Pirates Plunder: I think any self respecting pirate would steal lots of Jewelry (big and gaudy), gold and jewel encrusted goblets and statues, fancy paintings and even fancier silk clothing - I always picture pirates as either patch scary or peacock dandy. With ruffled shirts and great big hats with feathers a-la Captain Hook. Don't forget the casks and bottles of Rum - the favored drink of the pirate.

Suzy, Chicago, IL

Pirates Plunder: I think that linens were a big social status item back in the 1600's through the 1800's, so many ships carried linens that were very expensive and sought after. I would guess that pirates would take any linens that they found aboard a ship they were plundering. I can't remember where I read it but I recall that in some more rich homes there would be a special linen armoire which the homeowner would leave open when guests called. That way the guests could admire the linen collection and the homeowner could passively show off. Oh here it is... Pg 61 of The Miniature House (by Faith Eaton): "...linen presses were very important pieces of furniture....Brides to be and housewives with a satisfactory display to show to friends, could, by merely leaving open a cupboard door, could...illustrate their enviable status in an acceptable and conventional manner." Rich people even had linen drying rooms where they would keep the linen press, and linens that weren't good enough to display.

Lynn in Gainesville

Log Cabin Ideas: - A pioneer setting, if you're going historical (in fact, families in remoter areas of the Appalachians lived in log cabins up until very recent time--probably a few still do). This lends itself to great landscaping ideas, too: a soap-making cauldron, linen drying on the grass, a vegetable patch, and maybe a treasured rosebush brought from 'back home.' - Victorian country: the cabin could be the family's original homestead, and now the children play 'house' in it. - If you're doing modern, how about a writer's or painter's retreat? Or a Buddhist or Yoga retreat, with sparse furnishing and a meditation area? You could also make a 'tourist country store' out of it, where an enterprising person is selling local handcrafts, such as quilts, ragdolls, pottery, etc.

Log Cabin Ideas: Years (and years) ago, there was a chain of Log Cabin restaurants which served pancakes all day long. I remember them being painted white with a lot of red trim. They had a few tables and a long counter, with little round, backless stools, that spun around if you were fidgety, and I guess that tells you all something about me. Also in the woods, on US 101 in the Redwoods, there are several log cabin restaurants, and souvenir shops. We once lived in a log house in Tacoma, on Puget Sound, but they were vertical instead of horizontal. They were actually half logs, which had plywood in-between them. One half of the log was outside the other was inside. Caulking was used on the outside. Spider webs held together the inside.

MAP in Puyallup

Pirates plunder: Pirates plundered all types of things! Gold urns, jewelry, spices (yes, they were expensive and difficult to obtain), silks, teas, fine China, tobacco, just about anything that could be traded or sold.

Marilyn, MI

Pirates Plunder: How about strings of pearls? Some gold and/or brightly colored cloth and maybe a tiny crown or tiara? I made a few pirate chests for my son's Magic Castle set and first I built a cardboard base and glued scraps of gold ribbon over it and then glued sequins, bits of ribbon, jewels of various sizes, the tiny seed pearl strings from the wedding section, a bit of broken fine gold chain and other jewelry findings, then I used a sequin pin and part of a necklace clasp for the lock. It came out really cute, and my daughter decided she wanted one for her mermaid Barbie's!

Crystal (also in San Diego)

Pirates Plunder: Pirates took everything they could carry from other ships and threw overboard what they couldn't use, trade, or sell. In addition to coins and jewels, goblets and urns, medicine and medical supplies were great treasure. Food was also a great treasure! Barrels of fruit and staples, sugar, corn, chickens in cages or crates, and of course, barrels of rum. They also took boxes of weapons, ropes, sails, maps, tools, etc. Many pirate crews also had rules to live by or a Code of Conduct which each member swore to obey. Some were posted on the ships.(perhaps that is where "honor among thieves" comes from?) Maybe a Code of Conduct would be good in a pirate's pub/tavern fastened to a post or the wall with a dagger.

Diane in N.C.

Pirates Plunder: I love the ride "Pirates of the Caribbean" at Disneyland.... In their scene where the loot is they have included along with the trunks full of coins: Strings of pearls, loose gems (mini rhinestones) Golden goblets, urns, pitchers and trays (take your inexpensive metal minis and use rub n buff gold leafing) candelabras, trunks with jewel tone silks spilling out, barrels filled with rum, and then some nastier stuff such as a trunk with a skeleton arm hanging out, clutching a paper that says "dead men tell no tales!"

Bonnie Gibson

Log Cabin Ideas: My personal favorite log cabin is now a museum at the edge of Greer Arizona in the pines at 9,000 ft elevation. Neither palatial nor unduly rustic for its times, "Apuni Oyia" (Blackfoot: "Butterfly Lodge") was built in 1913 as a retreat for author James Willard Schultz. Equal to a small but comfortable city house of the same time, it had all the appropriate comforts and amenities one should expect. There was store bought furniture, built in cupboards, trunks, china, table linens, and kitchen "appliances" To be expected with a resident author, there were also well filled bookshelves, Mr. Schultz's typewriter, a radio for passive entertainment, Victrola, and collected memorabilia from the author's days described in his first book "My Life as an (Blackfoot) Indian (published 1907). The cabin later became the home of his half Blackfoot son who was a respected, very prolific painter and sculptor who had been raised as an Indian on the reservation in Montana and who honed his artistic skills in Los Angeles and at The Chicago Art Institute. Lone Wolf added a third (studio) room to the cabin where both he and his wife worked. Butterfly Lodge is so named because it sets in a mountain meadow surrounded seasonally by wildflowers which, in turn, attract a multitude of the colorful insects.

Mel K.

Log Cabin Ideas: The first think that comes to mind for a log cabin is Abraham Lincoln's birthplace. He was born in and spent his young years in a log cabin.

Rusty in Ky

Prairie wagon: If anyone wants to be further impressed with the strength and endurance of those folks who trekked to the West, visit some of the sites on The Oregon and The Mormon Trails, which paralleled each other much of the way. Some of those people walked the entire distance pushing handcarts; no wagons at all. We were in Wyoming in the 60's and happened on a solitary grave of a woman who had died on the way. Such a lonely spot, with nothing but the hottest wind I ever felt in my life to break the silence. I've forgotten exactly where it was, but we had been a day's wagon ride from Old Ft. Laramie on the North Platte River at one of the stopping points on the trail west where the travelers had etched their names into the cliffs. You can still see the wagon ruts near there - and I mean DEEP-practically-over-my-head ruts. It made the hair rise on the back of my neck to contemplate them. Until we saw those ruts and one of those wagons in I think it was North Platte, Nebraska (?), I had never realized how big they were; the top rim of the wheel was well over my head. So, for the person duplicating one of the wagons that traveled on either of those trails, the top edge of the wheel would be considerably taller than the height of a 5'3" woman.

Wanna in El Paso

Log Cabins in Appalachia: I will be 50 years old in July and my first home was a log cabin. Not one of the modernistic types of today, but a rustic old log cabin. My mother talks of going to the creek to haul water in buckets to wash my diapers in because there was no plumbing. And, of course, there was an outhouse. We heated our house with a Warm Morning stove, using coal and wood. Baths were taken in a galvanized wash tub in the middle of the kitchen floor using water hauled from the creek and heated on the stove. I have a scar on my lip that was made when I first learned to walk and slipped on the wet kitchen floor and fell on the wash tub. We did have electricity. The house was located in a place we called Paint Creek Holler. A holler is actually a hollow which is a probably something like a valley. My guess is that the term means a hollowed out place in the mountains. We moved from the house while I was still a baby, so I don't actually remember living there. A Warm Morning, a wash tub, and an outhouse were things that a great many people in this area lived with. And here I sit now conversing with people on a computer. Who would have imagined that back 50 years ago in Paint Creek Holler?

Terry T. in WV

Prairie wagon: While they were traveling in the wagon, they ate off older china plates or tin plates. Their fine china (if they had any) was packed in the lower 1/2 of the barrel of flour. The flour cushioned the dishes & they could use flour from the top of the barrel as they traveled. They packed things in barrels, trunks, & wooden boxes. The wagons were so full that only the very, very old, the very young & the ill ones rode on the wagon. All the rest walked. Some of the men rode horses to herd the few milk cows.

Ann in AZ

Prairie wagon: As far as the interior of the wagon is concerned...most of them were sturdy farm wagons with a cover attached to keep out the weather. They would have probably had a bench attached to each side, but, as Jeri Moriarty's post so well illustrated, the wagon was probably packed with stuff. Most people did not ride in the wagons, but walked along side for most of the way west. I tried to find some interior pictures on the internet for you, and put in 'Conestoga wagons' and learned something new for myself! I thought that those were the wagons that people came across the prairies with, but it turns out that they were quite large 'freight' wagons...not the kind that a poor immigrant would be able to afford. (Nor could they afford the teams of oxen that it took to pull them.) Those were the ones called 'Prairie Schooners' because of their big, canted canvas tops.

