A couple posts ago, I mentioned how I was going to re-make my first apartment in miniature for the Undersized Urbanite dollhouse contest.  The contest closes tonight, and it’s as finished as it’s going to get.

I couldn’t leave out my sweet Border Collie that lived there with me.

I shared before a couple of the only photos I have of the cute little loft, and they were taken while my parents were preparing a house-warming party for me.  One was of mom in the kitchen.

Had to have the coffee cups hanging from the upper cabinet.  (Obviously, some things aren’t finished yet, like the windows and cabinets, and I forgot to paint the walls yellow before I assembled it .)

It was really fun making minis of objects that are special to me, and several we still have, like the chest used as a coffee table.  That was the hope chest my grandparents gave me as a teen.  The table in the kitchen was from my grandmother too.  Dad and I re-finished it before I moved in to the loft, and it’s still in our kitchen today.

The real apartment had a door on the hallway, but I didn’t want it here.  There was a good-sized closet in there, but it didn’t have a door on it, so I hung a blue bed sheet on a tension rod to hide my mess.

Dishes in the sink, as there usually were.

I have no pictures of the actual loft part of the apartment, but this is all there was to it.

It was so much fun remembering and re-creating the details.

BUT…most importantly here, since the contest is now finished (or will be at 8 pm), that means it’s time to go vote for your favorites!  There will be prizes awarded to the four miniature makers with the most votes.  Hop over to the Undersized Urbanite website, check out the amazing entries, and pick your favorites.

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The Undersized Urbanite dollhouse contest is officially open today.  If you’re interested in joining, just hop over and add your link (you can join before you actually start your project!).

This year, I’m going to re-create my first apartment.  It was the second floor of a carriage house turned into a cute little loft.  The whole thing was less than 400 square feet.  There was actually a ladder in the middle of the apartment that led to a loft where my bed was.  The loft was less than 5 feet tall at the highest point.

Unfortunately, the only images I have of the adorable little place are from the housewarming party my parents threw for me very shortly after I moved in.  So…apologies for the cluttered, crooked and flash photos that are about to follow.

Meet my mom, preparing food in my little kitchen:

The table was my grandmother’s, given to me by my mom.  Dad and I stained it black before I moved in, and it’s the same one that is in our kitchen today.

Here’s dad in the living room getting started with a margarita.  The loft had such nice, big windows.

Everything was covered in “temporary” slip covers until I refinished or re-upholstered them.  The furniture was all from the thrift store except for the hope chest that was a gift from my grandparents.

My little brother checking out the loft:

And the “entryway” and bathroom:

The bathroom had a closet to the left (you can see the curtain in the hallway).

And that’s all there was to it!  Recreating it in miniature will be a challenge since I’ve never actually built a structure before.  But the Hubs is going to help.  Hopefully a lot.

I’ll post progress here on the blog occasionally, to check out other miniature projects as people join in the contest, go over to the Undersized Urbanite.  All the projects will be listed on the front page.

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Last week, I mentioned a couple changes in the kitchen that I was going to talk about, but something I’m way more excited about came up. We spent part of last week in Lyon, France. The whole trip was awesome, but the one thing I couldn’t wait to share with you was a particular museum that the Hubs found in the “old city.”

I didn’t get a good picture of it, but the outside was lovely. But what was inside made me just giddy. It was a miniatures museum.

For those who aren’t too familiar with miniatures, the size can be hard to picture. If these rooms were life-sized, most of them would have 9 to 10 foot ceilings, 1/12 scale means that 1 inch is equal to 1 life-sized foot, which makes these rooms about 9 to 10 inches tall–or about the height of a butter knife.

(FYI: I walked all around my house this morning with a ruler trying to find a relatable item that was 9 to 10 inches tall–it was surprisingly difficult, hence the butter knife comparison.)

Or maybe more relatable is that a gallon jug would be about the size of your thumbnail.

I really loved this little studio.  The details were amazing:

(Photographing miniatures behind glass is hard.)

The variety of scenes they had was great.  Here is a concert stage:

And, they saved the best for last, but unfortunately for you, I took so many pictures on the first three floors, that the battery in my camera died. The creator, Dan Ohlmann, has done many 1/12 models of actual places in France, including restaurants, theaters, and one of my favorites: a natural history museum. I was hoping to grab some from their website to share, but really, their own photos are terrible. For some reason, they (very badly) photoshopped the artist inside many of the 1/12 scale buildings, making the buildings look HUGE. If you’d like to see more photos, you can find tons through Bing.

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It’s time!  The winners have been decided!  All of the entries in the dollhouse contest were fantastic. Get ready to see some amazing little spaces.  (You can still browse through all of the entries on the Undersized Urbanite website, they’re all so fun.)

