THE HOUSE: RENOVATION.
discovery • renovation • worldly goods • textiles • the library
From the beginning, the guiding principle of the renovations has been to preserve whatever original details and finishes could be preserved. Any additions attempt to blend with the original, copying as far as possible its naïve but charming style. I don’t want the house to fool the eye with incredibly fine detail. I want it to look frankly like what it was and is: a toy. This has meant choosing things like full-scale wallpapers over miniature versions–a feature often found in old dolls’ houses that were decorated by their owners with scraps left over from the dining room and the drawing room. The original woodwork was also very simple–arrangements of 1/4 and 1/8 strips of wood, with wooden beads for finials. Happily, this level of craftsmanship was something that I felt I could achieve–even though I had only the barest idea of how to do it.
One of the earliest photos I took of the house exterior. The base (cut from a wooden crate) had just been painted for the first time, and it occurred to me I might want to compare the before and after. All the windows but one are missing, and most of the period grime is still in place.
The oldest photo of the full interior, showing the original six rooms. The missing floors have been replaced, and three have a coat of primer. The design of the house, with its removable floors and central wall, is ingenious. Only the elevator (here parked on the ground floor) and its shaft are permanently fixed.
The elevator is a near-copy of models found in turn-of-the-century houses by Gottschalk, German toymakers famous for stylish and well-appointed miniature buildings. The test flooring here is still Masonite, soon replaced by "proper" 1/8 inch plywood.
Mr Boxe surveys the progress. This is the first photo of either of the gentlemen in what would become their home.
When Mr Foxe paid his first visit a few days later, the hall was looking much smarter.
All the floors painted. The sitting room, office, and bedroom floors will each get a decorative painted border.
The first version of the "starry" attic roof. Its papers, and all the wallpapers in the house, are full-size reproductions of period designs, painstakingly created by hand by Bradbury & Bradbury.
I decided not to let a near-complete lack of experience keep me from building some interior features that would be very, very expensive to buy as antique originals, like a fireplace for the sitting room.
I began to plan for the textiles in the house. These needed to be, in so far as possible, antique originals, made from antique materials, or worked according to antique models. The sitting room carpet swatch shown here was based on the Victorian chart at the top–a gift from a generous reader.
While the interior was coming together, the exterior still suffered from broken trim and missing windowpanes. The original panes, one of which remained as a fragment, were of celluloid. I decided to upgrade to luxurious glass.
Before the glass, however, the house needed to have the window frames mended and painted. I was still not quite sure what to do about the two dormer windows, though. The rest of the paintwork was gently cleaned, but left as-is.
The owner of a wonderful framing shop in my neighborhood agreed to cut the window glass to my specifications. It wasn't until I had it in hand that I realized I wasn't entirely sure how to install it. In the end, however, it worked.
I also sorted out a solution, or at the least the start of one, for framing and glazing the dormer windows.
It was at around this time that I decided the flat roof, which only bore the scar of its lost chimney, would be greatly enhanced by a balustrade. This would also give the gentlemen a terrace with sweeping views.
The overall effect was not quite right yet, but it was a solid beginning.
The elevator became both safer and more stylish with the addition of a brass grille, intended originally to form part of a lamp.
The house would have been nearly complete, had I not realized Enid could work in a proper kitchen if I excavated the base of the house. I made the first cut, then paused for a brief moment of heart failure.
Before I knew it, the cutting was done–leaving me no choice but to move ahead with the kitchen.
The base was fitted out with studs to reinforce its stability and to hold the new walls. In the lower right corner is the elevator mechanism.
Dry-fitting the walls. The front wall at the right rear covers the elevator mechanism, and is made to slide out if maintenance is necessary.
Before being put in place permanently, the walls were painted (with a green reminiscent of the shade favored in Edwardian kitchens), and papered with another full-size High Victorian paper from Bradbury and Bradbury.
The kitchen floor, painted in cream and green-grey.
A set of bells for Enid to answer. Alas, they were finished before the library/solarium wing was built, so when in that part of the house Foxe and Boxe have to shout.
The cut-out front of the base now became a cover for the kitchen opening, held in place with homemade wooden latches.
Once again, it would have been reasonable to consider the house completed. But those two slivers of vacant base to the right and left suddenly looked...naked.
The space to the right was to have been a tiny garden. I had even ordered a cut-out balustrade from our favorite carpenter. But I had collected so many potted plants by this time that a greenhouse seemed more appropriate.
Designing and building the lattice to close up the front of the greenhouse was one of the most challenging–and fun–bits of miniature carpentry I've ever done.
All it needed now was the glazing and, of course, the plants. The balustrades that had been intended for the garden in this area became decorative elements for the greenhouse roof and walls.
To the left, I wanted a two-story addition with a library below and a solarium above. Our favorite carpenter obligingly cut the walls, floors, and skylight to our specifications. The wallpapers are, yet again, designs from Bradbury and Bradbury.
I was afraid that new-bought cornice mouldings wouldn't blend well with the house's originals. This gave me an excuse to get out my wood planes and cut some myself.
Cutting mouldings creates a lot of wood shavings, which are very pretty in the sunshine. They smell nice, too.
Construction was not without (many) bumps and scrapes, as usual. But the result was much as I had hoped it would be.
The right sort of kitchen sink in 1/16 scale was virtually impossible to find, so I chose to make one based on photos of some period toy examples.
A basin and a drainboard, supported by a sturdy "brick" base.
Surely, aside from glass in the new windows and minor finishing touches, the renovations must be finished now? No. Not quite.