This year Christmas came early!

Hello!

This time a Finnish miniature house enthusiastic is indeed treated well! In the city of Turku (in the southwest of Finland) there is an exciting exhibition; 12 dollhouses from the collection of London V & A Museum of Childhood!
Last Sunday Christmas came early for me, as my dear friends took me for a day trip to Turku. I had a lovely opportunity to spend some time with friends and especially see those fantastic historical dollhouses! Here are some detail photos of the collection, which are of course familiar to some of you, but a real treat for me. (Can't remember every house's name, but maybe you can refresh my memory)?

The Tate Baby House

Box Back Terrace House

Whiteladies House

This Art Deco - style house from 1935 was my absolute favorite! Happy days by the pool and on the roof terrace, who wouldn't want to live in a house like this?

A stairway to the 7th heaven?

Hi there!

Our workshop for building miniatures started again last week, hooray!
I decided to begin this autumn with my most  pet peeve object, the stairs! Have you read this before?
Me making those ghastly stairs??

Honestly, this time there is something really happening. First I sawed the frames of the stairs and then  I sawed the actual steps... All 60 pieces of them! (There are three floors + the attic in my miniature house, so...)
Yesterday I painted the frames shining black and tonight I begun to glue the steps on their places. So far eight steps are glued on their places and now there are only 52 steps waiting for their turn, but what else could I do on Saturday evening?

Otto-the-dog still finds my hobby very boring and he continuously tries to get some attention, so must go now!

Model Expo 2015

Hi there!

Tomorrow I will transport my attic to Helsinki Exhibition Center where annual Model Expo show will take place from Friday till Sunday. These last days before the event have been quite stressful; lights working, lights not working, working again... Last minute painting jobs and so on...
Niilo-the-dog is ready to go and hopefully I'll find the happy spirit too!

There is a guest room at the attic and it's furnished quite simply. At the moment less is more and I think one would have sweet dreams in a room like this.

Furnishing miniature rooms is quite nice in fact. Many of these furniture mean memories; Gray table is from London and alas, it came out of my suitcase with a broken leg. Now mended and painted!

In the corner the armchair is a gift from one of my ex-colleagues and this chair is to blame of my hobby! 

The turquoise

chair is actually made of iron but it looks like a wooden one. It's a souvenir from Upsala, Sweden.  Brown leather bag and the old books are from Barcelona.

On the gray table there are some peonies in a vase and somebody seems to be enjoying coffee and cupcake too. Those as well as the binoculars on the side table are my latest purchase. They are from http://www.montheron.nl  Absolutely fantastic work and great quality they are!

And then there is the attic of course! My, my! It would need some clearing, but there's no help around at the moment! As you all know, attics are spaces where all "I may need this some day" - things gather...
The ugly gray box on the wall is my attempt to hide a battery of the lightning. Must do something about it...

There are some old toys, christmas decorations, old newspapers, floor lamp, empty bottles, etc. etc.
Souvenirs from 1:1 holidays, something self made and some flee market findings. Something I may need some day!

I hope that you enjoy these pictures and would very much appreciate your comments, thank you!

Tadaa part 2

Hi there boys and girls! 2/3 parts of my miniature house's facade is ready and done and if I may say myself, it looks suprisingly good. It was a real thriller to fit those windows, but eventually I desided to trust my eyes more than a measuring tape and I I'm HAPPY with the result! Building a (miniature) house without any drawn plans is a bumpy road with suprises, but fortunatelly some of the suprises are pleasent!

Boooring!!!

Our demanding weekend guest, Otto, is staying with us again so it's going to be no-no to any miniature projects and YES to plenty of fresh air, walks in a bloody freezing northern "spring"air! Last time when he was staying over I tried to ignore him / get him excited of a miniature word, but in vain! Otto just responded by acting as a doormat!
But You there! Have a good one!

Here we go again!

Yes, I have a confession to make. Once more. Those damn window fraims I made... have I told about them yet? Yes/No? Well,  I made them too short, so there's hallelujah for me!  And as this would not be shocking enough, I in fact noticed my mistake days ago, but still carried on!

Had this screwup happened a few years ago, I would have probably jumped from our 1:1 balcony into a deep drift of snow (at this time of year and not a long fall, mind you) but now I'm just cool as a cucumber, so my medication must be just about right.
Now I've already started to make some preparations to minimize the damidge but I can only say that the final result of this catastrophic building episode is going to be a big suprise mostly for myself!

Maybe some day I'll write a book named Zen and the Art of Building a Dollhouse.

Iiiik!

Olen saanut ensimmäisen virallisen seuraajan blogilleni ja vieläpä Alankomaista! Pitäisi melkein järjestää juhla tämän iloisen tapauksen johdosta, mutta työ kutsuu... Olen asettanut itselleni tämän illan takarajaksi painajaismaiselle ikkunaprojektilleni, joten ei muuta kuin sahat ja pensselit esille!  Toisaalta ilta on vielä nuori ja huomenna on päivä uus ja takarajat ovat nipottajia varten jne....


I've got my very first official reader for this blog, happy days! This would really call for celebration, but alas, work calls... It is deadline for my nightmare window frame project today but on the other hand, deadlines are for busybodies and the night is still young, plus: tomorrow is an other day. Cheers!

Some light in the end of a tunnel

See? Already eight window frames have got an other coat of paint on them and there are only four more to finish of this lot. First I thought to leave the frames sanded and looking worn, but what the hell, once one gets started painting it's a bit difficult to stop it. (In fact I still quite hate painting, but  enjoy the finished work).  So I've struggled two fraims per evening and tomorrow these should be ready, hallelujah!
Back to the paint brush!

Window frames

What a joy!

For the last evenings and Sundays prepairing window frames has been my favorite pastime (not!!) It takes some cutting, painting with the base coat and sanding. It takes tons of my friend Oiva the Rapid Filler, more sanding and at least a thousand coats of paint between all that sanding, aaargh! It asks for nerves and it's frustrating!
Up there is a picture of a pile of half done frames and if I sound like a martyr, that's only because I am! (When it comes to painting little objects).
First my plan was to make simple window frames and paint them gray, that's it!. Then I realized they are not looking good enough (for me, of course). So I decided to add those tiny (white, painted by yours truly) bits to 'add some character'. So here we go again! I've at least doubled my jod and cutting and painting even smaller pieces! Somebody stop me! 

To be continued...

About the house

You may have read my previous blog but if not, here's a short update about what's going on.
Well, it's all about a dollshouse which I've been building for a few years. And the work is still going on. The house has now tree floor plus an attic. There are not going to be seen any dolls in this house
because I simply do not like dolls. But in my imagination Mr. and Mrs. Oiva and their dog Niilo are going to move into this building when it's finished. And when will my house be finished, heaven knows!
Oiva is an oldfashioned Finnish word and also a men's name that could be translated something like jolly or jolly good. Oiva is also a trade mark for a Finnish paint manufacturer's Rapid Filler. For years I've reminded my fellow dollshouse builders that Oiva is a girl's best friend! If there appears any unwanted scrape in the wood or any other misfortune Oiva is the answer to the proble. and believe me, I've used about a litre of it so far!