X-mas house part 1

Hi, remember me? Still struggling with my health. The official diagnosis is CFS (chronic fatigue syndrom), which in fact means no diagnosis, although the wise medical (wo)men can see that something is wrong. But what? So I divide my time between work, getting research after research (oh boy, I'm so healthy on paper, both physically as mentally), and resting. It's difficult to claim time for me, to do fun stuff. And especially for miniature work, because I'm a very much a perfectionist. Tiredness, lack of concentration and trying to make a perfect miniature don't get along! Next year things will change, and I will get time for a life again, one way or the other. From my point of view I have only two options: I will get healthy or I will lose my job. But until then, I do want to play again.

I thought it would be nice to make a cute little X-mas house, far from perfect, just trying some different techniques and tutorials that I would like to try. I had the idea to make an advent calender of it, as even without blogging, the number of my followers increased to above 300! Welcome to you all! But I didn't succeed getting enough done in advance. Something to do with moving 120 km from our previous home, while I have no energy, and my husband had a too close encounter with a table saw two weeks before the move... Literally very handy!!! Oh, it could be so much worse: it seems his hand will be fully functional again, we have managed to move before the deadline and I still can work on my little house, and publish as often as I can. 

So here it goes:

The house is made to fit in this box. Half of the box displays the inside of the house, the other the garden, as I wanted both. And this box is perfect for it.

I want to make no use of powertools this time, so for the floor I used a 1mm MDF, which can be cut with a knife. That works even better than sawing it.

Beneath the floor of MDF, I glued small lathes to raise the floor. I stiffens the thin MDF, while it also creates a bit of space beneath the floor, which can be used to organise electrics. At this point, I'm not sure if I will electrify the house, but we'll see. Light does bring a dollshouse to life.

The walls are made of sheets of balsa wood of 4 mm thickness. Less easy to cut, but nothing that a little bit of filler can solve. As you can see, I also cut the door out. Now I wish I hadn't done that. A fake door would have been good enough. Now I have to make a door that fits...

I once saw a castle wall, which used to be plastered, but at some parts the plaster had crumbled and the stonework beneath showed. It's uglyness being beautiful. I have thought about a possible way to simulate that in miniature walls and I tried my solution on this project. The first step is to cover the walls in airdrying clay. I made a thin sheet of clay by rolling it between baking-paper. It just needs to be thin, it does not need to be smooth. A little texture on the wall adds realisme.

 That sheet was glued onto the wall.

And I made brickwork by cutting a pattern into the clay, and working on the stones and space between the stones with a toothpick, a brush, etc. Everything to give it a more natural look.

I did the same to the front of the house, displaying some more brickwork and cracks.

The result stands here, but it still needed to dry. The moisture of the clay also got into the wood, which made the balsa wood to 'curl'. I placed books on it to prevent that, but a little bit too late. Also, I didn't want to leave the books on it all the time, as it slows off the drying proces. But the walls fit, you'll see in a next post.

I hope you enjoyed it so far, I think it's more fun when it comes to decorating the place.

Bye for now,

Marit