There are going to be some great new houses at Spring Min.
Opinions are divided about whether you should get the house first, or collect many things in a particular scale and keep your eye open for a house as you go. Of course, you don’t have to own a doll’s house at all, you can just collect little things; many people do, especially professional miniaturists who ran out of space long ago.
However if you do feel the house is the place to begin and you’d like to cram as many in as possible, you may wish to make a Bea line for Petite Properties where you will discover a complete stand redesign has been necessitated by a huge new range of quarter scale kits that Bea Broadwood is launching at the show. You are absolutely the first person to see them all together in one place; the next person will be whoever can win the race through the doors and up to the Petite Properties stand. Here they are:
Now that’s what I call a smashing choice of new and lovely. Ooh, it’s like a selection box, I can’t decide between the one with the tiled topping or the one with the crunchy half-timbered centre, which one do you want? Bea is currently in the running for an award in the About.com Reader’s choice award for best dolls’ house. You can find out all about it and vote if you would like to in the latest edition of the AIM magazine which is free online and for March has gone totally Tudor. Information about Bea’s ‘up for an award’ house is on page 121 in the Grapevine.
For the benefit of non miniaturists I should perhaps point out that quarter scale, as it’s usually known in the USA, is half the size in every dimension of half scale which is half the size (in every dimension) of one twelfth scale, which is one twelfth the size of life. In the UK we usually refer to the smaller scale as one forty-eighth because it’s 48 times smaller than reality. In this size a six foot tall person would be one and a half inches tall. The houses can sit on your hand and the furniture is very fetching. Bea has helpfully written about making furniture in one forty-eighth scale; you can find details of her publications and kits in her new online shop.
Miniaturists are prone to extremes; one forty-eighth is not the end – if you wish you can build, finish and furnish in one hundred and forty fourth scale! This, naturally, is the twelfth scale dolls’ house inside your twelfth scale dolls’ house. Before you consider me to have gone microscopically mental, I can prove that there are people who live their lives in this tiny scale. Let me point you in the direction of Templewood Miniatures’ beautiful new church kit which makes St Peters in the Woods Church.
Here it is from the back and the front. It is 4.5 inches high and close up the detail is spectacular.
In case you are thinking this is just a nicely decorated box, think again. This really is a tiny church and has everything you’d expect.
Except that if you are the giant who is going to build it, you can take the roof off and have a God-like squint inside.
If this has given you a fit of the ‘how do they do that?’s it’s my pleasure to tell you that it’s Alan who does it, with his laser, the love of his life, which he has owned and adored for six years. The other love of his life, Kathryn, says the church is easy to assemble and suitable for all skill levels because the laser-cut pieces slot together easily without any need for sanding and the kit comes with full instructions and diagrams. You’ll find other laser-cut kits on Templewood’s stand. They’re all part of the village of Newton St Mary’s, which proves quite nicely that you don’t have to have a lot of room to be a miniaturist, just as long as you can get your head round the God complex.
On the other hand you may feel that bigger is better and the absolute ideal is a house you can get your head inside of. Last Spring we met lovely Tim Hartnell showing at his first Miniatura. In the intervening year, filled with shows, houses and some very happy customers, Anglia Dolls Houses has evolved. Tim has listened to his customers and produced DIY project houses. These twelfth scale houses are now available in a lower priced alternative to the original, handsome, fully-finished Georgian houses in that only the stairs, halls and landing (otherwise known as the difficult bit) are done. The rest is left as bare plywood.
As you can see, the stairwell can be really tricky to get at, once the house is assembled but this gets round the difficulty beautifully.
You can choose to have the outside decorated, so that if the house is a main feature in your living room it looks nice at once.
Or you can do it all yourself. Tim will also fit the basic wiring for you, all you have to do is pop along to the Anglia dolls’ house stand and make your desires known. Tim will also have new designs of his stackable room boxes, which are proving very popular.
As you can see it’s going to be a great show to start a new house in any scale and spring into something new and wonderful that will last you a lifetime.
www.petitepropertiesltd.com/onlineshop/
www.templewoodminiatures.co.uk
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JaneLaverick.com – accommodating every scale.