Inspiration
Carl Larsson is probably my favorite painter. His work has a ethereal, happy world feeling for me, with very lovely old world Swedish colors and timeless themes.
For this dollhouse I'm taking my inspiration from two of his paintings, "Old Anna", for the kitchen and "Cozy Corner", for the living room.
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| Old Anna - Carl Larsson |
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| Cozy Corner - Carl Larsson |
The 3rd floor, a bedroom, I'm not so sure about but I'm fairly confident that it's vision will come in time!
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The Living Room Process
My intent is not to take Larsson's art literally, but to interpret or invoke it's essence. Gee! That's pretty ambitious and presumptuous of me! I hope my collection of porcelain furniture will give the dollhouse that last, needed, Larsson spark, we'll see!
It took a while to collect all the elements for the living room (not to mention for the kitchen). The lovely wood moldings and bead board I have bought from my favorite dollhouse supplier, Manchester Woodworks, have been stained (Min Wax Provincial) and polyied.
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| Prepping moldings and wainscoting from Manchester Woodworks |
For the living room trim, I wanted to have a more subtle yet refined look, so I
applied some silver metallic craft paint to those moldings with my
finger and polyied them, again.
I've had this lovely metal trim that I've been wanting to use for so long now, and I think it suggests the quaint formality of Larsson's Cozy Corner living room:
I've chosen a hand made gold motif paper for the ceiling and busted into my stash of wee wallpaper to find some airy vintage MiniGraphics, "Lilly Pads", to use on the the walls.
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Of course one must put the floors to the walls to create rooms. I primed the walls with a good interior primer, attached the floors (a more detailed description can be found in Part 4 of my RGT Tudor post, http://happylittleworlds.blogspot.com/2013/11/retrofit-kit-part-4-gettin-down-to_15.html) and left the back off, to have easy access in working on the walls.
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| Always apply your ceiling media to the bottoms of the floors before assembling. You'll save yourself a lot of grief!! |
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Testing Finishes
I'm a big one for testing. Testing concepts of media with processes' does take time, but is sooo worth it. Here's my testing board to finalize the wainscot finish for behind the metal trim...
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| Left: Primed board with three test finishes under silvered moldings. Right: Testing with the metal trim. |
...and then applying the final choice to the walls. It came down to applying the brown shoe polish first and then the white metal craft paint on top of that, all applied with my finger, of course!
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| Top left: Taping off. Right: Taped area revealed. Bottom: Base molding glued and clamped. |
I was able to cut the metal trim with scissors, a big plus. Of course I made sure it was centered and applied it with E6000, a smelly, clear, bonding adhesive. A gentle touch with the tube on the back of the metal trim was in order. I clamped the metal trim in place and set it to dry overnight.
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| Left: Wallpaper, metal trim and corner blocks applied. Right: Chair rail, ceiling and side moldings applied. Voila! |
Well, I'm pretty happy with the results, fairly basic but charming I think. When the time comes I'll have to replicate this procedure on the back wall and the big opening front wall. Dang! A dolly contractor's work is never done!
I haven't come across Carl Larsson before but I love the examples of his work you show and can see how well they would translate into a dollhouse. But - back to your house - WOW! How good is that room looking? You have great style, vision and creativity, Little Loosie - inspirational!
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