So, I moved. From start to finish, it happened pretty fast, but it didn’t feel that way when we were carting carloads of stuff from the old house to the new house — including 20+ dollhouses!
Here’s Rosy, a bit out of sorts, sharing the back seat of my car with several dollhouses during the move. She was a very good girl.
As I was packing up my workshop — a task I plan to never repeat, but I’m sure I said that last time, too — I took pictures of a few things that I’ve acquired (somewhat) recently and hadn’t posted about yet. But first, here are photos of the nicest workshop I’ve ever had.
Geoff made me this workshop in a corner of the garage not long after we moved into this house. Last year, after some of my dollhouses got damaged from sunlight and damp air, he revamped it by leveling the floor and adding insulation, a pocket door, and a heater.
The cabinets were just the right size to hold the large plastic bins containing all my mini supplies.
I’ll miss you, climate-controlled workshop. :(
You might have noticed a relatively new addition to my collection in the photo above — an attic room box built into a trunk.
I bought this roombox off eBay as a birthday gift to myself. I’ve seen one or two like it on eBay before, and I’m pretty sure I read on one of those past auctions that it was made by Bauder-Pine, but I don’t have proof of that. (If anyone knows, please email me!) Turns out this trunk is from a Bauder-Pine workshop at the NAME 1987 national convention in Atlanta. Special thanks to Pam Junk and her impeccable memory. :)
I’ll post more pictures of this soon when I start playing with it, but here are a couple for now. There’s hidden lighting (stored under the top of the trunk) that shines in through the window and between the shingles.
I’m planning to replace the wallpaper behind that door.
Moving on, here are a set of chairs I made from Red Cottage Miniatures kits. They’d been sitting half painted on a shelf for a long time and I decided to finish them before packing them up. (I haven’t unpacked them yet, so I hope the legs stayed put!) I’m going to put them in the kitchen of the Queen Anne Rowhouse.
Here’s another eBay purchase — a hand-painted half scale baby house. I’ve seen baby houses before and was never really tempted, but for some reason this one screamed “buy me!” I planned to put it in the attic of the Little Belle, which will be a girls’ bedroom, but I didn’t check the measurements before I bought it, and the ceilings are slightly too low. Oops.
Baby houses are cabinet dollhouses, but they’re not exactly dollhouse sized dollhouses. Meaning, a 1:12 scale dollhouse for a 1:12 scale dollhouse would be 1:144. A 1:12 scale dollhouse for a 1:24 scale dollhouse would be 1:288 (yikes!). But the ceilings in baby houses are a bit taller than a dollhouse sized dollhouse, more appropriate for 1:87 scale furniture (HO scale). So I think the furniture for this 1:24 scale baby house should be around 1:160 (N scale).
No idea where I’m going to find anything that tiny, but some day I’ll accept the challenge! For now, it just looks pretty on a shelf.
These next items I bought at least two years ago, but I never posted about them. These coincidentally turned up on eBay at around the same time, from two different sellers. The easel and painting are signed by Ruth Mazur. I don’t know who made the doll.
She doesn’t stand up by herself, but she can lean on the easel with her paintbrush.
Before I bought these, I turned a little gatorboard shell from a flea market into an artist’s cottage with an adjoining studio, but I never expected to find a half scale artist doll to live in it!
I’ve been putting off finishing the art studio due to a lack of accessories, but I can use some of the recent arts & craft swaps in here, including the matte spray can and paintbrushes I made for the swap.
I’m also making a sleeping loft inside the cottage (something else that has been sitting unfinished for a long time).
One more picture from inside the cottage. I love these little cactuses! (Note: cactuses is an acceptable plural for cactus; I looked it up.) I got the one in the front at a flea market, and the one in the back came from a swap.
Now, from one artist’s studio to another, here’s the workshop in my new house.
This is a detached, almost 400 square foot studio, and it’s all mine! I’ve never had this much space for my minis before and I’m kind of shell-shocked…
Unlike the studio I left behind, this one is definitely not climate controlled. The brick and cinderblock walls need to be drywalled, the floor needs to be leveled, and the windows should probably be replaced (or at least have screens added).
This fireplace, which is not usable, will be removed at some point. But for now it gives me a good way to store dollhouse kit boxes.
My plastic bins of supplies, which were neatly stashed away in my old workshop, will have to be stacked up until the studio gets renovated. There’s also no sink in this building. Most of my finished dollhouses are stashed inside the real house until we see how the studio stands up against rain.
The studio even has its own garage! My idea is to turn this into a workshop area and use the main room more for display, but the building needs some help and it might not work out that way. Geoff has more pressing issues to tend to inside the real house, so I have to be patient. But someday *this* will be the best workshop I’ve ever had. :)
Emily is a freelance writer, miniaturist, and adventure game enthusiast.
What a great houses ooo that cacte houseplants beautiful!
have a nice day,
groetjes van Marijke
Looks like a great workspace! Wish I had the room to put all the houses displayed like that and I love the shelves for the bins! The craft cabinet is also much admired. I have to reorganize my stuff! And that attic looks great in the trunk. The little art studio is nice, too. Only fun in packing/unpacking – looking at treasures! :)
Looks like you will have a wonderful space after you guys get yourselves all sorted out. Congratulations on finding a perfect niche!
Wow, you hit the jack pot. It looks like an awesome space. My dream office/ workroom would have a fireplace but I understand that you need to take it out. How cool to have a room for display and then a true work room.
You do awesome work so I know the room as well as all the future projects are going to gorgeous !!
Congratulations on the new house and studio.
Kim
Congratulations on your new huge workspace. That’s really cool.
I’m so jealous!
Congratulations on the new home and work area! Space to create is such a dream…what a shame the fireplace does not work as it would be a cozy addition on cool days/evenings. Once you have the time to plan your ideal work areas and display cabinets this will be an ideal location.
Exciting! It’s a wonderful new space that I’m sure Geoff will eventually make as perfect as the old space. Congratulations on your move!
What a great space. You will have so much room. Moving is such an inconvenience until you get settled and then you begin to look for things that either got misplaced or lost during the move, or even thrown out. We moved 11 years ago, and I still don’t feel settled. I didn’t have the dollhouses then, so I’d hate to move again because the next move will either be to assisted living or something less dreadful. Either way, my village probably won’t make the move. But I’m not moving. Enjoy your new home and your new workshop. We will enjoy watching you continue to work.
Oh my! Your new space, once you ensure it is weather tight and tailor it to your needs, will be the envy of the mini blog community.
Emily, the attic room in a trunk was a Bauder-Pine workshop at the NAME 1987 national in Atlanta. :)
Hi Pam, great to hear from you! Thanks for the details! The seller said she had another one that was done as a bedroom, but she didn’t know the background. I think she was selling off an estate.
Congratulations on the move! That looks like it will be a wonderful work space!
Congratulations Emily. Your new space is lovely and will be perfect once you make it your own. It has such nice light and sooo much space.