Sunday 29 May 2011

The Tudor Dolls House - Work in Progress


1:12 scale Tudor dolls house 
My Tudor Dolls House started life as a two storey kitset farmhouse in a rustic style. I thought the half-timbered exterior would make a good Tudor house so the idea went from there. I added a third storey, a porch, a large chimney and an oriel window.
   But it is still a work in progress. The interior is done, most of the furniture and accessories are made and the exterior is almost complete. It seems to have taken ages but I've worked on it in fits and starts. In fact, at one stage, it was covered with a sheet for a year because I was feeling so guilty about not doing it! Out of sight, out of mind!
   Now the interior is divided into three storeys. A kitchen, screen passage and great hall on the ground floor; bedroom and parlour on the middle floor; and a bedroom, storeroom and chapel up top.
   One fun thing to do was to personalise the oriel window. I have a document with my family's coat of arms from 1672, so photocopied them, in a greatly reduced size, onto overhead projector film. I then used this to make the glass in the front section of the window, drawing on the black criss-crossed lines to simulate the leading around the diamond-shaped panes.
   Over the coming weeks, I'll post about the Tudor accessories I made and hints for doing the exterior and interior of the Tudor Dolls House.

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