The contest this year was divided into two categories: experienced and newbies.  There is a grand prize and a runner up in each.  (All images shared here belong to the ladies who created them.  If you would like to pin anything on Pinterest, please click over to their blogs and pin from there so they get credit for their hard work!)

Starting in the experienced category, the runner up is…

Lyssa at Can’t Have it Big? Make it Mini!

As always, Lyssa’s details are amazing.  You must go check out her tween room and the man cave…she thought of everything!

The grand prize winner in the experienced category is…

Cyd at Mini Mod Pod!

Cyd’s decor was inspired by a real mid-century house designed in part by Eero Saarinen.  The paneled roof she designed on the A-frame is so great!

The race in the experienced category was tight.  Honorable mention goes to Jane from MiniFanaticus for her entry.

I can’t get over the newbie category entrants.  You would NEVER guess that this is their first time with miniatures.  Be sure to click over to their blogs if you haven’t been following along already.

The runner up in the newbie category is…

Elizabeth at Wishcraft Studio!

Elizabeth built a half-scale (1 inch=2 feet) mill and bakery from scratch.  Her finishes throughout are just perfect–they look so real.

And the grand prize winner in the newbie category is…

Annejuli at The Road to Beacon Hill!

Annejuli made a candy shop called Samhain Sweets.  And she made almost every single thing in the shop herself.  Amazing.

Great work and congratulations, ladies!  Special thanks again to our lovely judges, Brae, Anna, and Victoria!  I know the decisions were hard and I’m glad I didn’t have to make any of them. 

PS: Brae has some lovely comments for the participants, they are posted here.

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Here is what the fisherman’s cottage used to look like:

Here is what it looks like today:

Moose can often be seen outside the windows of the cottage.

On an average day, this is what the cottage living room looks like.

But today, the fisherman is repairing his net.  (Thank you, Hubs!)  The camera stays out too, in case of more moose sightings.

The house is still under renovation.  The ceilings haven’t been restored yet.  And they have only just begun to work on the front entryway.  Drop cloths have been hung in the doorways to protect the rest of the house from the renovation mess, of course.

As always, work will continue on the little house, and updates will be posted.  If you’d like to see more about this house, the posts are here.

If you are participating in the contest, have your posts up by 8 pm tonight.  I can’t wait to see them!  They will be compiled and sent off to the judges, and the winners will be announced next Monday, here and at the Undersized Urbanite site.

The post The 2014 dollhouse tour appeared first on Little Victorian.

There are only 6 days left in the dollhouse contest already(?!).  I rushed through some of the remodeling of the house, and because of that, I’m unhappy with a lot of the results.  Much of what I’ve done will have to be re-done at some point after the contest is over.  So, to prevent more future remodeling, I’ve decided to stop work on the house itself and work on the fun part of filling it.

The house came with this pile of furniture when I purchased it:

Most of it is Petite Princess furniture from the 60s.  But it’s all in poor condition.  Many pieces are broken or missing legs or doors and the fabric pieces are all very stained.

I love these little side chairs, but with only a week left for the contest, I had to make slipcovers instead of attempting to reupholster them.

I picked up a few more new things too:

Unfortunately, the moose is not to scale…but he was a necessity.

The scrapbook paper was used to make a tile floor for the kitchen.

The paper was lightly sanded to give it a worn look and then glazed with Triple Thick.  Once it was dry (2 days), I scored the tile lines.  To age it and bring out the scored lines, I applied black shoe polish.

The fisherman apparently makes his own whiskey.  (I couldn’t resist the little barrels.)

I scored the lines with an X-Acto blade and painted it with watercolors.

The Hubs (who was once a commercial fisherman) is working on a very cool fishing-related project too.  The whole house will be revealed next week!

And lucky for me, there happens to be a miniature boutique on the premises where I can go shopping.   They carry some pretty cute linens and accessories. 

The post Furnishing the fisherman’s cottage appeared first on Little Victorian.

First, sorry to my RSS and email followers for the random quote yesterday.  I was under the impression that those types of posts would not be sent out like regular posts…working on fixing that.

How about a long overdue update on our second house?  (If you’re new here, renovating one house isn’t enough for me.  I also renovate miniature houses, and today’s post is an update on my current project: a 2′ tall fisherman’s cottage.)

Exposing wood walls and studs would be a lot easier if you actually had wood walls and studs…  Here is what I want:

What I have however, is wallpapered plywood.  Which makes me think this is one renovation job that would be easier in real life than in miniature.  So, I am building fake wood paneling and 2 x 4s.

The process starts with making cardstock templates of each wall and ceiling, then gluing wood strips (sold as dollhouse siding) to the templates.  Here are the supplies needed (not pictured: glue and wine).

Then adding “2 x 4s” to look like exposed studs.  Tedious, but fun.  The 2 x 4s will only go on exterior walls, because adding them to all the walls alone would take until May.  Here is the dry fitting:

Then all will be painted white.

However, there are a couple issues…  The wood strips are so thin that they are absorbing the glue like little sponges, and curling (and the same will be true for paint).  This could probably be fixed with spray glue and spray paint, but it’s 2 degrees outside right now and I don’t want to spray that nasty stuff inside.

I’ve been stacking books on top of the walls so they’ll dry flat, but within 30 minutes of taking the books off, the walls curl right back up.

Anyone have tips to keep glued objects from curling?

To get a picture of where I’m trying to go with my mini fisherman’s cottage, here is my inspiration board:

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Here is a rough estimate floor plan of my little fisherman’s cottage along with a few photos.  (Click on the image to see it bigger.)

As you can see, the dining room and entry way are going to be very, very tricky to decorate.  Since there are no open walls, just little door ways.

The second floor has two bedrooms, one above the living room and one above the kitchen and dining room.  (You can see the demolition has begun!)

Above the staircase is a little bathroom.

And above the entry is a hallway.  I had to remove the second story windows to reach it, so this photo is taken from the second story window.

One of the really fun things about this house is that it’s laid out like a real house.  Most dollhouses are only one room deep, which makes sense since two rooms deep, like this one, gets very difficult to decorate.  But, because of that they are also quite small if you translate their square footage to life-size.  For example, my other dollhouse, even though it is three floors and seems huge, in real life, it is only an 880 square foot house.

This house, however, because of the realistic floor plan would be over 1,300 square feet (bigger than our real house).  It also takes up most of my 5′ x 3′ desk because it’s so big.

The windows are actual glass, and actually double paned.  The pane dividers are made of paper and sandwiched in between the two panes.  The little shudders looked neat in pictures, but up close they were not great.  They were actually pieces of a cigar box from the 50s cut up and wrapped in paper.

Oh, the house also came with a big bag of furniture.  Which I artfully spread out and photographed and then promptly lost the photographs.  There’s cool stuff, I’ll show you sometime.

The post The official “before” dollhouse tour appeared first on Little Victorian.

We recently returned from being out of town for a week and a half.  And I haven’t done a thing with my cottage since purchasing it except stare and dream (and rip up some of the dead grass carpet, wow is that stuff stinky…).

Here it is again it’s current state:

I have big plans.  The biggest involves approximately 3,785,342 small popsicle sticks.  It’s going to take a while.  Good thing I have 7 1/2 months.  I will return next week with a guided tour and some of my plans.

So here is my official “entry” for the Undersized Urbanite dollhouse contest.  It’s not really an entry, since I am not eligible to win, and it will be removed from the list before the judges begin deliberating.

The contest is now open for you to join too!  Just go here whenever you’re ready.  We have a couple entries so far and can’t wait to see more!

Christina

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The details are out for the 2014 Undersized Urbanite dollhouse contest!  There will be lots of exciting changes made this year.

First, the contest will officially begin on September 30th, 2013.  And it will end on May 5th at 10am.

And the big changes?  Last year the winners were chosen by voters, anyone and everyone who wanted to vote.  But that came with a couple issues.  To fix them, the winners will be chosen by three judges: three very talented and professional ladies, who will be judging the dollhouses from 3 different view points.  One is an interior designer, one is a miniaturist and one is an interiors blogger.  We have Brae from Otterine, Anna from Ethos Interiors, and Victoria from Victoria Elizabeth Barnes.

The other big change is that this year, there will be two divisioins.  One thing I’ve always really wanted with this dollhouse challenge is to introduce DIY decorators to the world of miniatures, just like I was introduced two years ago.  It’s an awesome way to learn to decorate, and practice decorating without the costs and risks of life-size designing.

Because it could be intimidating and discouraging for newbies to enter into a contest against people who have been doing it for years, the two categories will be separated.  If you have never built, designed or decorated anything in miniature since being an adult, you get your own category.  No worries about not rising to the level of the pros, just have fun designing and decorating your dream loft, flower shop, English garden or soup kitchen.  Or a house…that will work too.

Because of the dividing of the two experience levels, there will be 4 prizes this year, a grand prize winner and a runner-up in each category.

The contest has a new (and soon to be improved) website this year at www.UndersizedUrbanite.com.  While I will still be blogging about my own dollhouse here occasionally, and probably have monthly updates on the contest, there will be a blog at the new Undersized Urbanite site.  It will have miniature tutorial round-ups, inspiring features and ideas, and resources.

So it’s time to start house hunting and planning!  On September 30th, make your announcement and head on over to the site and link up!

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