New Year, New Project: The Deco House Mock-Up

Happy New Year!  Had a very busy Christmas week.  We had our usual Christmas Eve buffet (Julbord), then Mom flew in from Arizona on Christmas day.  It was a lovely visit; one of the highlights was afternoon tea at the Claremont Hotel, which was fabulous.  I tried to stay away from too much online time, but, fortunately, Mom was happy to read and relax while I puttered around with my miniature projects.

As I'd hoped, I was able to do a foam core mock-up of the art deco house.  Yay!

It is meant to be painted with blue horizontal stripes on the ground floor and chimney (which I didn't make in mock-up).  I applied some blue painter's tape to get a sense of how it would look, even though I would use a darker blue paint.  At the very least, this showed me that I have to do a better job of lining up my windows!  I also think these stripes are just a bit wide.  The painter's tape is .7 inches wide; I think I might like the stripes to be .5 inches wide.  The beauty of the mock-up is I can test before I decide.  I'll get some half-inch painter's tape to try it out.

Here is the house without the stripes.

The floors and roofs are made from ¼" foam; the walls are made with 1/8" foam.  I intend to use wood of the same thickness for the actual house.  The curved walls are currently poster board.  For the actual house, I'm thinking mat board, scored to allow it to curve, and covered with a "skin" of card stock. The poster board tends to lean a bit, and I'm hoping the mat board will be more stable.  The bars on the windows are made with gray quilling strips.  The original design calls for cardboard.  I'll likely use card stock, of a similar or slightly smaller width.

The posts around the second-floor edge (there will be more) will be connected by jewelry wire to form a railing.  The original plans call for quarter-inch dowels with button-form caps.

I used 3/16" inch dowel, as I didn't have any 1/8" dowel on hand.  I actually like it and will probably use it in the finished product.  The caps are made from some brads I got at Michael's.  They're a bit fussy—you need to pull out and clip off the "legs," as well as do a bit of filing, but I like the way they look.  Maybe washers for the bases?

The front and side walls are designed to be removable.  Thin strips of wood make grooves for them to slide into at the bottom.  Not sure what I will do in place of that catch, which I can't quite wrap my head around.

Here is the house with the walls removed.

The mock-up also gives me the opportunity to test out furniture and layouts, decide what I need to add/replace/say goodbye to, etc.  Some of the furniture is just dry fit for now, so that I can at least get a sense of it in the space.  A couple of pieces are borrowed from other houses.  I also had enormous fun hunting through my stash.  The large copper vases outside the front door are from a half-scale swap.  The palm tree is from a tropical diorama that I took apart to scavenge some of its elements.  And I had forgotten I had that little statuette of Bast.

Here is the living room.

This room is not significantly different from the original plans, other than the staircase.  The plans called for a rise and run of ¾" each.  

That would make for a 3/8" rise and run in half scale.  That would fit the space and would make for a pretty staircase, but it would also be quite steep with uncomfortably shallow steps.  A more realistic design is a 3/8" rise with slightly less than a half inch run.  Unfortunately, this would slam the end of the staircase right up against the wall to the piano area.  I can't get rid of the wall because it's load-bearing, so I decided to turn the staircase.  I think that works.  It allows for comfortable steps and doesn't extend too far out into the room.  Another reason why mock-ups are good.  😊  I tried three designs before settling on this one.  

Now that it's in the room, I like the purple chair more, so I may keep it and cover the sofa with the same fabric.  😊  There will be a deco face to the fireplace, and an oval coffee table (possibly this one, or something similar).  And, of course, there will be a rug.  Not sure if I will keep the cabinet or go with this one, which I love.  The piano is a Bespaq piece I got on sale at a miniature show.  I do like it, despite the truly annoying keyboard.  (Do miniature designers not have eyes?  The 1:12 piano I had in my childhood dollhouse had only sets of 3 black keys.  Sheesh!)  You can see the leopard-print chair and Jazz, situated to be visible even when the house is closed up.

The kitchen/dining area changed more.  For one thing, they are both a bit bigger.  The original plans had the kitchen being 6" x 6" (3" x 3" in half scale).  That is a very tiny kitchen!  Mine is 4" x 4 1/4"; not a huge increase, but enough to make the kitchen more workable.  The kitchen and dining room also have full-height ceilings; in the original plans, their ceilings were lower than the living room's.  The two-level roof line was pretty, but I decided I needed the space more. 

The stove and refrigerator are both works in progress; the work table was borrowed from the Fairfield for size and placement, not so much for looks.  That blue square represents the sink.

The original sink I bought at a mini sale is really nice but, I think, may be too big for the space.  I could make it fit, but then there would be no room for a work space.  If I move it all the way to the right, I could possible squish in a small table, but I'm not sure I like that.

The dining room is also larger than the original.  The plans call for it to be 6" x 8" (3" x 4"); mine is 4" x 4 3/4". 

The table is just a mock-up made from mat board and toothpicks for size, and the chairs were borrowed from the bungalow.  These are the actual table and chairs I will have.  The drinks cart is from a kit by Jane Harrop.  I love how well Jane's kits are cut, but the wood is not the best.  It always has little fissures in it.  I filled in the wood on the circles as best I could with stainable wood putty, sanded well, and gave it two coats of cherry stain.  I then replaced the shelves with very thin birch wood to which I added a cherry veneer, and the railings with cherry strip wood from Northwestern lumber.  My replacements were also given a cherry stain, and the whole thing was finished with shellac for a well-polished sheen.

The liquor bottles are a combination of the standard half-scale liquor bottle set (with new labels), and some 3-D printed bottles from Shapeways, given some Gallery Glass coatings.  (Yep.  That's a bottle of absinthe there on the right.)  And remember those annoyingly small wine bottles?  One of them had its neck snipped and was turned into a bottle of Angostura Bitters. 😉  I have a left-over reject from the champagne glasses in the Orient Express on the second shelf.  I'll be adding more (and better) glassware to the cart.

Upstairs, I extended the second story back to the edge of the kitchen/dining room so that I could make space for a bathroom, which was entirely left out of the original plans.

I think I need to move the second story about a quarter inch to the right (the window is not quite lined up with the window on the ground floor), which will give me another quarter inch in the bathroom.  If I adjust the door position a bit, I can create a surround for the tub (check out this gallery for some examples, although mine won't be quite as fancy) and pretend that the bump-in is a closet opening into the hallway.

Not sure these will be the sink and toilet I use; the toilet will almost certainly be replaced.  They were what I had on hand.  The sink appears to be meant to be a wall sink, but for now I made a quicky pedestal for it out of a golf tee.

In the bedroom, I had originally envisioned a sitting area in the window space, but now I'm kind of leaning toward a writing desk.  Maybe something like this or this?  I have to create at least a couple of my own minis for this house.  😊

There will be a deck on the ground floor roof.  Right now, I've borrowed a chair from the Merrimack.  I have a chair and coffee table kit from Twin Palms to make up, and I really think I need a deck chair. 😁

And there you have it.  It will be a while before I can start construction, as I have to work on my items for the annual half-scale swap, but I will likely continue to work on some pieces for the house in and around my assembly-line work.  😊  Stay tuned.

As always, thank you so much for stopping by and for your encouraging and astute comments.  Hope you all have a wonderful new year, filled with joy and minis!