in Le Musee de la Miniature in Lyon, a must-see if you ever visit that beautiful city of Lyon.

Today, I wanted to finish by showing something I enjoyed making a few years ago. The Chinese pharmacy.

I wish you all a great weekend.....

I tried to start a shop with Ecwid, let's see if it works

<div id="my-store-69585762"></div>

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<script data-cfasync="false" type="text/javascript" src="https://app.ecwid.com/script.js?69585762&data_platform=code&data_date=2021-12-15" charset="utf-8"></script><script type="text/javascript"> xProductBrowser("categoriesPerRow=3","views=grid(20,3) list(60) table(60)","categoryView=grid","searchView=list","id=my-store-69585762");</script>

</div>

Texturing the walls and first impressions

 Hello everyone and thank you for your kind comments.

Now the box is complete, I need to prepare the walls. For the "stone" effect, I use a tool to "etch" the lines on the surface

First, I measured real stones. They are usually 33cm. high and the length varies between 60 and 20 cm. 

So the stones will be 2.75 cm. high. I first draw lines with a pencil, then I start "etching" the horizontal lines, then the vertical ones, making sure their sizes vary.

I use the same technique for my roofs. So it can take hours...for one roof only. And you have to keep focused.....

Then, I will do the same on the fireplace, then apply primer, as plastwood needs to be primed before painting with acrylics.

I have two options for the window. I don't know yet which one I will choose, the plain window or the more ellaborate.....

Yesterday, I finished drawing the lines and etching the stones on the 3 walls. 

I also cut and glued the wood beams on the ceiling. I chose wood instead of balsa. Balsa is light but fragile. Wood is heavy but stronger. I checked that the beams originally were painted. So I will paint the ceiling and the beams and add corbels on each side to hold the beams.

I also filled the gap in the window with the seats and cut the door on the opposite wall. 

I measured the real door in France. It's so small that today, most of us would have to bend forward to go through the door, 1,77 cm high...

No wonder one of our kings, Charles VIII, died after hitting the lintel of a door in his castle in Amboise... He fractured his skull and died at the age of 28.

"April 7, 1498, at Amboise castle. Married for six and a half years to Anne of Brittany, the young King Charles VIII went to look for her in his apartments. He wants the queen to attend a game of tennis with him in the moats of the castle. The sovereigns must go through the Hacquelebac gallery, the door of which, very low, opens into the enclosure.Although small in size, Charles VIII hit the lintel of this door with his forehead. It seems that the shock is inconsequential and the king attends the game while chatting. 

Suddenly he fell backwards and lost consciousness. We lay him down on a straw mattress in a foul-smelling cubicle, a sentinel where everyone meets their natural needs 

Nine hours of agony for the 28-year-old king.

No one dares to transport the monarch. And we don't call a surgeon to his bedside either. Charles VIII will never regain consciousness. At eleven o'clock in the evening, the young king - he was only twenty-eight years old - breathed his last, undoubtedly the victim of a purely accidental cerebral hemorrhage. His agony lasted nine hours , recalls the historian, while specifying that he remains in history as the only king of France born and died in a castle in the Loire. Amboise in this case.

Miniatures lead to everything......

This afternoon, I painted the 3 walls, limestone colour,

 and the ceiling, dark grey between the beams and "bleu canard" (duck blue?) for the beams. Looking at photos, I saw that beams were painted in wealthy houses so..... They were decorated on the 3 visible sides with different decorations.I'll paint the side facing the floor when I have time.....

I painted the brick wall at the back of the fireplace and then covered it with black paint.....Have you ever seen a working fireplace with a red wall behind?

And I assembled everything.....

Tomorrow, I'll cut the corbels to add under each beam and I'll start weathering the walls. This is the most risky (or riskiest?)  part of the construction. Not enough, you won't see it. Too much and you can start painting the whole wall again... It has already happened to me....

Then I will have to paint the glass behind the window and glue it.

Some objects I will add: a bible printed by Daniel Zalvez Martinez who makes amazing books and curiositées, like human organs, LOL.....

I 3D printed the statue of Virgin Mary and aged it to make it look like wood.

The jars were made by Elisabeth Causeret, a French artist who makes wonderful clay pots.

When you click on the name of artists, it goes to their homepage. 

That's all for tonight.

