Contemplating Kitchen Styles

It's always a fun decision process for me when it comes to my mini kitchens. I generally begin with deciding what type and period of appliances I want to utilize in order to emphasize the style of the project. Naturally, different builds call for different looks, different methods, different kits and many "made by me" challenges. I have spent a lot of time reflecting throughout the Beachside Bungalow project about what style of kitchen I wanted, and that has lead me to revisiting decisions I made about many of my past kitchens...

A cutsie cottage style kitchen seemed to fit the bill for the Storybook Cottage. Here, I made the cabinets from chipboard and assembled/finished kits for the stove and fridge from Phoenix Models. That was an odyssey to get them assembled and painted. I did it twice! But I truly LOVE the end result. Who wouldn't want pink appliances in their cottage kitchen?!? The sink was a Reuter Porcelain free standing that I took apart and built into the cabinets.

Cutsie was also the style for the Lisa's Country Cottage kits in which the mice, Vera and Virgil, reside. Their ovens and cabinets were created in Design Space and cut with the Cricut Maker. The sinks were created in Tinkercad and printed on my 3D printer. The stovetops were Houseworks kits I had in my stash for years. Here, simplicity was called for, and I wanted kitchens that you'd expect to see if you were reading a bedtime storybook about Vera and Virgil to your grandkids. Seeing these photos makes me excited again to decorate them!

Vera's Kitchen

Virgil's Kitchen

Sometimes it's fun to take a kit and make it your own. I reconfigured a Realife Miniatures Kitchen kit to create a country retro look in the Real Good Toys Barn Bash. I love these types of projects because perfectionism can be put aside for fun and frivolity! The crooked little stools were made from take out chop sticks.

In The Three Pigs build I delved into the Tudor style. Here, an open fire oven and hearth made perfect sense. Indoor plumbing by way of a Chrysnbon sink kit was an added luxury for the time. But who could deny these happy little fellows anything? With The Big Bad Wolf stuffed and hanging above the mantle, they are able to fully enjoy the first peace they've had for a long, long, time! The hearth was my first venture into foam core and egg carton bricks. Making it was so much fun, it added fuel to my mini fire!

There were also a few modern kitchens along the way, like the one in the New Orleans Kit. The cabinets were Elf Miniatures kits I purchased in 2016 for the Beachside Bungalow. When that project kept being put farther back in the queue, I was inspired to use the cabinets here. While I'd love to have a kitchen like this in real life, building this dollhouse kitchen was also a dream come true!

Alki Point was my first venture into 3D designing and printing back in 2015. Back then, I had to design something in Tinkercad, upload it to Shapeways, order and pay for it, wait for shipping and then hope the piece came out great. If not, I had to tweak the design, re-upload, reorder, pay for shipping again and hope the second time was the charm. It was expensive to keep trying until I got it right.... All the white pieces in this kitchen were my first designs, including the sink. I have come a long way since those early days, and am so grateful to have a 3D printer at home now! The design to printed prototype process can be counted in days now instead of weeks!

My latest attempt at a modern style is Natasha's Kitchen. I had kits for the ovens and dishwasher from Elf, but the sink, gas cooktop and wine cooler were my own design and build. I printed the sink and cooktop pieces on the 3D printer, created the cabinets and housing with the Maker, and cut my own aluminum. It was very exciting to know that, if very careful, I can make my own! Natasha and I are still eagerly waiting for our opportunity to set it up with all it's décor. A summer virus has her sidelined, but we're grateful that the Covid test came back negative!

The Sweet Christmas Cottage was meant to be a 40's era confectioners paradise! I combined opened barewood Dollshouse Emporium shelves with a Jane Harrop Sink Kit so that every Christmas themed food and treat could be seen and appreciated. There was even a gingerbread house decoration station with all of the candy decorations in glass jars. This was as whimsical a house as I could come up with, down to the paperclay cookie roofing shingles. The thrill of looking at every tiny thing in this house never wanes. This one still takes me the longest, for all the time I sit and daydream, while dusting.

CannaBliss, done back in 2012-2013, was one of the first mini projects I embarked on after my long hiatus from the hobby. I think I ordered every item from the HBS/miniatures.com catalog for this kitchen! Never one to leave well enough alone, I added wallpaper to the drawers and cabinets, "glass" to the cupboard doors, and painted the appliances with the best silver paint they had at the time. I also covered the countertops in "marble" paper, applying it with Mod Podge. Boy I've come a long way since those early days! Knowing what is possible and not being afraid to try (and fail) is the key! I guess I'd call this style contemporary. This project was dismantled and sold a few years ago to make room for new dreams.

