Dalton Georgian House Archives

Dollhouse Stairs: Who Needs ‘Em?

Ever make a mistake that you thought you couldn’t recover from? Sure, most of us have at one time or another.

Once, while working with two friends to make a big batch of jalapeno jelly for the holidays, I added twice the amount of sugar called for in the recipe. The substance cooking on the stovetop turned super thick almost immediately, forming heavy lumps of crystallized sugar. I knew immediately that there wouldn’t be any way to salvage the jelly. Or pacify my irritated cooking companions who’d spent their afternoon deseeding and dicing the fiery peppers.

Fortunately, mistakes are usually correctable. Or “a blessing in disguise,” as my mother would say. That’s what happened to me when I misread the kit instructions for my dollhouse staircase. Read on to see how I made the most of this mistake by turning lemons into lemonade.

Ditch the Staircase

A small confession, fitting, I guess, for a small work like a dollhouse.

I messed up the steps that were supposed to form the staircase. REALLY messed up, as in something you can’t correct. No amount of twisting, turning, or banging was going to separate those steps from the tacky glue I used to connect them.

Here’s where the lemons become lemonade, courtesy of Musa. Musa is a fictional character I turn to when I need inspiration, and I’m also featuring her in a series of upcoming novellas I’m working on. Here’s what she inspired me to do.

Ditch the stairs entirely. As we say in New Orleans, “fogit aboud it!”

Improving the Dalton House Foyer

Here’s a view of the dollhouse foyer from the manufacturer’s catalogue. The staircase consists of two up-and-down runs connected to a landing in the middle. As you can see in this picture, it consumes a lot of wall space, leaving little room for furniture or decoration. My unintentional mess-up resolved this, however unintentionally.

How did I blow it after thinking I was being so careful? I glued the landing step in the middle instead of the top of the staircase run, and the glue had set before I realized my error. The stairs just didn’t look right when viewed from the side, and nothing was going to change that.

The options were to either make my own staircase (staircase wasn’t sold separately by kit maker) or dump them entirely.

That’s when it hit me. I was aiming for a Downton Abbey style house, one that would cause someone to ooh and aah as soon as they stepped in the front door. Lady Sybil can’t make a grand entrance in a foyer that isn’t, well, grand. And as much as I like the Dalton House kit, its crowded foyer doesn’t cut it!

A Foyer fit for the Crawley Family

I love to travel, using my experiences for writing and crafting ideas. So in thinking of ways to give the foyer the look it needed, I found my path forward!

In a previous post, I included a picture of Grange Manor Bed and Breakfast in County Kilkenny, Ireland. This is a lovely Georgian era country home I visited in late summer 2021. It’s not on the scale of Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey was filmed but has the feeling of elegance and ease I wanted for the dollhouse.

Two things struck me about Grange Manor and similar houses I’ve seen from this period. First is the black-and-white patterned flooring often found in 18th century entry halls. (You might recall the same flooring in the wallpaper mural I used in the Dalton House parlor.) Secondly is the placement of the staircase behind or outside the foyer, rather than as its focal point.

Here’s how I fixed my staircase mess-up: ditch the stairs and instead add an impressive set of French doors. See how much larger the room seems both in ceiling height and room size! The door adds a new dimension, just as the wall mural did in the parlor of the house, suggesting a grander space befitting a Georgian mansion. I love this fool-the-eye effect and its ability to help a dollhouse live large and will definitely use it in the future.

Accessories

Completing the scene, several items were added to evoke a Downton Abbey era. These included:

A large portrait of a lady from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. The implication is that she’s a esteemed family member.
Early period telephone from the days when phones were limited to the upper crust. (I see Mr. Carson overseeing this apparatus.)
Framed photo of a woman on the entry hall desk
Lush Boston fern growing in a marble pedestal stand
A gentleman’s umbrella casually left in the corner
Antique Sheridan bench to accommodate visitors waiting to be received

This might be my favorite room in the dollhouse, and I learned a lot about going with mistakes, seeing them (like Mama did) as blessings in disguise.