Have a good evening everyone. leave your comments of course if you feel like it, it shows me people have read what I post.

.

Some tools you will need...

Le salon de l'Hotel Mame

Hello everyone,

I don't know if anyone read yesterday's post as no one left comments.

The roombox I'm planning to build starts to look like what I had in mind but first, let me show you tools that you may need soon. Christmas is coming so....

The table saw allows you to cut pieces of wood, straight or at angles. The maximum thickness is 1cm. It cuts straight and also at angles. But you can only cut small pieces of wood, not entire walls.

Don't push small pieces of wood with your finger, it cuts everything, including fingers.

Then, you will need a small driller. Your husband's driller will be too big and too heavy. A smaller model will be necessary with very small drills.

Later you may need a shaper, it will allow you to design your own moldings and cornices. 

I am not sponsored by the maker but I know some people will ask me who make them. So here is the link.

The first advantage is that the table saw and the shaper are small. You can use them on your table, you don't need a workshop. 

The second,  there is a connector behind that allows you to connect both to your vacuum cleaner and reduce the amount of dust. Because both machines make a lot of dust!

Until recently, I didn't have a workshop and built all my projects in the living room. I could work outside, in the garden,  but as you know Thailand is a hot country so forget about working outside!

Last tool for today, these scissors that allow you to cut at angles. They are called multi angle miter shear. You can easily cut small pieces of wood, for flooring for example.

Then all the other tools, you already have, glue, screws of all sizes, rulers, etc....

The roombox I am planning to build with you will be one of 6. 

I mean I'm planning to build a French medieval house and each room will be a box. I found out that my houses are very heavy, can't be separated and sometimes can't even go through actual doors. So i'm planning to build each room as a box and connect them.

This is an example of what NOT to do

First, the picture I started from:

Then, the building in 1/12 and all in one piece. The 4 sides open. It was a crazy idea to build something as big as this!

This one, l'Hotel Mame is all in one piece too and is very heavy.

So I want to find a way to separate the front of the house from the inside rooms.

The building is called l'Hotel de la Croix Blanche. It's a XIII-XIVth century building, late medieval style. Here is a photo:

I'm going to start with the room downstairs on the left. 

I have a lot of photos from the outside but none of the inside, so I have taken photos of medieval castles I visited last year while I was in France. 

Of course, this is not a castle, but the photos will give me ideas for the decoration and the layout of the rooms.

I have found someone on Etsy, called Viorica who knows how to use CNC very well and I ordered the windows from her. I couldn't make them. 

The furniture will come from Arjen in the Netherlands who uses laser to make very nice reproductions of furniture. 

I wish I could afford real miniatures made by skilled craftmen. I can't. I have to use modern technologies that have allowed many people to enter the world of miniatures.

So the 1st room has a window, a big fireplace and a door. The door is very low as people were much shorter than we are.

For the fireplace, I searched the Internet, XIIIth century, French.

Then, in the window, on the left, there will be seats included in the wall like this:

The light will come through the window from the left.

The floors will be real tiles made by French Henry Bart, 

I have already used his tiles, they are amazing. This time, I will use small square terracota tiles.

Here you can see another model of XVIIIth century French tiles in the hallway and in the dining room of l'Hotel Mame.

By the way, "hotel" in French means a big house in the past, not what we know of a hotel. In Paris, wealthy people lived in "hotels particuliers".

Let's go back to our roombox.

After writing all the dimensions of the room (40cm X 40cm) I cut the 3 sides, the ceiling and the floor.

Then I focused on the fire place, did the cornice on the shaper and assembled the pieces. There is a hole on the back wall for the depth of the fireplace.

Then I built the niche where the window will be and checked the fireplace was big enough. In the old days, fireplaces were huge.

When I am not sure, I check with my databank of photos. Here is a room at Langeais Chateau, near Tours, my hometown in France.

Since a project comes and grows, I had saved pictures of tapestries on my computer. 

I printed them on canvas and checked yesterday that they would look good in the room. 

I added some furniture,  I already had, a greyhound I print and paint and some flooring and I had a 1st idea of the room. 

I think it will be good. What do you think?

All your comments and questions are welcome.

Have a great Sunday.

