Fixing here and fixing a little there

I slowly started to work on the roof today, well selecting a piece of wood. I found this in my fathers garage, a sign he had used when he sold his old car. It says "For Sale" in swedish, but rest assured, my house is not for sale!

Feeling rather daring, I painted the clock. The result is not perfect, but maybe they contracted a bad uninspired painter to decorate the case? I made sure to write "Mats Margit 1842" on it, it's time they got married. Then I can fast forward a few years so they can have some children. But I have decided to have this part of my cottage set in the 1840's.

And the windows are finally in place, properly fitted with logs to cover up the cardboard.

A lovenest is the making?

It was when making this piece of handy equipement that I cut my finger. Still scared of doing some serious carving in oak, and my finger, I decided to change material and use a thick kind of matchstick instead. It's a very handy thing to have in your house, since you can hang your wet socks above the fire. Then they will be nice and cosy when putting them on again.

Margit wanted you to meet Mats, her sweetheart. She says that he might not be a looker but he has some spiffing cows and is very very kind to her. He is dressed in the male folk costume. Special for his clothes is that they are made from the same cloth that the real ones are made of.

You might remember how the window looked in this room. It was so wrong, and yesterday I could not sleep thinking about how odd and horrible it looked. So I came up with the idea that I could make one myself. The picture is of course of the worse quality but it shows that the old window has been knocked out and something smaller has replaced it. The glass is painted but the paint is supposed to be lead. Well, this improvement might help me sleep tonight. And I have no idea why Mats is on the floor...

The Brown Cottage?

Today is my birthday, I am now 26 years old. And to celebrate this I almost cut my finger off with a scalpel trying to carve a piece of oak.

Been of miniatures for a few days, my boyfriend came to stay so we did the grand tour of this area. Nice being the tourist sometimes instead of the guide doing all the talking. But back to buisness. I am thinking of calling my cottage brown instead of red. The ceiling is now covered with wood and makes the room even more brown. The floor needs some work. They are too light.

The shelf in the corner is new, stained and ready and rests on the bensch. I tried making a small stol just for the fun of it. I have difficulties writing this since my fingers are wrapped up in bangages. Well, one have to suffer for art. Until tomorrow!

Bensches

In yesterdays post I wrote that I would "trim" the table. Trimming that table meant that I would glue two pieced of wood to it. As the picture show, I have added three bensches. Two of them are very simple, firmly attatched to the walls. Simple and rough, just like their real size counterparts. And very easy to reproduce in scale. The third bensch is a moveable piece. For me, it's quite easy to make this kind of furniture, but making them in full scale with the tools they used and material - strong solid wood. It must have been quite an ordeal.

Margit sat alone in her, almost, furnished cottage and told me she was feeling lonely. She wants a man. And some children.

Oh la la!

The cottage looks like a cottage now! Margit's given it her approval and decided to move in. So I made up one of the beds for her with a nice embroidered blue woolen blanket. And brought some smalls things to make it more like a home. I stained the walls yesterday, but the ceiling leaves lot to ask about. I have to cover it with wood. It's starting to look like a wooden box, but that is what it is about. Everything were made out of wood. Except the stove, mine has had a go-over with coffee to get some more colour.

And this is the table I made today. Mind that it's not trimmed and stained yet and is just a very raw piece of furniture. Will fix it tomorrow!

A stove in the making day 2

I have decided to take a break from The Yellow House for a time. After working on one room for more than two weeks I feel I really need a change. Lucky me I have The Red Cottage!

At work (an open air museum with old cottages) I sat down and had a proper look at the stoves and made drawings on how they were costructed. The picture is from a cottage from the 18th century, there is one cottage from the 17th century (we also have one cottage from the 13th century) but the lighting is very bad in there so no pictures. It is such a delight to have opportunity to make such close observations when creating a miniature based on an actual object. Even though the result can vary...

Making a more detailed study of the real thing made me compare with what I had started to make yesterday. If I had put some thought into it and not just run away with myself yesterday, I would have put the oven on the other side of the stove. There is a place for the open fire, used for both cooking, heating and light, and should hence be more centerplace in the room. My stove has the open fire section facing into the outer wall, and will bring little heating. Luckily for my house, heating is not a big issue and any attempt to follow historical accuracy has already gone out the window.

And this picture shows my progress with the room. I placed my cupboard bed in the corner and the wall that is supposed to be cut wooden logs I starting to build. They will need a bit of staining. And the floor needs to be more uneven. And the stove needs to be painted and blackend. I love this project!

Bam! There goes the wall!

Ok... So what happend here? Papa and I knocked out a wall in my red cottage. Why? So that I could have room for a proper stove, and create a room, separated from the hall. And this needed access from the back. I will put up a wall at a later point. The pictures are very bad, there was no light but I just wanted to get them up for you to see. There is a strange smell in the house now. It got a bit hot during sawing and the house started to smoke, I was afraid that it was going to catch fire. Stared working on the stove, it doesnt look much at present but that will change. Picture also show the "door" that will lead to the new room.

The cupboard bed

Now this is something new! At work today it was raining "cats and dogs" and there were no people at the museum. So I walked around and started thinking. About this bed... It's easy to get inspired when working in such an environment.

It's a traditional bed from the region where I was born in, typical for northern Dalarna. The straight translation is "cupboard bed". It can be one or two berths, most common is that one berth for sleeping and one for storage. This one does has two berths for sleeping. The one on top were reserved for athletic youngesters who could climb (or jump) to reach it. The bed looks smaller than it actually it, since the cupboard is centered, leaving a pocket for the feet. Every day, I explain to tourist how this bed works.

For me, it's also a personal story. I used to sleep in such a bed with my grandmother when we visited her summer house when I was a child. She in her turn slept there with her grandmother, during the 20's. My grandmother passed away, aged 94, last christmas and I feel the need to make miniatures of the things she liked. And it will be perfect for my little red cottage (not yet introduced in this blog)

To return to the subject. Since there were no tourist to guide, I went out and measured the bed, made a drawing and later sat and calculated the scale of the model. I ended up making a blueprint. Feeling very proud of this, I made the bed when I finished work. Mind, it's only a sceleton so far and lots of work need to be put in for it. Gosh, such fun!