After long-long holidays…

Hi everyone!

Sorry for being away for such a long time. December was killing me – exam after exam, lots of studying, preparing for graduation work. Though this will be my second diploma things are still the same – hard work. This month I have to go through almost 20 books for the graduation work:(

Well, I won’t be away anymore!:)

With my dollhouse I’ve managed only to finish the flooring and some of the walls painting on the second floor, and windowsills

White room above should the bedroom, I’ll paint the walls, just need to choose the ornament. Then I made the wallpapers for the living room.

The floor here is oak veneer. Also I need to make plinth for this room. It should be more European style than the others which would be more traditional looking. So the whole thing would be – 19th century, the beginning of it.:) That’s how easily I switch centuries.:)

Tomorrow I’ll show you some pics that inspired me to make it this way. Something more about Russian history. See you tomorrow!

Museums, disappointment.

When I started working on the interior I was a bit frustrated. I knew some general  tips about making it in Russian style, but how it would be in details – I had no idea. My solution was to buy and download some good books about Russian history and its material culture. I actually bought a lot of such books, and one was just great: I’ve found that, for examples, the walls in the houses of rich people were decorated with red leather (we’re talking here about 17th century not scary Communists, hehe:)) or with certain types of fabric. Hm, now I’m thinking should I do the same. I have some ideas, you’ll see:)

The next thing – pictures and photos of traditional Russian houses. Best way is to look for Kustodiev or Vasnetsov’s paintings. The rest – museums. And here’s what gets me – I live in Moscow, so we have pretty good, no, very good museums. One that you might like – is Russian Historical Museum (don’t know the exact name in English) on Red Square. I’ve been to it several times and I totally love it. But what would you do if you live… in Australia, name any other country. If  I were you I’d visit their website, which is bad, no, absolutely useless. The pictures there are sooo small – you won’t see a thing. And it’s not only about this website, check any museum’s page – I’m pretty sure most of Russian museums post very small pictures or don’t post them at all! Even Hermitage – damn Flash and Java, you can’t copy the picture (okay, copyright, I admit) but just the link I can’t copy (though somewhere I can, but still). It’s such a disappointment for me, if you don’t know Russian you won’t find anything, it’s very sad.

Almost a month

It’s been almost a month when I posted the last entry.  These 2-3 weeks were quite busy, we have a new addition to our family, this little kitten.

He’s just about 1,5 months old, very cute, very active little boy. So the last week I spent hours with him. He doesn’t let me do anything but playing with him all day long. I guess I  don’t need to say that I couldn’t finish a thing in my dollhouse, just some basic fixes – floors and windows. I hope I’ll be able to post some photos this week. Stay tuned!

The Roof – fixed

When I was posting this picture I thought maybe I shouldn’t write anything:) I was choosing the decoration for the roof for a week, I didn’t like anything – it was too easy or too difficult and time-consuming. I was worrying too much, then I realized that this is my first big project, and if  I mess something up it’s no big deal, I can fix it later, or don’t fix at all but I always gaining some experience which is the most important for me.
I relaxed a bit and started fixing the roof. And it’s working now!:) You can open the facade without problems. I want to thank Karin, Caterina, Tom Pouce and Sans for great tips, in the result I used fabric as hinges (I forgot to make a photo, sorry, will do it next time).
Some more pictures, I’m really sorry for the quality, I had to use my hubby’s DSLR, and I’m not used to his camera, so they are a bit blurry.

Three pieces you see above will be used for wall decoration.  In russian it’s called (“причелина” – pree-che-lee-na:), hehe, sounds and looks funny in Latin letters). This is the part that covers the corners of the house. I hope to make them tomorrow, and I’m moving to interior. It’s going to be fun!

Small update – first but not the last problem.

I’ve finished gluing the veneer on the pediment, and the main part of slope of the roof is done too.

This week I need to decorate the roof and the rest of the house, then I’ll be able to move to interior part. And now I have a problem, I was going to decorate the roof  this way (well, something like this):

But the slopes of my house are longer (it’s ok, depends on the house really). So when I open the facade part of the roof is blocking it.  Here’s what happens when you haven’t planned it all. So I had to think of something. First of all, I thought I wouldn’t decorate the roof at all and do only pediment,  like this (the pediment or should I call it  tympanum, is great here):

Then I thought it would be ok, if I still decorate it the way I wanted before, but with one trick. I need to break it in parts, and the part that is blocking opening of the facade would be on hinges, the smallest ones or I think it would be ok to use some sort of fabric hinges. So when I open the facade part the part of the decoration goes up – well, I hope you get the idea. I think this will go. Anyway, I’ll post the results this week, so we’ll see.

The problem with roof – photos

Yesterday I posted about it, and Karin offered her help, so I’m posting the photos. Here it is, on the slope of the roof there should be decoration, about 1” wide (i used here  paper pattern):

So when I try to open the facade, the decoration is blocking it:

Because the slope is too close:

So my solution would be, one part to the right is glued and not moving, another that is blocking should be on the hinges, something like this:

Windows – finished!

Yay! I’ve finished the windows, now when I look at them I cannot believe I did it.

Quick update

I haven’t posted anything for a week – my hubby and I caught a flu, not N1H1 fortunately, so I couldn’t do anything but staying in bed. Sadly,I didn’t finish windows. Just the table (sorry for the pictures):

The legs are made of pinewood, the rest is oak. My husband was helping me, he became interested in miniature more lately. So we started from the simple things. The only problem was to fix the legs – somehow it’s almost impossible to find four-sided glue jig in Moscow! Maybe we are looking at the wrong stores.
So, we thought of another way to glue the legs and stringers (do I use the right term?).  Tricky trick: