....and after.

Yesterday I finally got the keys to the museum room and we (I have two friends staying with me at the moment) hastened there to view the bare, newly decorated space and to take measurements.   Those of you who have been following my journey from the beginning will remember this post with the photos of a somewhat dismal, very brown room......

Whilst I have been in England enjoying weddings, important family birthdays and Giant Book Sales, work has been going on in the room to turn it into something more suitable to take a large quantity of dolls houses and allow them to be displayed to their advantage.   A kind friend in Bavorov has been sending me photos as the work has gone along. Quite soon after daughter and I left for the UK the builders started work and one of the first things they did was to begin the process of covering up the appalling brown plastic ceiling.

They also removed the dreary pale brown formica panelling - remember it?  It was clear from her photos that great strides were being made, very quickly.   Work also started on rewiring the room and adding many extra power points and lighting sockets.  

So I was quite excited when I unlocked the door.....I knew that pretty well everything had been done except the bars on the front windows and the final electrical works (there are no actual plugs or switches yet).

The first thing that struck me was the size of the room - much bigger than I had remembered.   Even before we started measuring it was clear that my worries about all the display units fitting into the space had been unnecessary.   Not only would they all fit - there are in fact more than I mentioned in my last blog post -  but we will have flexibility in how we decide to arrange them.

The second thing to strike me was how light the room is now that everything is white instead of dreary brown.   Even the remaining lino, which is still the original brown stuff, has brightened enormously and will serve very well as a durable floor covering.

The entrance archway is very cool - sadly the door doesn't quite live up to the arch itself - but I think making it darker in colour might help.  It seems I am stuck with having a glass panel in the door since the museum will be a public space and there could be health and safety concerns.  

 One thing I now regret is not having asked for the radiators to be painted as well - the photos show the windows at each end of the room, with the large radiators taking up much of the available space.

However since I plan to run one of the display cabinets along the back wall, regardless of the radiators, and at the other end the worktables will be placed under the window so that passers-by can stop to watch "work in progress", they will be fairly hidden and I think I will leave them as they are for the moment.

My other regret is not having asked for the complete removal of the washbasin and tiles.   I figured that I would still need a water supply for all the cups of coffee/tea that are going to be necessary whilst working on the houses but the unit as it stands is very intrusive and will have to be completely screened off. 

Cue digression:  The Czechs have an overwhelming passion for tiling bathrooms and other watery areas.   Anyone visiting the Czech Republic should make time not only to visit the wonderful Gothic churches and romantic castles, but also to visit a branch of what I have nicknamed The Temple of Baths - Siko.  I have a horror of tiled bathrooms and struggled desperately to persuade my builder that 

having one is not a compulsory fact of life.   I won in the end but had to concede some tiling in the shower room....

The other thing that will need some attention is the "back" door which leads to a long corridor, somewhere along which I hope are some toilets.  The door is utilitarian in the extreme and I plan to hand it over to Butterfly for her splendid transformative skills to work their magic on it.

But over all I am delighted with the space (it was even pleasantly warm, proving that the radiators do work) and I am now much looking forward to the scheduled arrival of the houses and display units at the end of this month.   In the meantime I am trying to decide whether I should have blinds at the windows so that the contents will not be fully exposed to view in my absence....I do have a feeling that if someone really plans to break in and cause mischief they will do so, regardless of precautions, but on the other hand I have always rather liked the saying "You can't keep trouble from coming, but you needn't give it a chair to sit on....."   

Thank you for visiting Cestina's Dollshouses today.   There may be no further post until the houses actually get here, when once again you will be able to see some chaos as they are decanted into their space.   All the display units have to be painted before the houses themselves can be unpacked - oh joy!

En route at last - well almost!

I have been very silent over the past weeks haven't I?  I see with horror that my last post was almost a month ago.   I have had an excuse (well several excuses actually). The first one, as some of you will know, is that we have had a second Giant Book Sale which has involved much shifting, shelving and pricing of books, stepping over cartons, mountaineering past bookshelves hauled from other parts of the house.....None of this could have happened without the indefatigable help of the amazing Jo who has been untiring in her efforts - thanks Jo!   (And thank you too for preventing murder between self and daughter on occasion.)

Warm thanks to everyone else who has helped with the book sale or who came to buy - I met a number of lovely people who share my hobby of collecting Girls Own books - school stories and other books written for girls.

Our "bastelroom" looked like this and that's just down two walls.   The bay window is now also framed with books and so is the fourth wall.   The books are staying shelved until we actually move out of the house, probably early in the New Year, so if anyone wants to come and browse, do please make contact.   

Some of you may be wondering what a "bastelroom" is so cue digression.

"Basteln" is a useful German word meaning "to do handicrafts", to "make something with one's hands" or even "to tinker".  When we first moved into our house about forty years ago one of the room's incarnations was as a kind of hobby room and the name has stuck.   This led to a confusing scene at daughter's primary school when she had to describe the rooms in her house and wrote about the "bustle room".  Teacher was deeply puzzled by its function....

I have recently discovered that "fröbeln", based on the name of the educationalist Friedrich Fröbel, is used in a similar sense, which pleases me greatly.

Alongside this feverish activity went a constant sorting of the contents of the many uniboxes (good heavens, they are still sold) which had made their way up from the garage over the past weeks.   Hurling each empty, dusty box into the garden to wash in the rain was a great feeling of achievement.   Too much chaos for son who then tidied them all up.

After reeling in horror at four quotations for the removal of the houses to the Czech Republic (one from Her Majesty's removal firm, no less - which left me wondering just what she needs to have removed?   A sudden decision to send a favourite piece of furniture from Buckingham Palace to Balmoral perhaps?) it has been decided to hire a Box Luton van which a friend will drive across at the end of the month.   Now we are just crossing our fingers that everything will fit in.

One advantage of my already heading across - at the moment I am staying at the airlock between my two very different lives, the house of one of my oldest and very best friends near Bonn in Germany - is that I can take proper measurements of the museum room and decide whether we can accommodate all of the larger display units or not.   There are four large upright oak cupboards (old BBC filing cabinets I think) which I plan to use on their sides as base counters for the display, plus quite a lot of shelving (seen above in a state of collapse) which is not intended for the museum but for my house there.    A couple of oak desks, also ex-BBC which will be the working surface in the museum for new house constructions are also poised to leave, and of course the many dolls houses, either bubble-wrapped or in giant cartons.   

Just before the book sale our front room looked like this - note the fruit boxes filled with many books still to be shelved for the sale.




It then went through a stage of looking like this.......
               


And by the time I left on Monday night the room looked equally full but now with a degree of order out of chaos as the houses gather prior to departure on 30th October.

The sticky task of finally readying them for the van - boxing up some of the remaining smaller houses and bubble-wrapping the remainder will fall to my ever-helpful son and daughter, as will the loading of the van.   They are both delighted that I won't be around to interfere.......I'm quite happy too!   And eternally grateful to them for their unswerving support in this enterprise.

Thanks to everyone who is still reading at this point.   As I said, I am now en route for Bavorov and will be moving on tomorrow night, arriving there, all being well, on Friday evening.   I will then have to contain my soul in patience as I assume I won't be able to get the keys for the museum room until Monday.   After that I promise another blog post with photos of what I hope is a transformed room.    

Now to think about a name for the museum that works in both Czech and English - all suggestions will be gratefully received!

Why so silent?

Hello again!   Some of you may have been wondering why there has been no recent update on my blog.   These photos may give you a tiny clue..... The first one shows the view as you peer into the garage from the front - those who have been following my journey will recognise the big Tudor house which was part of the Essex Haul.   And next to it, almost out of the picture, you can just get a tantalising glimpse of the roof of my most recent serendiptious purchase - £8.50 on ebay.   More on that will be revealed in due course.......

If you make your tortuous way past the lethal roof rack on the left, and the teetering piles of packing boxes on the right (banana boxes are just great since they come complete with lids), you will reach a heap of stuff intended for one last car boot sale which I am not sure we will in fact achieve this year.   

And beyond that, in the dark recesses of the cobwebby garage, is a daunting jumble of houses, large cardboard boxes, uniboxes and other plastic containers, most of which have been nestling there for about ten years now.   For anyone worried about the state of the houses - I can assure you that the delicate ones are packed in the boxes, the ones balancing on top are a)very robust and b) needed major attention anyway.

The houses, and all my other miniature items, were rushed into the garage ten years ago, when we urgently needed the room that housed them, and I haven't really seen them since.   Partly because I was too scared to see if they had suffered any damage.   However it looks as if they are mostly fine, just very dirty.   Sadly I can't really remember what is in the packed boxes so my idea of them being shipped straight across to the museum room in Bavorov on 5th October won't work.  

In the next two weeks the houses etc have to be moved up into our front room so that I can work through everything before it goes.   In order to do that we need space in the front room, which at the moment looks like this as we prepare for an in-house book sale. (Please email me for details if you are interested).

My son was recently explaining to his wife just what trying to move stuff in my house at the moment actually entails....."it's like those little plastic puzzles" he said, "the ones where you move the pieces around to get things in the right place.   One tile is missing so that you have a space to move the other tiles.   The only problem " he continued "is that in her house the space is missing.....".   Oh how true! 

However we have now chucked out the dying freezer, thus achieving a tile space, and work continues.   Not exactly apace, but at least there is movement.
 
Meanwhile, in another 
country.......but that's for the next blog.   I hope to see you again soon - there should then be some photos of the work in progress in the museum room, which those of you with me on my journey will remember looked rather brown and dismal  when I left Bavorov at the end of July. 
   
Thank you for following me so far and please send lots of positive thoughts for the next three weeks!   I know there is a goddess of carparking - I am hoping there is one covering packing and moving as well.......

The Essex Dolls House Haul - the Best comes Last!

I am very excited about this house!   Leaving aside all the others, this one would have been worth the trip to the far side of Essex all by itself.

Not long ago I was idly chatting with my daughter about the possibilities of creating a theatre set in Shakespeare's time -  one located in the courtyard of an inn of that period.   And then this house came along - serendipity strikes again.  Of course, so far there is no courtyard for the stage to go in but time and some hard work can soon alter that!

This is a really big house, and beautifully detailed, although needing quite a bit of finishing still, especially inside.   You should be able to get an idea of the size from this photo of my son manoeuvring it into the garage.  If you click on the photo you can zoom in to a close-up of the roof which looks as if it has been applied in much the same way as the brickwork on the first house I described when I began this blog - the Dutch House.

I haven't yet fully explored in how many places it opens.   The front comes off the top floor in two pieces and the next floor down is hinged in at least one place, possibly more, as is the ground floor.

It's possible to open up the whole house in various ways.

One thing it needs badly is aging.   So how very useful that my daughter is about to do the Timeworn Techniques course run on-line by Andy Skinner.   

It has nicely detailed windows, a small balcony, and a supply of panelled doors, most of them lying inside the house at the moment.   Even the back of the house is "timber-framed" but there it is painted on rather than proper wood.  

Below the balcony there is a veranda which could later form the link to a courtyard....... I expect one day to see William Shakespeare himself looking on from the shelter of the overhanging roof whilst one of his plays - Henry IV Part 1 perhaps - is staged for the very first time.....

And finally, in a tiny whisper, I have to confess that I bought another dolls house on ebay last week.....£8.55 this time.   More will be revealed when we have hauled it out of the car and made a space for it to be photographed.

Thank you so much for joining me in a further stage of my journey to a museum of my very own.   It's getting closer.   Phone calls to van hire companies are on the list for this week so that I can sort out a way of getting the houses from the garage at the bottom of my English garden to the room in the Czech Republic.   Though before they set off I had better check that the room has been decorated and is ready and waiting to receive them......   

The Essex Dolls House Haul - Part Four

After the last post's digression into the melodramatic backstory of the house that is clearly now fated to become a ballet school, normal service is being resumed.

It is therefore time to expand on the tiny glimpse you previously got of house number 5 - and here it is:

Above is the view from the front and on the right is one from the side, taken while the house was safely tucked into the back of the car, alongside its peers. 

Again, it is quite large. definitely twelfth scale.

It opens in three places, which is always better than just a front opening because it gives much greater flexibility in use.   The roof lifts up, revealing two big, half-timbered rooms, with a door between them.   It's annoying when dolls house makers not only assume that a house's inhabitants can not only fly from floor to floor but also walk through walls!   So it is satisfying to find both doors and stairs in this house.   And, indeed, rather nice specimens of both.