So what am I trying to achieve with the Beachside Bungalow's kitchen? Referring to the broad story for the era and occupant, I see the house in current times. Being built in the 1940's, the house has received small renovations and improvements through the years, but kept it's simple character. I see a kitchen that you'd commonly see in any American neighborhood today. It should be clean and contemporary, simple, not dated but definitely not top of the line. Great meals can be prepared here, but it's not going to make the cover of any design magazine. It's efficient and open to the great room because time with friends is Kairi's top priority in life. She is an artist, after all, and though she inherited the house from her great aunt, she just doesn't have the budget for swanky.

Doing something fresh, new and a little challenging is always an exciting goal for me, too. When I got out the graph paper to begin putting ideas down, here's what I came up with...

Right wall with side by side fridge (old MBS kit in my stash), drawer units, gas stove
with microwave overhead, a combination of closed and open cupboards above.

Island with sink and dishwasher, drawers and under sink cabinet.
Countertop overhang on the opposite side to provide eating surface for meals.

With all of this in mind, I'll be designing the appliances to print 3D, and the cabinets to cut with the Maker. The appliances will be standard white with a few fun details, and the cabinets will be painted. I imagine if you stripped them, there would be several layers of color from over the years. Even though the style is simple, designing the parts and pieces that make up the appliances is going to be a big challenge. It's also a great opportunity for me to dive a bit deeper into my Qidi XOne2's capabilities (and my own).

Sneak peek stove/oven design.

Sneak peek prototype.

This will be a big endeavor with lots to print! With luck, I'll be back next week with progress to report! And hopefully, with some tips to share for those of you considering taking the plunge into the world of 3D printing.

Have an inspired and creative week, my friends!

xo xo,

Jodi

P.S. This week I wanted to share a link to a new blog started by a longtime Blogger mini community member, Marilyn O. (burygardeners). It's called Mini-Epilogue, as this is Marilyn's last mini endeavor. Her most recent big project, Dalton House, was dismantled and sold to become someone else's dream come true. Marilyn kept the furnishings and fixtures from six of her favorite rooms, and will reassemble each of them into room boxes. It's going to be a great adventure, and so apropos for all of us facing the inevitable downsizing of our collections. Just think: If you had to give up 90% of your collection, what would you keep and how would you display it? Marilyn has come up with a great solution!

She's had several blogs over the years, and even had a YouTube channel for a time where she shared her amazing knowledge with the mini community! If you click on her profile, this is the amazing body of work you'll see:

I hope you'll treat yourself to to Marilyn's work, and that you'll Follow Mini-Epilogue!

Beachside Bungalow - Top To Bottom

This week I concentrated on the final steps to completing the structure of the Beachside Bungalow. That included shingling the roof and finishing up the tile floors in the rest of the house. 

We'll start with the shingles because in spite of the many dollhouse roofs I've done over the years, it was my first time using real shingle dye! One package is supposed to be enough for 1000 shingles - perfect because the Beachside Bungalow kit includes 950 of them!

I picked up a couple disposable aluminum roasting pans from the dollar store and poked holes in one of them. This allows for easy soaking and then straining of the shingles. I let them soak overnight in the dye, then spread them onto a metal screen in the garage the next morning. The weather was hot so they were completely dry in one day. Unfortunately, many of the shingles were also purple, not gray or black like some others. I recaptured the dye and soaked them again overnight. They were darker the next day, but many of the shingles still seemed not to have absorbed very much of the dye, giving them a purplish sheen. Because there was not much dye left, I decided to apply them to the house "as is" and then mitigate the purple once they were on the house.

One note here for those of you who have yet to try shingle dye - the instructions said to mix with 2 cups of water (about one water bottle). I used bottled water because our water here is very hard. I didn't want hard water to factor in in a negative way with the process. There was barely enough liquid to cover the 950 shingles and I sorely wished I'd bought another package. It costs anywhere from $7.50 to $11.50 per package, not including tax and shipping, so not exactly budget friendly. Roofing a dollhouse can certainly add up, so it's great that this kit includes the shingles.

Some shingles absorbed less dye, causing a purplish hue.

I used Kraft cardstock to make flashing. Flashing is nice when you need to cut a lot of angled shingles around dormers where the two roofs meet. It takes away worry about seeing gaps if your accuracy in cutting is questionable. It's also helpful to install it where you want the shingles to butt up to a clean, straight line as in where the dormer walls meet the angled roof. It adds a little realism, too, so why not? My preferred method of applying shingles is by using a Surebonder hot glue gun and glue sticks. It makes the job go so quickly and there's never a concern over curling shingles or harmful fumes!

Under my craft room's bright white LED bulbs, I was still seeing an annoying purple hue to the shingles. To try and mitigate this effect, I decided to apply a Minwax gray penetrating stain over the top using a paint brush. In spite of being very stinky, I think it really did help to color the shingles better and knock down the purple appearance.

Before

After application of Classic Gray stain.

I do like the way the shingles look now, but I can't say I'm in a big hurry to use shingle dye again - I've had outcomes just as good with stain pens and acrylic paint. But I have learned never to say never unless that is exactly the thing that I want to have happen. It was a valuable experience and dying shingles seems to be a rite of passage for miniaturists.

Now for the tile floors in the rest of the Bungalow...

Last week I shared how I made natural stone tiles in the Opus Roman pattern for the great room. But in the rest of the house, I wanted something a little more subtle. Often, beaches are in warmer climates, lending themselves to homes with Saltillo or clay tiles. That's the look I was trying to achieve. In last week's post I also talked about how I made templates for every room, then transferred the templates onto  mat board. I also used the same painting/glazing method for these tiles, though in very subtle colors. For the tiles I used Illustration Art Board again. See links to materials in last week's post.

Base coat.

Chalk paint, acrylic paint and satin glazing medium.

Finished with subtle color variations like a sky.

I cut the tiles in 1" squares to emulate 12" tiles in real life. To find the dead center on the substrate, I drew a 1" grid. This also helped me to keep my grout lines straight, as did using 1/16" spacers (Woodsies) as I laid the tile. I really like tiles laid on the diagonal, as it feels a little fancier and more interesting to look at.

Spacers help to keep grout lines even.

It's always nice to have a border tile running in a different direction.

Just let the tiles overlap the edges.

You can cut them flush after the glue dries.

Testing the fit.

I continued with the bedroom and the powder room floors...

Unlike Opus Roman tiles, this type of installation will require a good deal of grout work. I painted the grout lines and sides of the tiles so that none of the white, unpainted art board would show. The next step was to seal the tiles. I sprayed on several coats of satin varnish, letting each one dry.

I used lightweight household spackle mixed with a little ivory acrylic paint to tone down the whiteness. Like all my previous tiling experiences, I found it frustrating trying to remove the grout from the top of the tiles without having it also be inadvertently removed from the grout lines. Upon further consideration, I may try using joint compound the next time I have a grout job. Because it is denser, it may just do a better job of staying put in the grout lines. I'll keep you posted...

Meanwhile, I got the job done, then sprayed the floors again with satin varnish. It's got a little shine without looking too shiny like slippery porcelain tiles. If you want a porcelain tile look, just use a high gloss varnish as the final sealer.

My grout lines are ALMOST straight! :O)

Finally, after all the work preparing the floors it was time to install them! I double checked the fit again, removed the floors, applied a good layer of Tacky glue to the dollhouse floor (being sure to get it to the edges), laid the floors in, smoothed them, covered the surface with scrap cardboard, added weights on top and left it to dry overnight. Whew!

Here is the second floor with the tile floors installed in the stair hall, bedroom and main bathroom. Notice how the baseboards in the bedroom are stained wood to match the other trim.

And in the main bath they are painted to match the trim in there. The break in the baseboards was left so that the vanity will slide in and sit flush to the wall.

The wee powder room...

The great room got stained baseboards, too. In the right corner the baseboard does not meet the wall. This is because the fridge will go here obscuring most of the baseboard anyway. I was able to use up a scrap piece here. All along the right wall will be the built in kitchen cabinets. Once I see where they will end, I may have to add another tiny piece of baseboard to finish off the wall to the opening.

With the exception of the back edge trim, the Beachside Bungalow is finished and ready for the interior and exterior details!

I'll start by turning my attention to the kitchen and powder room. I am looking forward to dusting off my 3D printer and my Cricut Maker to help me a lot with these important rooms! I have some exciting ideas, and I just hope I can make some of them come to fruition without too much toil and trouble!

First sketch of the oven side of the kitchen.

One last thing that I hope will inspire your creativity this week...

Tasha texted me the other night after she'd accidentally run the clean dishes through the dishwasher twice. She asked me if I remembered the dishwasher magnet I made when she was little. I vaguely remembered making one, but not really. She said I had made a clever "Clean/Dirty" sign using Barbie plates. Guess I should have taken a picture back then because my memory can be unreliable! In any case, she asked me if I'd make her one that she and Brent could use. I said I'd be glad to and here is what I came up with: A simple box with a sliding door to indicate a happy "Clean" plate, and a sad "Dirty" one. It's got more of the 1/8" mini magnets on the back and will stick to the front of the dishwasher. I hope it will prevent future confusion for her!

Happy "Clean" Side with half pearl smiley face.

Sad "Dirty" side with dinner's red peppers, fig and carrots left in sauce.

1/8" Countersunk Magnets. These little guys are strong!

Displayed on my dishwasher.

Hope all your projects are happy, inspired ones from top to bottom!

xo xo,

Jodi