First Floor Finished!

In my last blog entry about the art deco house, I was having electrical issues and was trying to create a chandelier for the dining room.  It turned out that my electrical strip had a short in it.  I purchased a new one, and my lights are working!

For the chandelier, I was really trying to create one that looked something like this:  https://www.studioitalia.com.au/minneapolis-chandelier.html  However, the beads I had bought, which I thought were bugle beads, were not.  They were some weird double-barreled beads.  While waiting for my new bugle beads to get here, I experimented with them anyway, just to get a sense of how my idea would work.  This was my first try:

No.  Just . . . no.  When the bugle beads arrived, I tried again.  I was using super glue to attach them to the Woodsie circle and the small plastic washer I was using for the second tier.  No matter how careful I tried to be, the super glue made the beads all cloudy.  Plus, the unevenness of the beads made for a very funky outcome.  Here is try number two:

Again, no.

For my third try, I borrowed a tip from Emily Morganti of the Den of Slack, who had made wind chimes with bugle beads and eye pins.  I reasoned that if I could set up a series of cut-off pins around the outside edge of my Woodsie, I had a much better chance of getting a nice, even ring of beads.  I am no good at all at figuring out how to do the math to divide up the circle evenly, so I let Excel do it for me.  I counted the number of beads on try two, then I set up an Excel data set, with the first column being letters of the alphabet (a through dd, to make up the thirty rows I needed), and the second column all being the exact same number (I chose ten; it doesn’t matter, as long as every “amount” is equal).  Then I inserted a Pie Chart based on that data set.  Excel gave me a nice circle with thirty wedges of the exact same size.  

I took a screen capture of the chart, sized it to fit my Woodsie, and printed it out.  I used this little chart on top my Woodsie to mark where each pin needed to go. 

Drilling the holes and clipping and inserting the pins was a ridiculously fussy process, but I did end up with a much nicer perimeter of beads.  I wasn’t able to do that on my plastic ring washer, but I was less concerned about that set than the outside ring.  It’s a smaller ring with many fewer beads.  For all, I just used Ailene’s tacky glue, and it seemed to work fine, without the hazing.  I covered the top and the upper edge with some adhesive metal left over from making the tin ceilings in the Orient Express.   Here is try number three:

Not perfect, but much, much better.  And it lights!

Now I had lights for the dining room and kitchen (the standard half-scale globe ceiling light).  

 

I had intended to make a similar chandelier for over the piano, but 1) it was a lot of work and 2) most of it would be hidden anyway.  So I used a bead cage and a short piece of metal tubing to make a light similar to the light I had made for the Merrimack foyer.  I also had the floor lamp I had made, but I was concerned there would not be enough light in the living room, so I added a ceiling fixture I had originally purchased for the bedroom.  I figure I have enough time to get a replacement (which I’ve already ordered), given how slowly I’ve been working.  The ceiling fixture is by LightingBug.  Their lights are a little more expensive, but I love them.  They are not the same old fixtures you see in every half-scale build.   (They make 1:12, too.)  The little ceiling fixture I bought it so pretty and delicate-looking!  I think it just fits this house.

Here you can see where I mapped out the centers of each room, drilled the holes for the lights, and dug the channels for the wires.  I glued the roof/ceiling down, and the lights still worked!

Next, I glued down my mat board layer. (Yes, I decided to go with the mat board.  I liked its thickness the best.)

I then put some spackle around the edges, sanded and painted.

The second floor base is now glued down, and I am ready to start working on the floor.  And the lights still work.  Whew!

While working on the ceiling and electrical, I received a lovely gift from Sherrill.  I had commented on how pretty her pillows are and how interesting it was that she filled them with pellets.  She sent me four half-scale pillows, each stuffed with a different method—pellets, pellets and fiber, seed beads, and seed beads and fiber.  I learned two things.  The first is that I think I have been overstuffing my pillows.  I had stopped sewing my pillows because the stitching always really showed, but if you don’t overstuff your pillows, there is not as much strain on the seams, and the stitching doesn’t show as much.  The other thing is that seed beads and fiber make a really nice stuffing for half-scale pillows.  They were definitely the best of the four, although all were nice.  One set of pillows was done in a light-gray-and-white geometric pattern.  I think they are perfect in the living room of the Merrimack.  The gray in the pillows is a lighter version of the gray in the rug.  The other set of pillows, which are the same pattern in gold and white, are going in the art deco house.

Another wonderful addition was, oddly, the result of Covid-19.  This year’s Kensington Dollshouse Festival was canceled as a live show, but there was a kind of online show.  I would never be able to get across the pond to the show in person, but I could “attend” the online show.  I clicked on the various links for half scale and learned that one of my favorite Etsy artists has her own site now.  Life of Riley does some of the best half-scale food I’ve ever seen.   (She also does 1:12.)  I have purchased from her on Etsy, but she has a much larger selection in her own shop.  I ordered four items, which arrived quite quickly.  They are all absolutely wonderful, and I never would have known if not for Covid-19.

And there you have it.  I’m ready to start on the second floor.  I have already started cutting floor tile using my Silhouette Cameo.

Hope everyone has a wonderful, safe week!  Thanks for stopping by!