Downstairs there are once again two rooms, with an "oak" door between them.   Just one of the rooms can be seen here;  the second room is slightly smaller and of course has no staircase running up out of it. 

The house is very solidly built, it has a nice feel to it and when opened up it looks like this:   

As soon as we unloaded it from the car, daughter and I both thought "farmhouse" and foreign farmhouse at that.   I think maybe Danish or North German, she is thinking Czech.   I need to do some research before deciding exactly which country to base it in but the research is always a fun part of this hobby.   I learned a great deal about how the Japanese live when making my Japanese bungalow.....and one day there will also be a Colonial bungalow based in some part of either Africa or India.   At the moment that particular house is painted bright orange and looks repulsive.  But its day will also come!

And now for that tantalising glimpse of the final house in the Essex Haul.   This is the one I am probably most excited about......

Yes, it's another timber-framed one, but just wait till you see it!

Thank you for visiting Cestina's Dolls Houses today and I hope you will stay with me for more of the journey towards a dolls house museum of my very own.

Cue digression - a Dolls House Drabble sneaks in...

Apologies to those of you coming to the site expecting another dolls house reveal.   Next post, I promise.....

I know that many following this journey to a dolls house museum of my very own will be more than familiar with drabbles - yes, I mean you, Chalet School Bulletin Board members!  And for those who have no clue what or where the Chalet School is, wiki for once provides a coherent and accurate answer. 

One definition of a drabble is "a short piece of writing (usually fanfiction but sometimes original), usually no more than 100 words (although length is debatable) and often not bearing any real direction or plot. Drabbles are more often used to make a point about the characters or events involved, or to provide an introspection or specific point of view."

Chalet School drabbles (and those for other Girls Own authors) are many and various) and if anyone is interested, Chalet School ones can be found in abundance here and here

So why am I rabbiting on about drabbles and other apparently unconnected subjects?

Well, those of you who read the previous post will know that I invited suggestions on how to decorate and furnish this not terribly inspiring house.   I floated the idea of some sort of school and one blog follower, my friend Andrea Small, singing leader extraordinaire, has got rather carried away.

She is struggling with the posting of comments - blogger seems to have taken against her browser - and so having suggested a dance school - that comment posted okay - she has sent me her further developing thoughts by email.

Reading them, they resemble nothing so much as the plot lines for an excellent crossover drabble!   Since I know how many Girls Own fans are following this blog, I cannot resist posting it on here in its present entirety, though knowing Andrea I suspect there may be more to come.   

It started with Andrea 
commenting on the 15th August: Ooh ooh ooh as soon as I saw ground floor I thought "dance school". 

And the attics would house trunks full of long-forgotten but immensely valuable costumes, which would be discovered by The Naughtiest Girl in the School (such a trial to Madame) when she was hiding up there, and save the school from bankruptcy.

I responded by objecting to having to create a)people and b)valuable costumes.   (I reduced my own sewing teachers at school to tears on more than one occasion.)

Andrea came back with:  

The fabulous costumes could be suggested by glimpses of gorgeous material, rather than actual garments. Madame would need a study, of course, lined with photographs of herself as a young prima ballerina. And a drinks cabinet - perhaps that's why the school gets into financial trouble (er - perhaps not - she just needs a medicinal brandy when particularly vexed by The Naughtiest Girl). And the place could be deserted - a whole school performance at the Alhambra - with just a pair of discarded point shoes lying in the corner (more trouble for TNG on her return). Any more objections I can brush aside?

And the flow continued this morning:

The reason the school falls into financial problems is that Madame has a weakness - not The Drink, as I first thought, but her ne'er do well nephew. Haven't got his name yet. He is a cad and a bounder, not to mention a rake, but he is all she has left to remind her of her dear dead sister, tragically taken at a young age by TB.

Nephew appears once the story has been established (excited gossip amongst the girls - and most of the boys- who is that dashing stranger?) he sets his cap at a rich girl, hoping to get his hands on her fortune ( ooh Matron) and she, of course, falls heavily for him. Rich but dim. 

