Part 2 of my first dollshouse renovation! If you're new here please go back and read part 1 so 8 don't have to repeat myself! (Just kidding I’ll probably be repeating myself loads anyway!)
So, the bathroom is decorated. Nice tile floor, white walls and tiles halfway up the walls. My original plan was to print the tiled printables on to slightly thicker photo paper stock, so they'd have a glossy finish and then gently score the "grout" lines to make them more 3d. However, my printer threw a strop at the paper and refused so I've just printed them in normal printing paper. I'm still figuring it out but I'm thinking of painting over in clear PVA glue or some kind of varnish to give them a more "tiley" look. If I do the PVA and it's thick enough maybe still do the grout lines? I should make up some practice sheets and see what works best. But I'll probably just try something out and then sulk when it goes wrong...
Directly under the bathroom is another room the same size so I've decided this will be the kitchen. Makes sense to me- it's on the ground floor and this will leave the two bigger rooms to be the gig room/living room and the bedroom. I also feel that, in terms of the basic decorating, the bathroom and kitchen will be the most straight forward so that's where I'm going next (and it's literally attached to the bathroom so I've been looking at it and starting to plan it whilst doing the bathroom).
Now, I feel like every squat kitchen I've been in (and trust me, there's been a few!) have all been the same particular shade of (now murky) yellow. So that's what we're doing!! Some vintage farmhouse tiles to break it up a bit and hey presto! I can almost smell the vegan stew and cheap cider already!
I spent a few days daydreaming about making furniture, trying to work out the best materials and techniques to use. I saw a post online about making a toilet out of cardboard and thought that was a good idea- I drew out the shape of the toilet (top down view) and cut it out, then cut out more copies of the same shape but slightly smaller each time, then slightly bigger to get it to flare out a little at the base. I glued them all together. It did look a little like a toilet (cue happy dance)! This is where I got a little careless and impatient (first time of many)- The idea was to sand it down to improve and neaten the shape. I started to do this, and it was going well but I decided it would be better (faster) if I got out my rotary tool (that I've used once before) and used that to sand it. It would have worked great but I should have used either my tiny craft vice (super cute btw) or at least a pair of tweezers or pliers to have a better grip on it as the rapidly rotating sander sent the tiny toilet straight out of my hand and into the ether of my cluttered living room. (I also feel my fingers were in danger...)
So, attempt number 2 – I decided to carve the basic shape out of polystyrene and cover it in air dry clay. I feel I now need to explain once again – I am impatient, I have adhd and I am also trying to just use what materials I have around the house. I had some polystyrene to hand so figured -”perfect!” however there are different types of polystyrene and some will be better suited to a project than others. For carving tiny toilets I feel the dense, foam polystyrene would be best. I had the bobbly type made from little balls of polystyrene. This tends to break up as you try to carve it, I remembered seeing people use hot knives to cut through it so there I sat: huddled over a tealight with a craft knife and spoon (thinking it would be a very bad time for social services to call round...) This did work better- melting the balls into place as I carved. Then I took some air dry clay, watered it down into a paste and smeared it over the shape. While this dried I took some black plastic packaging and cut out the shape of a toilet seat and lid, glued them together and stuck on a couple of tiny strips of foil for hinges. I was very pleased with how this turned out and did an extended happy dance. (Maybe one day I’ll include a video of said happy dance....)
I finally got around to buying myself a pad of graph paper so I can make better scale sketches of things I want to make and room layouts etc. This'll be sooo handy for other stuff I'm doing too I just haven't gotten around to getting one up to now- I was actually putting it off because I thought I had one somewhere but god knows where that is...
Im finding it a lot easier to fully visualise everything when I can draw it out to scale, even if its not accurate (its not). I have managed to remember some stuff i learnt in school and have managed to assemble some boxes from “nets” (is that what they’re called?) out of thin cardboard, in various sizes to be made into kitchen furniture and appliances. I started simple- made a long set of cupboards with doors made from wood effect vinyl with tiny slivers of foil for hinges and handles. I made a sink and draining rack out of foil and cut a rectangle out of the top of the shelves to inset it into. I’m just putting off making the taps while I wait (and hope) to find the perfect thing to make them out of. (I keep digging through boxes of my kid’s lego trying to find anything that looks even vaguely like tiny taps!). I fear Im going to have to make them from scratch and I’m a little scared...
Then, one childfree night I got carried away and stayed up waaaay too late watching podcasts and making a tiny fridge freezer and cooker! I used the humble box net again as the bases. For the cooker I made one square box, and added a strip of the same thin cardboard (I have 2 long strips of this, each about a metre long, I believe they came from the box of some flat pack furniture but I’m not sure....) along the back and folded over to make the top with a thin strip across the front. I cut out a small square of black plastic and bent some wire from a dismantled safety pin around into a curved zigzag, glued this to the plastic and painted it red for the filaments of the grill. Then I cut and bent some pieces of craft wire to make a frame for over the hob which I made from cardboard and foil. I glued everything in place and was rather chuffed with how it all came together! (cue another happy dance!) for the oven I spent many hours (on a different day) swearing at my computer trying to figure out how to scale down and print a picture of an actual oven front. I didn't like that the knobs (heh) were 2d so just used the door and sliced fine slices off the end of a bamboo skewer, painted them white and stuck them on!
Made a tiny pot from tin foil which will be filled with some kind of generic vegan slop later...
The fridge freezer again started life as a basic rectangular box. I cut a slit halfway down for the doors and used just another small strip of cardboard shaped to look like the “handle” strips along the bottom and top and then glued the freezer shut. For some reason I decided that having closed doors would be cheating and that it needed to be more obvious that it's a fridge freezer by having the fridge door ajar with the contents on show... (why am I like this?!) I glued white paper on the inside to cover the graph paper that was still visible (I drew the nets onto graph paper then stuck them to the cardboard and cut them out with a craft knife. (honestly, it's a miracle I still have fingers).
I still had some sturdy clear plastic packaging left so cut out some squares and added tiny strips of card along one edge for the fridge shelves and made a little salad drawer and a couple of door shelves. I’ll worry about fridge contents later- thats a little intimidating to think about just now but rest assured that somewhere in the back of mind I'm busy trying to figure out how to make wilted veg that was found in a skip...
Bathroom update- toilet is finished! - it now has a cistern and pipe made from cardboard and a plastic bendy straw!
Looking back over these pictures I'm super aware that they're not as "polished" and well finished as a lot of those I see online. I have pangs of "why are you sharing this" or even "why are you bothering". But I'm doing my best not to be hard on myself, for starters they're not finished, they're for a miniature squat. I'm going to be painting them to be covered in dirt and grime and rust and stickers. (Not saying that all squats are filthy and run down but this one will be!) Also, I am a beginner, I've not made these things before and I am clumsy and impatient- they are going to be lopsided and covered in gluey finger prints!
There is a lot of trial and error and learning involved in arts and being creative. I really do think that "believe in the process" is a great saying! At the end of the day the enjoyment of these projects isn't so much in the finished project it's in the making of them- the learning and doing. You can't learn or progress or improve without some failure along the way. It's all part and parcel of it and we can't beat ourselves up for it. I'm a big fan of the Blindboy podcast and he talks alot about the importance of failure. I recommend him heartily to anyone and everyone at every opportunity and especially if youre having any issues with mental health. It's helped me a lot. Great guy. Can't wait to see him live again next year ...
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