The flooring in the old wooden house

Building the timberframed house for my mother-in-law was lot's of fun. The outside she wanted more or less historacly correct, so there was no room for arguments there. But the inside... that was a whole other ballgame.

"Tiles" she said, when i asked her about the hall and kitchen. She was quite sure about the look she was after, but where to find it??

World&Model had some that came close, but she disposed of them. Not to her taste. Tiny Ceramic's from Rita Kruger was more up her street. Real tiles and of great quality. But at Dollhouse-Tiles, run by Graham Simkin, she found what she was looking for.

Although not realy ceramic, the acurate dimensions of the individualy CNC cut tiles meant that an intricate mosaic floor could be laid. She chose a design and I took measurements of the hall, bathroom and kichenfloors. As they sell their mosaic tiles in pack of 6x4 inch, I had to calculate how to place the patern, and how wide the borders would need to be, for me to finish with a neat edge. I checked the maths several times before ordering ;-)



I glued the tiles on cardboard with the desired dimensions on it, and placed them afterwards in position.



The hallway, as you can see the most intricate. After that, the kitchen and bathroom where 'a piece of cake'



The kitchen



and the bathroom. For the rest of the house, ie the livingroom and bedrooms I picked americam oak. Hardwearing floors that would suit the new owners. I cut a wide variaty of boards out of veneer, and gave them a beveled edge. I glued and nailed them in place and gave them all a final buffing with floorwax.





With the exterior and flooring compleet it was ready for the interiour design touch of the new owners. That's for the next episode.

2 reasons to do a little dance

I am so happy, that's such a good feeling at the start of 2010 ;-)) The reasons are these;

First of all there is the fact that Roberta is nr 100 to follow this blog. Welcome Roberta! Go and look for the cats that pop-up here and there on her blog ;-)

I must apologise for not welcoming all previous followers, so WELCOME to everybody who comes to visit here!!! But it feels a bit ambivilant to celebrate this number. On one hand; this blog is not about numbers, I am not out here to get as much followers as possible. At some communities (Hyves, facebook etc.) it seems to be all about the number of friends you have; the more the better and I hate that, I realy do! On the other hand it is nice to notice that you folks out there find my blog nice enough to follow. It feels like some sort of confirmation that the things I make have some quality and are worth to look at. It boosts my confidence and makes me want to continue on this path of quality rather than quantity, so thank you all.




The second reason to do a dance and shout Hurray! is Madelva. The editor of Miniaturas asked me late 2009 if they could do some articles about my miniatures. And yesterday I got the first issue's in wich they were posted!!! It showed again what a loss it is that this magazine is hard to get by in the Netherlands. Great pictures and I feel proud to be seen next to some awsome artists that are featured.



They did one about the kitchen of Nolda's house. I made drawings of the cabinets and explained how it was build up. The article looks great! I hope it will inspire.



The second one they did was about the interiour of the house itself. Lots and lots of pics, spread out over several pages. It is so weird to see your own work like this but it makes me so proud as well!!! Is there any better way to start 2010!?

a quilt for the Wooden house

Last winter (when it was cold and dark) I made a quilt voor Nolda. The masterbedroom at her house is north-faceing and therefore always a bit chilly. A quilt would make it more comfortable.

As blue is her favorite color I bought some old shirts at our local charityshop. Old shirts are perfect for making minatures as they often come with small designs and are made out of thin cotton. The same applies for ties. I always rumble in the box with ties, looking for some nice silk ones. If you undo the stitching and wash them well, you can use the silk for cussions etc. it's amazing what you can find, but enough of my collecting mania...haha





I tore the shirts up and figured out a design with blocks of 10x10 mm (25/64 inch). As I was ironing the seams row by row I could feel the fabric stiffening up. I had to find a way to solve that , otherwise it wouldn't drape naturally. I figured that the leaded rope that I tore out of some old net-curtains would do the job and I have sown that in all around the sides. The weight of the lead pulls the sides down but you can still pick it up and do something else with it. That's the advantage of lead instead of glue or modeling with wire.





It's 36·C up here today, so you can imagine that the quilt is now stored away.

How it all started, or The Timberframed House

Eversince my Mother In Law (further known as Nolda) was a child she wanted a doll's house. But you know how lives sometimes go... At the age of 60 that dream was still alive. One day, when the subject arose, she said to be displeased as she couldn't find the right house. "What are you looking for then?" I asked. A typical Zaans timberframed house, was her answer. And, as she said that, I knew there was only one solution; to build that -Ooh! so wanted house- for her.

First a bit of history. Our family lives in the Zaanstreek, closeby the famous Dutch tourist destination The Zaanse Schans. Because of the wood-processing industrie in the 17th and 18th century here (hence all the windmills) most houses were made of wood. It was widely available and cheap. Another advantage was that the boggie soil, common in this region, couldn't take the weight of building stones, so wood was the lightweight alternative. All of these reasons resulted in a type of timbreframed house, which is nowhere else to be found. And that is the type of house Nolda wanted.

Our love for architecture and local historie made research a lot of fun. Ideas came and went. So we did a lot of drawings and after some discussion (how practical is thàt?) Nolda finaly approved the plans. Building could commence...

and this is the result

the front and...

back

From left to right: a detail of the sideplanking. In the middle the toppost. A structualy needed element but decorated depending on the wealth and money of the owner. On the right a socalled buurshoekje. At that time (say 1800) you had to pay taxes in proportion to the amount of glas you had in your frontelevation. If you could reduce that amount by placing it at an angle and thus saving money, the avaricious Dutch would not hesitate.

From start to finish it took me 6 months. During the build I stumbled into all sorts of hick-ups as I had never build a dolls house before. For instance, access to the house... A drawing is nice, but I just had to take it as a guideline.

To give it all a sence of realisme and just because it was a lot of fun to do, I made a memorial stone and let our daughter Emma, the grandchild of commissionair, place it between the bricks. We made a little ceremony out of it and we all had a big laugh

Just befor Christmas 2006 we moved the house from our shed to their home. Those ten minutes in the car where realy realy scary, I can tell ya. From then on it was her house, but I was hooked; the minivirus had cought me ;-) But that's another story for another time. And so is what Nolda as the interior decorator has done to the inside of the house.

ps. You can click on all the pics to enlarge them and get a better view