A Modern English
Cottage |
|
This is a
Glencroft English cottage I remodeled about two years ago. I
found the assembled kit in one of those group antiques shops and
bought it very cheaply for $25. The interior had been finished in a
very amateurish way with craft felt glued to the plywood floors, and
sheets of flooring glued to some walls as wainscoting, but it just
looked like 1960's rec room panelling. Pretty gruesome! The problem
with so many American dollhouses is that they are left open in the
back and the house has to sit in the middle of a space in order to
see the front and back. I left the "front" of this house to face a
window and made this new facade for the "back "using strips of wood
filled with spackling paste, and made the leaded windows by
hand-cutting narrow strips of adhesive lead used for weighting
fishing lures. I bought the house to accomodate furniture left over
from a larger English dollhouse that I am still working on. |
|
This interior may look somewhat familiar to
others who own a Greenleaf Glencroft kit house, but I divided the
bathroom into a boudoir
with a Bespaq desk and wardrobe with the plain bathroom in the back.
The bed is by Brian Long who was kind enough to give
me leftover scraps of fabric to make matching draperies and cushions for
that English decorator look.The chest is Chestnut Hill, the
upstairs fireplace was made by Ellen Krucker. Downstairs, I made
a parquet floor for the lounge and made Yorkshire pavers for
the fitted kitchen. I panelled the fireplace wall in the lounge
and replaced the newel post by the stairs. The striped stair runner is
a strip of upholstery fabric from a full-size sofa I
had reupholstered. The coffee table is an Eric Pearson piece and
a Warren Dick Jacobean lowboy is against the left wall.
I re-upholstered the imported chairs with micro-petitpoint seats.
The kitchen table and chairs were among my first purchases from
The Singing Tree and I made the fitted cupboards from old pine
with knobs from JoJays. The Belfast sink is by Stokesayware and
the cooker was made from a Phoenix kit. I like to think this cottage
is a weekend getaway for a busy London couple who have inherited
some family heirlooms but appreciate having "mod cons" in the
kitchen. This photo is an older one. The close ups are more recent
and include some lovely needlepoint rugs I won at a Morphy
auction. |
|
When I reupholstered the two chairs downstairs,
I saved the original fabric to make the chair cushion above so it
could coordinate with the side chair's seat shown here. I love
the intimate atmosphere of this room where the lady of the house can
relax and read in a comfy chair or write a letter (some of us still
do that occasionally!) The lacquered letter organizer is from
Maynard Manor. |
|
The bedroom is another cozy space with a window
seat and a stack of books on the Eric Pearson library steps tucked
into the right rear corner. When I bought this assembled house,
there was a big cutout in the wall where the Chestnut Hill chest of
drawers is located so I had to fill that in to make a solid place to
hang the mirror. The thick floor boards are made from screen door
molding, sanded smooth and stained and varnished - because the edges
are slightly beveled, it gives an impression of old wood that has
shrunk with age. The corner chair is by Betty Valentine and
upholstered with Brian Long's fabric. Sorry about the dust in these
photos! |
|
I really enjoyed making the fitted kitchen
cupboards which resemble the ones my husband built for our full-size
kitchen. I'm sorry the shadow from the ceiling makes it difficult to
see the upper shelves and plate rack filled with Stokesayware Blue
Willow luncheon plates. Some lazy housekeeper has left the St. Leger
utensils on the floor! The dining set from The Singing Tree has
handcarved seats, and I originally purchased the set for my larger
Tudor house but their rusticity made them a better match for the
cottage after I bought Colin Bird kitchen furniture for the bigger
house. I'm still looking for a nice set of brass taps for the
sink... |
Here you can see the Warren Dick lowboy, a
House of Miniatures wall shelf containing handmade books, a Chestnut
Hill Canton bowl, and other decorative pottery. The micro-petitpoint
pillow on the Bespaq sofa came with the chair seats at an Eileen
Rhoads auction while the other pillows are made of silk I bought at
Liberty of London. I made the draperies from the same silk. The
green wing chair was discovered in an antiques shop in East Sussex
and a Bonnie Sanford doll is comfortably seated there in her terry
bathrobe, reading Jane Austen. In the kitchen window just visible on
the left, I have a collection of little English teapots and old
Vienna bronze potted plants. Thanks for visiting! Come
again! |