My Georgian Doll House Muse

"Express your creativity. Delight in the mystery of your inner muse." 
- Cheryl Richardson

In Greek mythology, the Muses were the source of inspiration for the arts, science, and literature. These daughters of Zeus retained information of all things past and were the creative well spring for Greek artists, musicians, philosophers, playwrights, and poets.

What’s your muse? A new place you’ve visited? A book read or a song downloaded? Conversation with an old friend? Smell of Thanksgiving Day cooking? One of the nine muses might be speaking to you right now!

My inspiration for the Dalton House living room, in fact the whole dollhouse, derives from time spent living and traveling in England and Ireland. I love history and architecture and take lots of pictures of things that catch my eye.

Looking over my photo gallery after returning home, the Muse hit me: Georgian dollhouse but early 20^th century Downton Abby-like setting. I’m seeing early model telephones and radios, sheer drop-waist gowns with elevated hems, and a home that the Crawley’s might have chosen had they decided to downsize their residence.

Time to call your Muse interior designer, building contractor and work crew, I tell myself. Get out the paint and floor materials. Creativity abounds and a miniature marvel awaits!

Living Room Key Elements

With the dimensions 12″ x 14.5,” this room wasn’t designed by the kit manufacturer to be especially large, even by dollhouse standards. So, the challenge for me was making the room live large while still coming across as an inviting, yet elegant room.

Here’s when a muse spoke once again. While browsing miniaturist websites for an altogether different project, I landed on this dollhouse wallpaper m ural and as the Greeks would have said, Eureka! What better way to “expand” the room? Equally important to me, the mural depicted a scene that was architecturally accurate for great houses of the Georgian period: a series of rooms flowing one room to the other. Now this would definitely add some depth to the shallow room!

Wallpaper Mural in Doll House Living Room

At left is the mural installed in the living room. What do you think? The paper had to be trimmed first to fit the width of the wall; in order to place the furniture in the best position, I chose to put the door off center, rather than centered as in the original mural. I’m pleased with the visual impact this design element had on the room as a whole.

Dining Room at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England

Dollhouse vs. Real Life: How does the room compare to real-life houses of the Georgian period? Pretty well, in my opinion.

The photo to the right was taken at Chatsworth House, one of the most well known of England’s great country estates. On the rear wall is a view of a series of rooms running through the house visible through the door opening, similar to what’s depicted in the post-wallpaper dollhouse living room.

Hey, Jane Austen fans: some think Chatsworth was her inspiration for Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley. True or not, several outdoor scenes were shot there in the 2005 film “Pride and Prejudice.”

Furnishings

With the room basics in place, I began work on other furnishings.

Floors

After installing the wallpaper, I added high grade preassembled wood flo oring to the room. If I weren’t aiming for an elegant look appropriate to the style of the house and the Crawley family, I would have opted for something simpler, maybe more “cottagey.” This beautiful flooring did the trick however, and will be used in the remaining, yet unfinished, main rooms of the house.

wood molding

Using online tutorials, you can make your own molding and trim. But for my time and money, Hobby Lobby is an excellent source of inexpensive, pre-painted crown and dentil wood trim. The molding comes in several widths and styles, and is easy to cut with good quality miter snips. (Mine are Wiss Crescent Mold M45RS, and I don’t know what I would do without them!) You’ll see this molding in all my Dalton House rooms, and I think you’ll agree, it gives a genuinely nice, realistic effect.

fireplace

As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s not that hard to make a fireplace, and by going the DIY route, you save a lot of money. Depending on what you want yours to look like, there are a number of online tutorials available, so I won’t try to reinvent the wheel. For clear instructions, I like one from miniaturist Julie Warren.

I made my fireplace using 1/8″ thick foam board (white on one side, black on the other.) Ornamental touches are constructed from squares of layered card stock, craft sticks, and thin strips of printer paper.

The fireplace apron was constructed from several layers of cardstock glued together. I say “several” so you can determine for yourself how thick or thin a look you want.

On each of the four corners (two on edges of apron, two where front sides meet hearth), I added an ornamental square formed from two layers of cardstock. This gives the fireplace an elegant yet not overdone appearance.

I don’t remember where I got this idea from, so sorry for not properly crediting, but twists of plain printer paper were used to simulate the look of carved wood roping. Cut paper strips very think, then twist each strand to form a “rope.” Attach this rope along the fronts and sides of the fireplace. Do the same along the apron, letting the rope dip down to form a swag. Pretty good and easy way to imitate wood trim, wouldn’t you say?

Fire Place Made from Foamboard, Cardstock, Craft Sticks and Paper

Here’s the room finished off with furniture, mantel decor, wall mirror, library table and a vintage framed photo of a young man.

The photo is my father’s high school graduation picture from the mid 1930’s, a little later period than my Downton Abbey inspiration, but I liked giving him this place of honor in my work.

To further the 1920’s era look, I made a magazine rack and stacked it with miniature newspapers (Etsy printable downloads), one with a headline on the sinking of the Titanic. From online images of portrait paintings from roughly that period, I copied a large painting of a young girl to convey a sense of tradition and family for the dollhouse occupants.

A finishing touch is a cathedral radio made using an online tutorial and placed on the library table alongside a stack of books and wine bottles and glasses. Turn on the radio, pop the cork and hey, it’s a Roaring Twenties Happy Hour here at Dalton House!

Coming Soon: From Lemons to Lemonade!

In my next posting, read how a mistep on my part led to a better dollhouse.

The Dalton: A Georgian Era Doll House Kit

I’ve had a lot of fun with this doll house kit and think you might as well! It’s a seven-room, three-story Georgian period model from Welsh manufacturer Dolls House Direct. What I especially like about it is the front closing and nice exterior detail.

In this and upcoming posts, I’ll highlight my experiences with the The Dalton House. I hesitated for a long time before ordering the kit due to high international shipping costs and the scarcity of customer reviews. Through this blog, I’ll share what will hopefully be useful information for anyone who might have seen the house online but hesitated to order it as I did. As a starting point, let’s look at the major features of this doll house kit and its architectural origins.

Georgian Houses

The Dalton is an example of Georgian architecture which was popular from 1710 to 1830. Georgian buildings are recognized by their architectural symmetry, reflected in a front door at the center and rows of windows mirroring one another on each side of the door. Even today, you’ll find many living examples in the UK and Ireland. For historic and literary movie buffs, think film narrations of Pride and Prejudice or Emma. Yep, Jane Austen and her fictional character Elizabeth Bennett lived and moved in homes of this period.

Why I Chose It

I confess, I have an obsession. I like Jane Austen’s works way too much. I like Austen fan fiction way, way too much. When I saw it online, it immediately reminded me of the setting and characters in these fictional works.

I’m drawn to architectural design of this period, and on several trips to the British Isles have made a point of visiting and studying Georgian era houses as sources of dollhouse inspiration. Some choices I made in constructing Dalton House are a reflection of this inspiration, as I’ll point out in ongoing discussion of my construction progress.

Some Examples of Georgian Houses

What to Love or Not: Dalton House Pro’s and Con’s

There’s a lot to like about this doll house kit including:

High quality construction and solid material. When assembling, the parts fit together seamlessly and without any hitches.
The front is designed to resemble the exterior of a Georgian era house with a hinged front that allows you to open and close it.
The exterior detail gives house appearance of a stately piece of furniture when closed. The dollhouse is something you’ll be proud to display.
Fits on a living room console table or cabinet without overwhelming the room size-wise (3ft/900mm wide, 15”/381mm deep)

Some negatives:

While assembly is intuitive, directions are minimal. Kit isn’t well suited to dollhouse newbies.
Heavy and harder to move than average dollhouse. Suggestion: Get 2^nd person to help when attaching/gluing upper back of house.
Instructions on installing first floor steps are inaccurate. I wasted a lot of time trying to make them work before throwing in the towel and doing it my way. I’ve called this to manufacturer’s attention so they may have made subsequent corrections.

Overall

So, that’s the basic rundown on this doll house kit. As I work on completing the house, I’ll keep you posted, so stay tuned!