"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 20th 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 mural 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!
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.
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 flooring 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?
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.