 Building a roombox

      Hello and welcome to my blog. I don't have the ambition to write a book about dollhouse making. I don't have that talent. But just to share withyou the tools and techniques I used to build a roombox, a shop or a dollhouse in 1/12.

When I started, I had never imagined I could build anything like that. It took me time to get better and maybe, my blog will allow some of you to enjoy building something by yourself.

I am French, I live in Thailand, I am a teacher and I'm planning to retire soon.So forgive me for the mistakes I will make, English is not my native language. I will try to add a photo every 10 lines so it is not too boring to read. 

If you right-click on the photos, you should be able to enlarge them and save them for future projects. This room is called "the moat's bedroom". It was inspired by the moat's bedroom in Villandry Castle, in the Loire Valley in France.

So let's start....

Why a roombox? Because it's simpler than a whole house with staircase and many windows. Also because it doesn't require too many different skills like wiring and weathering. And it is also much cheaper to make.

A roombox can easily find a place in a room, on a shelf and is an ideal gift for someone you want to spoil.

The most difficult thing, to start with, is cutting the different elements. A house is made of dozens of pieces with angles, a roof, etc... A roombox has 3 sides, a back , a top and a floor. 5 pieces. 

To begin with, you will not buy a tablesaw. So this project won't require one. 

La salle à manger (under construction) inspired by the dining room in the same castle of Villandry.

The first thing to do is to decide what you are going to build, where you are going to put it.

Do not start with something too difficult. A room in a chateau is more difficult to do than a shop. Think about your budget. It is a hobby that can become very expensive. A shop is quite cheap to make, a XVIIIth century salon will need expensive furniture, moldings, flooring that you will need to buy. If it is your 1st project, start simple.

Get documentation. Start adding a new folder on your desktop called "miniatures" and open a folder called miniatures in your bookmark bar.

Every time you find a photo of miniatures or real rooms or buildings that inspire you, save it. Nothing more nerve wracking than looking for a photo for hours on the Internet. 

I have a special external drive with thousands of photos that inspire me. Write the name of the maker. Someone who inspires me a lot is Japanese Ichiyoh Aga who builds facade of front shops. 

So, to start with, get the 5 pieces of....

Well, some people use plywood, some use MDF, I use plastwood, a white plastic material that can be cut, painted, which is not heavy. This is what architects use to make their models.

MDF and plywood can be heavy and difficult to work with. Cardboard is too light. Remember cats love to sit inside or on top of dollhouses....

Where to find Plastwood? Check for signs suppliers. They often sell it    to make shop signs. For plywood and MDF, go to your local DIY shop.
One thing to remember, do not make your 1st box too big. 30 cm by 40 cm is a good start.

Now, height. 1/12 scale means you have to divide real dimensions by 1/12. How to do that? Let's say you want to convert 280 cm, 2 meters 80 in 1/12. So 280 X 12 /100 = 33.6 cm

So the height of your box will be 32.6 cm

When you order / cut the different parts, remember that you have to add the thickness of the plank to the real measures for the sides. If you use 1 cm MDF,

the floor will be 40 X 30

the back will be 40 X 35 (height to the ceiling)

the sides will be 30 +1 X 35 + 2, so that it covers the side of the floor and the back. Make a sketch, if you are not sure

This French window, called "un oeil de boeuf" is made out of Plastwood.

This is what plastwood looks like before painting:

So now, you've decided what you want to create. You have some photos. You've ordered the 5 pieces to build the box. Now, think about doors and windows, how many? Make a sketch. Remember they are not easy to set but you need some.

For doors and windows, I suggest you to buy them. With new technology, you can find nice doors and windows at very affordable price.

I used to make my 1st windows, it took me hours and the result.....

 As I never use wood, I will only speak about plastwood. To make a window opening, you will need a jigsaw for plastwood and MDF, for plastwood, I can use a cutter for 1cm thickness.

Later, you will need a table saw. I bought a Proxxon table saw years ago and it works very well. But mind your fingers, it cuts everything so always stay focus on the blade when you used a table saw.

before and after weathering the tailor's shop

When it's hard to say whether it is real or miniatures, then you can be happy with your work.

To end this post I will attach the link to a video of Robert Off explaining how he made his roombox. That may give you ideas.. click on his name and the video should start... after the ad.

Bye for now. 

Feel free to leave your comments about this 1st post.

Patrick