Throwback Thursday: The Merrimack (Part 2)

In my previous post, I wrote about the first floor and approximately half of the second floor in this wonderful Earth & Tree house. 

We left off with Jim's study.  To the left of his study is the central landing, which has a

a chair based on a pair of chairs owned by my brother.  I loved the curved shape and asymmetric back. This was my fifth try on making this chair.  It's not perfect, but I figured it was the best I was ever going to do.

On the wall, I added some mid-century cat art (painted charms) to go with the Orla Kiely-inspired feature wallpaper.

The open staircase to the third floor, and its railing, are scratch built.  I had purchased a G-scale open staircase, only to find that it was too wide to fit the opening!  Strip wood and model railroad lumber to the rescue.

The railing that surrounds the second-floor opening was one of the first things I ever cut with my Silhouette Cameo.  I never would have been able to cut all those shapes to evenly and cleanly by hand.

The room to the left of the landing is the bedroom, which is based very much on my grandparents' master bedroom, with its floral wallpaper and George-and-Martha Washington bedspread.

The bedspread is a combination of the Sara Pittman coverlet from June Grigg’s pamphlet, “More Charted Designs for Miniatures,” and the Floral bedspread from Needlework Designs for Miniature Projects: 64 Charts for Counted Cross by Eileen Folk.  It was worked on 36-count Evenweave, and I nearly went blind doing the white-on-white, particularly on those occasions where I miscounted and had to rip out.  Aaaggghh!

Most of the furniture in this room is made from the kits for the Heywood Wakefield bedroom set by SDK Miniatures.  The art work includes ballet prints (my parents had a similar set hanging in their bedroom), and, over the dresser, my mother's wedding portrait.

On the dresser, there is a memento from Jim and Margot's travels in Denmark, as well as a little  caddy for Jim's change, cufflinks and watch.

What books are on the nightstands?  Jim has Catch-22.  Margot has Peyton Place.  The working lamps on the nightstands are made from beads.

You can see that they have clothing set out for a cocktail party, and on the bed, where Margot has left them after just returning from shopping, are the wonderful leather shoes that were a gift from Samantha.

In behind the landing is the bathroom, which has a removable roof for easier access.  This room is based on my grandparents' guest bath—complete with pink fixtures and a corner tub.  The walls of their bathroom had pink wallpaper with gold cherubs, but I just  . . . couldn't.  😊  I went with a mid-century poodle print instead.  The bathtub and toilet are Marx furniture.  They, the sink and the tile were given a unifying coat of pink spray paint (the kind that sticks to plastic). 

The vanity was scratch built, and, yes, that's a little doll toilet paper cover on the back of the toilet.  Very mid-century!  (The "doll" is an HO-scale girl figurine.)

The room at the top of the house I decided to model after my grandparents' basement rec room.  I think this room is my family's favorite, probably because it is the most recognizable to them.

Here are some pictures of the original, this one from New Year's 1961.  (Mom and Dad are on the right.)

The walls of their rec room had pale green paneling with a very soft texture that allowed my grandparents to use it as a bulletin board—pinning up pictures, napkins, menus, playbills and a whole host of souvenirs from their travels, including a sandalwood fan and a pair of black lacy panties from a stripper in New Orleans. (!) And here is the room's counterpart in the Merrimack.

Their rec room had a little wet bar area with refrigerator and sink, fronted by a padded red leather bar.  Unfortunately, I couldn't fit all that into this room, but I did make a bar from a tutorial by One-Inch Minis.  Here it is, complete with the Bols Ballerina Bottle music box my grandparents had.  (This one was made from a microbead, wire, tissue paper, the end of a clear pen, a bead, and the top of a 1:24 scale liquor bottle.)

There was no sailfish in my grandparents' rec room.  The funny thing was, when I started planning the Merrimack, I had a very strong memory of a mounted sailfish over the sofa.  At the same time, I was pretty sure I remembered a photograph there.  I asked my mother, who told me that my grandfather has always wanted a mounted sailfish and had even gone on a special fishing trip to catch one, but he was unsuccessful.  I don't know whether I was remembering an alternative reality or receiving a message from the beyond 😉, but I decided to give him his sailfish.  It's just a simple $5 gold-tone broach off eBay, with some paint.

If you look closely in the picture above, you can see a picture of my mother, holding up two large salmon that she caught.  😊  Grandma and Grandpa are in the photo to the left of the sailfish.

Another One-Inch Minis project was the plaid chair.  My grandparents' rec room had two of these, but I could only fit one.  I ended up printing the fabric myself because I could not find the plaid I needed in a small enough scale.

I also made Mitchy-Moo's modern sofa (modified to half scale, of course) using some wonderful textured fabric from a necktie.  The round pillows are really covered buttons.

And here's the modification I made to the house—a trap door!  It drove me crazy that the stairway ended smack in the middle of the room.  The room is small enough that I didn't want to lose more prime real estate.   My first thought was to move the stairwell opening, but wherever I looked at moving it, it interfered with a doorway.  Then my brother had the brilliant idea of installing a trapdoor.

When they're up in the room, Margot and Jim can cover it up with their alpaca rug, which (you guessed it) is modeled on one my grandparents owned. 

 On the guitar pick coffee table (made from a real guitar pick) sits a bowl of Chex mix.  The "Chex" are made from a fine lawn handkerchief that had been given a wash of color in "wheat" and "corn."  It was then snipped into squares 4-5 threads wide.  The "peanuts" are microbeads covered in paint, and the "pretzels" are fine-gauge brown floral wire coated with fine sand.

Across from the sofa there is a TV which started life as a magnet. 

The original room had both a television and a fireplace, but I couldn't fit both.

Here is the original fireplace. I'm the one in the very lady-like pose. 🙄

I do have a fireplace cut to fit, although it's not yet painted.  I've considered the option of swapping it and the TV in and out as the fancy takes me.

Finally, the exterior.  The kit came with wood strips and the Magic Stone, which was a lot of fun to work with.  There's a long roll of stencil stickers you apply to the painted wood to create the "grout"; the stone itself is a paste you mix up and apply.  My only issue was the little cut-out bits (spaces for the stones) from the stencil, which were supposed to stick nicely to the original paper backing, but instead stuck to everything in my work space, including me.  You can color the stone paste before application; however, since I wanted a variety of colors to my stone, I chose to paint them individually after the paste had dried. The wood, which was applied both vertically and diagonally, took around three weekends to complete.  The strips were stained and sealed with a natural finish to allow the inherent variation in color to come through.

The roof is made from simple, natural shakes.

Because no steps came with the kit, I built a deck off the back door.  It is furnished with an Acme magnet gas grill and some furniture I got at a local miniature show.

I of course had to make room for a hot tub, made from an aluminum can, wood scrapbook paper and some railroad lumber.

The bubbles in the water were a complete accident.  They formed as the resin was curing.  I'm not exactly sure why, but I can't say I'm sorry it happened.  😊

There are balconies off the bedroom and living room.  The basic structure for these did come with the kit.  The railing I chose was "Glenda" from Heritage Laser Works.  (I did add hardware to the lower set of doors after this picture was taken.)

For the front door (which is off to the side, but leads to the foyer), I created "cement" steps and as close to wrought-iron railing as I could using railroad lumber. 

The doors are the same as all the other exterior doors in the house, but I thought clear glass doors seemed strange for a front door, so I added some strip wood to make them more mid-century.

And there you have it.  The complete tour of the Merrimack.  I hope you enjoyed it.  I know I certainly enjoyed building and decorating it!  And Margot says you're welcome to come by for cocktails any time!  😉