Grungy Walls: My Halloween House is about to be put away, and I made very little progress on it this year. Sadly, Wolfie's witch still sits with arms and legs unattached, but I did buy gray hair, and made a hat- so, hey, I figure she's 1/2 done! Can't go too fast in these things. I must say, though, that when I did the electrics, and put a skull-headed butler under the chandelier where the lighting cast shadows about his hollow eyes and cheekbones, well, every one raised their eyebrows!

The wallpaper I used upstairs is a little too 'shiny'. My thought is to pour some brown paint into some modpodge, not too stir too much, then paint over the wallpaper. Immediately after I do a section, before it dries, I will take a hunk of dryer lint and press it against the wall.

Beth in Maine

BUTTERFLY and PAPASAN CHAIRS:

They aren't the same. And butterfly chairs are not round shaped. They have 4 rounded points - sort of look like a molar - sort of. Well they look like the mirror image of a tooth's roots - how about that? They (full sized) are being sold in the midst of the retro craze. I remember butterfly (wrought iron frame with canvas "sling") being "cool" in the 50's. (Of course I was VERY young then :)

Papasan chairs have probably been around since the 60's and I think they've pretty much been sold continuously since then (Pier 1 and Cost Plus). They are bent wood swiveling frames into which you put a large cushion seat.

I remember the "circular chair" sometimes made of a basket or woven type of material with wrought iron legs - but I can't remember what they were called. Sometimes a corduroy or other padded fabric was put over the basket part of the chair. The chair seats resembled Chinese coolie hats.

W. Marie in Edmonds, WA

Contemporary minis: I'd say about 65 to 70% of us are getting more in the contemporary. The other era's still remain popular but contemporary is definitely on the rise. Most of us are mixing our "antiques" in with our contemporary just like we do in our full sized lives.

Debi in Quesnel

Contemporary minis: I am making a contemporary cabin. It is 2000 contemporary (or whatever year I am finished;)). There is a handicraft/tourist shop on the lower floor, and an apartment upstairs. I have been inventing the furniture as I go along (rectangular themes, fairly simple and upholstered). So far I have made a living room set, part of a bedroom set and have one of those cool little finger bikes so my mini inhabitant can get around her little village. It sports a spiral staircase, and has two cats (models of my own little monsters), one collie dog and a guinea pig. I have everything done in ¾ scale. I like contemporary because I get to be eclectic and nobody can point out "that doesn't belong" because if its contemporary then of course anything I put in must be right!;)

Kim From Canada

Contemporary minis: I built a traditional house from the late 1980's. It took ten years. I had the same problem in finding contemporary minis that were "somewhat" affordable, so I had to make many of my own things.

There is also a whole website dedicated to Modern Minis.

http://www.modminis.homestead.com/index.html

Karolyn, Plymouth MA

Contemporary minis: I sure don't do traditional Victorian and have never seen Brooke do it. There are a lot of us that do "what we like" not any period!

Anita MH

Contemporary minis: I like to do some contemporary minis because I can include items that relate to my children, now in their 30's. But I like to do older styles, also, so I am building a "renovated Victorian" circa 1860, set in the 2000 time frame. This way, anything goes.

Marjorie in CA

Modern bath fittings: you can create a pretty convincing modern bath by building a "surround" for the bathtub so it looks built in, a cabinet to drop the sink into, and a tank for the toilet out of balsa wood (this last idea came from one of Pat Thomas' articles in Nutshell News). I've done all of these and have been pleased with the outcome. Same thing can be done with the Cassidy Creations half-inch scale bathroom fixtures.

Doris in San Antonio

Lighthouse Interiors:  Several people have gotten the RGT lighthouse and wondered what was inside.  This is what I personally know from having been in several - nothing much!  There are LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of stairs!!! I don't know whether it was the LOOOOng set of shallow tairs going to and from the lighthouse or the long sets of stairs inside but after going to the one at  Point Reyes in California as a teenager (so no excuse about  muscles) I couldn't walk for a week!

Seriously though, the lighthouses are all very different from each other depending on their use.  For example, the Colchester lighthouse from the shoals of Lake Champaign was carted off to the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne Vermont and is a wonderful wealth of information about a lighthouse that was lived in...in fact the last lighthouse keeper raised 8 kids there (although I think they were sleeping on top of each other).  The museum has turned it into a museum in its own right, set on the big red rocks that abound in this area.  I will say though that the lighthouse part is on top of and integrated into the structure and not a separate building.

      There were also lighthouses that had emergency quarters for keepers who might get stranded during a storm with a kitchen, sleeping quarters, etc.  That's what I had originally intended to do with mine but have found ahouse to put with it so will proceed with that idea.  There is also the Shirley Temple movie "Captain January" which has great scenes of her tapping up the stairs where Cap is going to take care of the light. Also has some interesting scenes of their living quarters- would be worth a rental to see that.  I love movie scenes for just this reason. Check with your local PBS station - I seem to remember a series on lighthouses about a year ago or so - they may have videos still available or could tell you where you could get them. Did anybody else see this series?

      As far as the small lighthouse - I would go along with another suggestion that was made which was to do a light keeper's house that would be right next to it. In a regular lighthouse nothing much is going on anyway - it's just a means of getting up and down to the light. The size you described sounds like 1/2 scale and could be really a blessing in disguise...I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to put this big monstrosity including the pile of big rocks!!! 

Ana

Lighthouse Interiors: The vast majority of lighthouses have only a spiral staircase going up and up to the lense and mechanical area.  The living quarters are located on ground level nearby  usually.  In some cases, the lighthouse itself is located some distance away from the quarters making the keepers keep in shape with long walks!

      If the quarters are located inside the tower, there are usually one, maybe two rooms on each level.  These towers are naturally much wider to accommodate rooms plus the spiral stairwell, as well as the central "tube" where the weight that turns the lense was housed.  This was wound up every few hours - now I'm talking about 'the old days."  There are two lighthouses still using this method in the Bahamas.

The Old Spanish Lighthouse (Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, CA) is a good example of rooms in the tower.  This style had two large rooms on the ground floor (plus basement) plus two rooms (bedrooms) a short distance up the stairway.  Hope this helps and doesn't confuse.  From your friend, the lighthouse keeper's daughter (in CA) 

Lexie

Lighthouse Interiors:   Most lighthouses don't have much inside them except for the "miles" of stairs to climb up to the light.  My sister and I climbed up the Cape Hatterus Lighthouse. I only made it halfway up, but she made it all the way to the top!  When I made it back to the bottom, I stood outside with our father and waited for her.  She stood on the walkway around the light waving to us.

  There was several other buildings there also.  The house for the keeper and family, plus storage buildings.   We also, went to several other light houses along the North Carolina coast, and they had similar arrangements.

  Several years later, we went back to Cape Hatterus, when they were getting it ready to be moved down the beach and a little further inland. It was very interesting to see how they prepared it, then put it on rails to move it, then resettled it in it's new home.  We followed a lot of the move on the internet. 

Gabrielle

Lighthouse interior pictures: After seeing folks asking about books of pics on lighthouse interiors, I did a net search and there are lots of interior pics on the net...there are many lighthouse lovers out there. Here is a great page of lighthouses you can stay at...it's a good starting point...just poke around the pages a bit to find interiors....the interior of the one in Wales is charming...

http://www.lighthouse.cc/links/overnight.html 

John in Yonkers

Flocked Finish - I just bought some Soft Flock put out by Plaid. There is an adhesive bottle and another bottle of fibres. It says it will add a velvety finish on the inside of boxes. Can be used on most porous surfaces including wood, plaster, clay, pots, primed metal, paper, paper mache, memory books etc. Sounds good. I bought brown. Seems to come in about 40 different colors. I want to try it for animals. The web site is www.plaidonline.com

Barbara in El Cerrito, CA.

Flocked Finish - Canadian Tire carries various colours of suede paint. Pretty sure Home Depot has it too.

Debi in Quesnel

Tin ceilings: Some chocolate bars come wrapped in an embossed foil that looks like miniature tin ceiling. Also in shops that cater to cake decorators you can buy many designs of embossed foil for covering cake boards. (And you'd be surprised at all the other possibilities for miniaturists too.)

Elli in NZ

White on white stripes. Some stripes satiny and some matte. I looked all through Dee's catalog today and there's nothing like I want. May just have to find fabric and paper my walls with that! The only way I can think of to produce that effect is to paint the walls a matte white, stripe with masking tape in the parts I want left matte...then paint with a satiny white

Rita Pierce

1/4 Scale Teapot Walls: There are three options I'd suggest for your teapot walls. One is to snip thin wedges out of the paper to help it conform to the teapot curves, something like the way tiny 'v'-cuts are made in fabric to help ease it around a curve. The second is to cut walls from matboard and fit those in place rather than leaving the interior curved. I think I'd paint the curved walls, then if you want a print you can either paint dots or flowers on them or cut little bitty designs from paper or fabric and glue them in place.

Pam

1/4 Scale Teapot Walls: You could use gift wrap tissue paper cut into strips to make a template of the inside of the pot;; it's not too flimsy but light enough to mold along the pot's curves. Tape strips together till you have a template to cut the good paper. Or, you might want to use a border paper as a chair rail and just paint the walls a solid cover.  Just don't give up! Keep experimenting and you'll figure it out.

Loretta.Sniarowski

1/4 Scale Teapot Walls: If you are set on using wallpaper why don't you build some false walls out of thin foam core. They would be straight and easy to wallpaper. If you want to keep the original curved walls of the teapot try painting the walls then doing a fun stencil. I painted and stenciled all the walls in my dollhouse. It's different from what everyone else does.

René

1/4 Scale Teapot Walls: Could you put in a false wall by curving a rectangle of cardboard to fit in the teapot from open edge all the way around to the other open edge, and then wallpaper that?  If your opening isn't too large the cardboard wall could go up high enough so the top edge wasn't seen. Will you have to put in a false floor because the bottom of the teapot is (1) not level, and/or (2) not big enough? The wall could then fit neatly around the new floor. You will probably lose "room" space for your scene with the false wall. I guess a lot depends on the shape of your teapot! Love to hear how it works out!

Judy in (middle) TN