A Randomly Selected Newspaper Headline:

The following is a randomly selected newspaper headline from many years ago:

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I have also added a separate page to the blog for the Tower of Magic with a brief summary of all the rooms of the ToM in the one spot. The link is just below this and above the main body of the blog, or you can just click here.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Accessorising


With the furniture (mostly) finished, I've been adding accessories to the 24th scale house this week.


In the scullery, the dresser is now filled with linens while more are hung up to dry on the drying rack.


There are an assortment of odds and ends in the kitchen from plates and platters to cannisters and the odd bit of food.


The entry hall is still fairly bland and empty at the moment though.  The red chair in the photo is not staying there it just one of those pieces I made especially for this house (the lab on the top floor to be precise) before coming to the decision that it just won't fit in.


In the surgery, the cabinet has been filled with books but not a lot else has been added.


The sitting room furniture has moved about again and a couple of small ornaments added.


The upstairs hall is another quite bland space in need of some pictures on the walls and maybe a vase of flowers on the desk.


Now the bedroom . . . It really does not look like a man's room does it.  Between the lacey wallpaper and floral sheet on the bed it has a definite feminine feel.  Despite the fact that it was supposed to be a masculine room, I'm quite happy with how this room is shaping up at the moment.


Not so happy with the bathroom.  My idea to coat carved blocks of balsa wood in pollyfiller to create the bath, sink and loo worked quite well.  When it came time to paint it I discovered I had absolutely no white paint left (dirty off-white yes, but that would look terrible as a bathroom suite).  So rather than but more paint and wait a week or two for it to arrive in the mail I went for plan B and painted the suite forest green instead.  I can't quite decide whether the colour works or not but as it will be so hard to cover with white, green it is going to stay.



The final room is the lab.  As you can see, there is absolutely no room for that red chair.  There is lots of space to store books and scientific equipment and supplies.


On the central table a green liquid is being distilled to create a blue liquid.  The rug on the floor is a cut out from an old dollshouse magazine.


There is still a lot to be added to this house but at last it is finally starting to look like I might actually be in sight of finishing it.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

A Few Sticks of Furniture


Lately, I've been focussing on filling the 24th scale house with furniture.  The kitchen has the usual shelves and tables all made of balsa wood and painted in a dark blue.  I've also made a basic range oven and fitted it into the recess at the rear of the kitchen.


The raised area on the right of the kitchen has become a scullery/laundry area with a balsa wood sink on the back wall.  At the front of the space is a airing rack made by impaling sewing pins through balsa wood dowels.  Between sink and rack is a shelf unit made from a kit.


Above the kitchen is the Entry Hall which is now home to a small corner table, a narrow seat and a hall stand, all finished in tones of brown.


Next door is the doctor's surgery/consulting room.  Most of the items in here are pre bought furniture with the obvious exceptions of the unfinished screen and desk which have been hand made from balsa wood.


Up yet another floor is the sitting room.  The pre bought suite in here has been augmented by a upright piano and secretary desk, both in balsa.


Next up is the bedroom.  As usual I intended to have the bed head on the back wall but ultimately came to the conclusion that the layout worked so much better with the bed on the side wall.  This was meant to be a masculine bedroom but the lacey wallpaper gave it a decidedly girly vibe so the furniture was painted in a very dark brown to try to counter this.


On the top floor, I have a cunning plan for the bathroom fittings.  Last time I bought a 24th scale bath set (bath tub, sink and loo) the bath tub was quite clearly too small and out of scale.  As all the other set's I've seen look to have the same problem I decided to save some money and make my own.  Above you can see the first stage of this process which is to carve a rough shape out of balsa wood for each item.  After taking the photo I coated each piece in pollyfiller.  I am now in the process of sanding this smooth to (hopefully) create a smooth porcelain effect.


The final room of the house is the lab, which may yet become a library or more likely will be a combination of the two.