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.