Kaye in L.A.

Prairie wagon: Well, I've been reading more posts on coming West across the prairie, and visualizing a miniature scene with the wagon stopped, and a beautiful pipe organ, or lovely table being taken off...a huge fight, too! I can't imagine that after having carted something precious enough to me to gone to the trouble of carrying it all that way, just to be left by the side of the trail..and not doing mighty battle for it. It had to be done, of course...those mountains are high, and the canyons are deep...actually, it's really hard to imagine any wagon and any team of oxen being able to negotiate them, but they did. (I think that sometimes, in some places, they had to dismantle the wagons and carry them up or down, or float them across rivers.) I hope that you include something like a beautifully painted Danish dower chest...which is one of the things that would have had to come with a Danish immigrant family.

Kaye in L.A.

Prairie wagon: If you look closely at the covered wagons that crossed the Plaines, they sagged in the center. This was intentional so that all the items stored inside tended to fall toward the center as the schooner went over rough ground rather than fall out the front or rear of the wagon. They were also very high off the ground so as to clear rock and tree stumps.

DrBob...Delray Beach, FL.

Prairie wagon: Just remembered a PBS show I saw last year on the Oregon Trail that brought home exactly how careful the pioneers had to be about what they took along. The narrator said that old Western movies are very inaccurate because they show the larger Conestoga wagons with the family riding inside with room for their worldly goods. In reality, the prairie wagons' cargo space was exactly the size of a modern minivan with the back seats removed, so the travelers could include only what would fit into that much space, and there was room only for the driver and one passenger at a time, so most people who traveled the Oregon Trail walked the distance -- which was achievable because most wagons were hauled by slower oxen, not horses, and traveled 10 to 12 miles a day at best.

Loretta.Sniarowski

Lighthouse: for those of you looking for lighthouse ideas, here is a link to a virtual lighthouse tour!   Pigeon Point Lighthouse Virtual Tower Tour http://www.pigeonpointlighthouse.org/vtt_intro.htm This is a really interesting virtual tour to take with the whole family.  When you get to the site you are introduced to a 19th century lighthouse   Keeper. He will be your tour guide. On each page of the tour you can  read all about the history of the lighthouse and the many  responsibilities of the Keeper. There are clear photographs of every  feature of the lighthouse -- both inside and out -- and the Keeper explains them all. You will even discover what qualifications are necessary to be a Keeper. The tour continues to the top of the tower where you can see the Fresnel Lens and learn how it was used to help sailors avoid the dangerous rocky shoreline.

Jenny Gabrenas

Lights:    Chandelier in dining room would usually be central, and the table would usually be centrally placed under it. The 'chandelier' was often a large gas or oil lamp, and often 'telescopic' i.e. rise and fall, so it could be lowered over the table at mealtimes.

All 'fuel burning' lamps, oil or gas or candle, make a lot of heat and water vapor. This rises, hits the ceiling and some of the water condenses. Dust is often carried in the column, from open fires, as well as any soot the lamp might make and gradually fouls the ceiling.

A consumer or shield is a glass 'plate' hanging on a ring , near the ceiling and above the lamp. This catches the 'brunt' of the muck, and can be wiped. Also spreads out the ascending air, i.e. whole ceiling gets equally dirty and it is less obvious. Some lamps have a 'consumer or bell,' hung much nearer the chimney, these are better at spreading the flow long   before the ceiling is reached, and they don't need a hook in the ceiling.

This has given me some ideas for my real ceiling smoke marks!   Smoke marks around lights are a big problem. When my dolls house gets smoked damaged it will really look authentic.

Pauline UK

Lighthouse: for those of you looking for lighthouse ideas, here is a link to a virtual lighthouse tour!   Pigeon Point Lighthouse Virtual Tower Tour

http://www.pigeonpointlighthouse.org/vtt_intro.htm This is a really interesting virtual tour to take with the whole family.  When you get to the site you are introduced to a 19th century lighthouse   Keeper. He will be your tour guide. On each page of the tour you can  read all about the history of the lighthouse and the many  responsibilities of the Keeper. There are clear photographs of every   feature of the lighthouse -- both inside and out -- and the Keeper explains them all. You will even discover what qualifications are necessary to be a Keeper. The tour continues to the top of the tower where you can see the Fresnel Lens and learn how it was used to help sailors avoid the dangerous rocky shoreline.

Jenny Gabrenas

Gothic Dolls Houses: There is a wonderful Gothic house at http://www.angleseydollshouses.co.uk

it's certainly on my wish list.

Jacquie