Mahogany Chippendale Secretary

Here's a little secretary I finished recently from a kit.

I just love these House of Miniatures kits; they go together so nicely and the end result looks great, I think.

I've been piddling around recently, working on furniture and accessories rather than building Myrtlewood. The truth is, I'm mostly building the Manor to have some place to display my furniture and accessories. But now I'm going to crack the whip on myself and get back to my construction duties. Sigh.

Pedestal Tables

I found these beautiful egg stands on Amazon - about US$8 for two - and thought they would make really ornate pedestal tables for Myrtlewood's ballroom.
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These are made of some sort of metal and a very nice weight; I guess they have to be heavy enough to hold the marble or stone eggs they are sometimes used to display. They were a little too shiny right out of the box, so I used some burnt umber paint to tone them down and age them a bit.

I made the "marble" tops from polymer clay.

I made two of these for the ballroom. I also bought a few ostrich egg holders; they're shorter but wider around. I haven't decided exactly what to do with them yet - maybe an entrance table or a chess/game table? Let me know if you have any ideas.

New Arrival

A month or so ago, I had a birthday, in celebration of which my mother sent me a card and a check. Now, normally I very responsibly (and boringly) just pay bills with birthday money, or save it for some future use. But my mother specified that I was to use it to purchase something for Myrtlewood Manor. And it's not nice to disappoint one's mother, is it?

Mom, I know you mentioned that I should maybe buy a working clock (and I do want one of those eventually; just haven't figured out which kind yet), but I've had my eye on something for a long time that will remind me much more of you.
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This is a Heidi Ott working sewing machine, which just arrived in the mail today. The little treadle pumps up and down, turning the wheel on the right and causing the needle to move up and down. There's no place to actually thread the needle (which isn't all that sharp, actually), so it won't actually sew (so maybe "working" is a bit misleading), but I just love all the moving parts.

I also bought the matching bench, which opens for storage. I think this machine and bench are a lot like the ones my grandmother had when I was little, at least I remember being fascinated by the "secret" storage in the bench.

Thanks so much for my birthday gift, Mom! And, because I got this on sale, I think I still have nearly enough to purchase that clock, too, once I finally figure out which one I want, that is.

Globe Makeover

I've been having a lot of fun lately taking inexpensive, mass-produced miniatures and remaking them into miniatures with a more unique look. Here's a globe I finished recently.
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Here's the gobe I started out with - I bought it for US$6-7 on eBay.

Now, to me, this piece looked much too modern for Myrtlewood, so I had to "antique" it a bit.

First, I carefully took everything apart and stripped the finish off the wood. Then I restained all the wood and applied a satin finish. This by itself greatly changed the look of the piece.

I replaced the gold bead feet with mini casters. I absolutely love these little casters! They made their first appearance on my cellarette, and will probably find their way onto several pieces in the future. If you want the piece to roll, be careful to apply all the casters facing the same way. While they actually roll (which I love!), mine at least do not swivel, so they must all face the same direction.

Then I got creative and decided to redo the globe itself. To maintain accuracy, I can't have a modern-day globe in an 1880s library! First I searched out antique globe gores on the internet, resized them on my computer, printed them, cut them out, and carefully glued them over the top of the globe. The result was too horrible to photograph. The paper would not lay flat against the globe, and the more I fiddled with it, the lumpier it got!

I finally chucked the whole thing and started over with a 1 1/4" wood ball, which fortuitously was just the right size. I drew on all the continents by hand and then painted them. This was a laborious process that I do not care to repeat, but I think the end result looks nice, and I'm glad I did it. To me, the globe looks a lot more Victorian, and isn't too recognizable as the modern piece I started with. What do you think?

Cellarette Redux

Some months ago, I built a little cellarette from a kit. As I mentioned in my previous post, I wasn't altogether happy with the way it turned out. I spent a little time recently reworking the piece and like it a lot more now.
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First, I added some higher-quality hinges to the lid so it would open and close without binding. Then I added a lock to the front and built and installed a divider in the main compartment, similar to those I've seen in pictures of real-life cellarettes.

I beveled the top ege of the lid for an overall less boxy appearance. This little detail isn't very noticeable from a distance, but I think it makes a big overall impact nonetheless.

I found these adorable little casters (the wheels really turn!) and added them to each leg.

Finally, I lined the drawer with green "leather" (actually, just some scrapbook paper I have in my stash).

I think it looks a lot more realistic now, and that's one of my main goals in my miniature endeavors. What do you think?

Cellarette

I decided to take a break from my endless floor construction and build one of the furniture kits I've been stockpiling. In the 70s and early 80s, when miniatures enjoyed substantially more popularity than they do today, X-acto made these great little furniture kits, miniature replicas of real-life American antique furniture, mostly in the Chippendale, Queen Anne and Hepplewhite styles. Each piece is precision-milled with lots of detail, and they go together pretty easily. Sadly, these are not made anymore; I've been buying most of mine on Ebay and have built up a pretty sizable collection.
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This kit was for a cellarette, a small cabinet used to hold wine or other spirits. I searched online and found a few real-life examples of antique cellarettes:



The kit was pretty easy to make. After reading the instructions, I sanded, pre-conditioned and stained each piece.

I chose to stain each piece first, rather than staining after I had the entire cellarette assembled, because I used regular wood glue to put it together. Any place on the wood you get the glue will no longer take a stain. Some people are just very careful with their gluing. I am also very careful with my gluing, but for some reason always use just a little too much or too little, and don't want to take the chance. So I always stain first.

Here's the final product, finished with a few coats of polyurethane:

I'm not completely satisfied with how this turned out. The hinges that came with the kit are a little flimsy and don't want to close all the way, so I'll probably replace them with some of higher quality. I'm thinking about putting a small lock on the front of the box, like you can see in the pictures of the real-life cellarettes above, and I may add some casters to the legs, too, if I can find some small enough.