TNG, obviously, sees right through him, but no-one will believe her (she has a penchant for Tall Tales) and disaster nearly strikes. Perhaps he has managed to con some money out of Rich Girl and Madame is honour bound to repay once it all comes out (device as yet unknown) and then she is faced with Ruin...

Then there is the accompanist, who I feel sure has a backstory...perhaps she is The Drinker (tragic life, etc). So we need another character who is secretly a brilliant pianist who can step in when she falls down - a nice young man, I fancy, who also has a head for business and who ends up as Madame's right-hand person...

And yet more:

Oh oh oh - the Rakish Nephew arrives, of course, when the school is deserted - so you could have him standing in the middle of the studio, coolly assessing his chances. His mother, by the way, was a far more brilliant dancer than Madame, but she fell for a chap who whisked her away with promises of All Sorts (not the sweets, you understand), only to be revealed as firmly married.

By that time, she is heavily pregnant and just manages to get to Madame in time to deliver the boy, and then promptly dies ( so not TB, after all). Madame is all set to give up her dancing career to raise the child, but the dreadful father tracks the baby down and takes him away, to be raised as a servant on his estate. When the boy is older, he finds out about his father and is immediately embittered and turns to the bad. So we could summon up a bit of sympathy for him later, if necessary. Perhaps he has an epiphany. Perhaps he is the brilliant pianist....so many possibilities...

So there we have it - the story so far!  

All suggestions are more than welcome as to how on earth I am supposed to produce all these subtle plot twists and turns in miniature?   Preferably without using any people since they are not my strong point!

Anyone who would like to add to this melodramatic version of Ballet Shoes could email me their contributions to czechdollshouses@gmail.com and I will in due course produce a further digressive (is this a word I wonder?) blog post.....

The Essex Dolls House Haul - Part Three

Recovery from the excitement of son's wedding on Sunday is slow but steady - if you are interested you can share the set-up and transformation process of a plebeian scout hut into a magical venue by my daughter here.

Our full-size house (which we have this morning accepted an offer on, a huge wrench, selling after nearly forty years) is full of wedding chaos, everything piled into boxes and bags after stripping down the scout hut on Sunday night to return it to its normal state.   

And I am supposed to be organising a singing workshop on Saturday though thankfully I am not the one who leads it.  (If you live near Hoddesdon, Herts, and love to sing, even if you fear you can't, do check out the link and sign up to join us.)

My brain is still not back in gear, and when that happens the best place to turn is to the totally controllable world of dolls houses, so it's time to take a look at the fourth house of the six from Essex.   You caught a glimpse of it at the end of my last post.

And here it is, with apologies for the foreshortened picture. Those of you who have been following this adventure from the start will recognise the shingled effect!

It is bigger than it appears in the photo, scale of one to twelve, with an opening front and a lift-up roof.   Not sure if the front door opens.   This is a style of house that many collectors start on but I don't yet have one like it in twelfth scale though I have a very similar one, in a smaller scale, tucked away in the garage.

It's not a shape that greatly inspires me so I would be very happy to receive suggestions for what could go into it.   Once again, I don't really want a conventionally furnished house....I have plenty of those.

I have just realised I only took three photos before we added this one to the garage but enough for people to come up with some ideas perhaps. 

Unusually for a dolls house I see there is a staircase up to the loft. Even when a house has a staircase on the lower floors it seems the inhabitants are expected to fly into the loft from outside. Not in this one though so maybe I can capitalise on that...

And the inside is very basic, again foreshortened so the true size is not easy to see.   There is a room divider for the first floor so it could be two rooms though I am inclined to repaper it and make it just one room.   

I had thought about a restaurant downstairs but I do already have a French-style cafe/patisserie so it would have to be another sort of eating place.   Hmm, maybe in contrast to the house itself it should turn into a chippy?

Ah, I have just had a thought - looking at it again has reminded me of the old house in Richmond where the Misses Lee, a pair of elderly sisters,  ran the small school which I attended when I was four.   Something about the dark green leaves behind it brought it to mind - I can remember the huge (well they seemed huge to me) laurel bushes through which we had to pass to reach the front door.

And now I can see the classrooms........

What do people think?   All other ideas still gratefully received as well.   Thank you for staying with me and see you again soon.

Oops - I almost forgot the tantalising glimpse of the next one: