........but am I brave enough ?!?
Sans has recently kit bashed her
jnr cottage with the most amazing results. Her tribal house is beautiful, such a transformation from the boring
Victorian cottage. So it got me thinking that maybe I should have a go at kit bashing and revamp the boring, children's, not quite to scale
dollshouse that I have.
So firstly, the existing dolls house is front opening with cheap (obvious) plastic hinges at the top and bottom of the doors. Then the opening front panel itself has not to scale windows and door (I'd already ripped the door out because I hated it) also made from plastic. To put the correct scale windows and door in, I would have to replace the whole front panel. The problem being then that the middle window and the door would show the room divider which is also in the middle of both floors (not sure this was the most well planned dolls house - lol).
Soooo.... can I do a total revamp? I've just had a play with it a taken the front door panel off it's hinges, taken off the front decorations and unscrewed the middle partitions so they are now loose. I've also moved the dolls house to the back of the basement (that I bought thinking it would make the house better but is actually a bit bigger than the house so looks a bit strange) so that the backs of both are flush -
It doesn't actually look too bad, which made me think let's go the whole hog and forget a front opening dolls house and go for an open back dollshouse. I turned the whole lot round, and found some windows (again that I had bought to redo this house but they didn't for in the front panel) and blu-tacked them on just to see what it would look like, and this is it.....
As the basement is bigger than the house, I was half wondering if I could get away with a mini balcony or something similar with french doors in the middle opening out on to it, otherwise it's just going to look silly with a gap at the front and even sillier with a gap at the back.
But then I have the problem, what on earth could this house become? I'm still very keen to do a shabby chic style (I haven't forgotten my furniture revamp :) I currently waiting for a delivery of paint) but maybe I could have a shop at the bottom, but what kind of shop? or well I'm not really sure. I'm not even convinced that bashing it is going to work, are to windows too big? Does the balcony idea work? And will the whole lot fall apart if I cut holes for the windows and doors in the new front (old back)?? lol
Sorry for my long ramble, I will keep you posted with what I decide. In the meantime all suggestions (including 'it doesn't look right like that' and 'It's not really going to work') are completely welcome as are suggestions for the type of house/era/style it could become.
I've made a start of the floor of the kitchen. Following Nina's blog and comments (thank you Nina, I really would have been lost without your blog!) I used a knitting needle to carve stones out of the polyfiller. I'm now patiently waiting for it to dry so I can sand it down and start colour washing.
I know they both look a bit over the top and I'm in two minds as to whether to remove some of the gold, but I'll wait and see I think. With my recent paint purchases I also bought some crackle glaze. I've been experimenting with it on another piece but haven't quite got it to look right yet - I'll post more once I've played around with it a bit more.
