Many of you will know I have been posting on Instagram for a few years now.  Recently I have been posting more there than here on my blog.  You may have noticed that through the nice Instagram widget I had at the bottom of my blog.

Unfortunately the widget makers changed some things I wasn't happy with so I removed the widget from my blog.  Pity, as I really liked it.

I know not all of you are on Instagram so I thought I would show some of my Instagram post here now and then.  What do you think?  I will start with this video (sound on!) I made just for fun of the toilet area I was working on a few weeks ago.  This is located in the room next to the kitchen.

Update:  I noticed there is no image in the top bar of the post, so I will include a photo to make up for that.

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The downstairs loo. ⠀ I worked on restoring an old toilet and sink these past days. It’s plumbed in now and…it works! 😉 (sound on) ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ #flushingtoilet #toilet #toilets #cloakroom #restroom #onetwelfthscale #12thscale #miniatures #miniature #oneinchscale #handmademiniature #josje #josjesminiatures

Een bericht gedeeld door 𝕁𝕆𝕊𝕁𝔼'𝕊 𝕄𝕀ℕ𝕀𝔸𝕋𝕌ℝ𝔼𝕊 (@josje.bouwt) op 8 Aug 2019 om 6:52 (PDT)

In the comments of the previous post, several of you mentioned that you were not familiar with water pumps in kitchens, so I will tell you a little bit about them here. 

The 17th and 18th century Dutch were (and still are to a degree) somewhat obsessed with cleanliness and housewives and maids were forever scrubbing, mopping and washing.  Nowadays I would say 99,99% of households are connected to mains water of course, but before mains water was common, many houses had a water pump in the kitchen.

Pieter Janssens Elinga, ca. 1670, Hermitage, Sint-Petersburg No kitchen pump but a maid cleaning...notice also the Delft blue tile mopboard.

Pump systems with a tank and valves have been around since 200BC  when Greek inventor and mathematician Ctesibius invents the water organ.  In the 16th and 17th century many more inventions and developments on the water pump followed in Europe and developments continued worldwide into the present day.  In the local archives I even found a 1588 patent for one by Otto Barentsz. from Amsterdam (?). 

1588 patent water pump ( photo source))

The water in the city canals was filthy with sewage and other waste and deemed unfit for drinking even in the 16th century.  Except for cleaning the stoop and street in front of the houses, canal water was not used.  The water needed for all that washing and scrubbing came from groundwater wells and from rainwater collection.

Even this cleaner water was not generally used for drinking.  Clean (drinking) water was expensive and shipped in from the countryside.  Most people drank a very weak beer.

Kitchen pump with one handle (without internal cistern?).  Museum van Loon, Amsterdam.

The wells for groundwater were often located in the yards close to the kitchens.  Rainwater was collected in a system of tanks and stored in a tile lined brick reservoir, often dug into the basement areas or into the gardens.  Rainwater tanks could also be found in the attics of the houses.  The poorer households made use of public wells.

17th century kitchen in the Menkemaborg, a country house near Groningen, the Netherlands

The well water and rainwater tanks each had their own pump system, so on some kitchen pumps you could see two pump handles and two large taps, each for a different water system.  Other houses had the systems separated, one in a pump house attached to the kitchen and the other one in the kitchen itself.

Kitchen pump and tap (with internal cistern), Menkemaborg

By moving the pump handles up and down or sideways, water was pumped from the large holding tanks into a small cistern located inside the kitchen pump.  With the two handled pump, the cistern would be divided into two separate areas so the water did not mix.  The tiny brass spout to the left of the big tap (photo above) is the overflow for the cistern.  With the cistern filled up you just turn the tap(s) to run the water.

Wall fountain at the Menkemaborg.

Wonderful (silver?) tap on the wall fountain at the Menkemaborg.

Although not much is known about the personal hygiene in the 17th and 18th century, I have seen fountains for washing hands in several large houses.  The one at the Menkemaborg could be a 19th century one, I don't know, but in the 17th century dolls' houses a number of miniature silver fountains for washing hands can be found.

That's all I know about the kitchen pumps and their water supplies.  Below some photos of kitchen pumps I made in the past for several roomboxes.

Kitchen pump (no cistern), 17th century style roombox No. 1 (by Josje)

Kitchen pump (no cistern), 17th century style roombox No. 2 (by Josje)

Kitchen pump in miniature kitchen (19th century), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Copy of a kitchen based on the miniature kitchen at the Rijksmuseum (by Josje).  See blogpost here.

Kitchen pump (with cistern) from the kitchen mentioned above (by Josje).  See blogpost here.

I continued working on the kitchen.  As I mentioned in my previous post, removing the side wall exposed the unfinished side of the water pump.   I had wanted to tile it with a lovely flower scene I had painted a few years ago, but it just didn't fit nicely on there so I decided against that idea.

The best option was to just take the top off and put a new one on there around the tree sides.  As always with these types of changes, I ran into all kinds of little things which needed adjusting because of the changes.  But one thing at a time and eventually it all fitted back together again.

I still didn't make a new handle for the pump.  As I mentioned six years ago as well ;-) this one is far too big.


Next on the list was finishing the wall on the right side of the room.  I wanted a simple white plastered wall and continue the skirting board of Delft blue tiles.  The tiles then serve as a true mopboard, protecting the walls from splashing water when mopping the floor.

Unfortunately I lost all of my tile files during a computer crash a few years back, so I had to start all over again.  It was a lot of work to find all the right tiles, get them the right size, colour etc. to print them and use them like I did on the other wall.

On to the ceiling.  I found photos of a Herengracht basement kitchen on a real estate website.  The photos clearly showed where the ceiling beams were and how they were part of the structure of the building.  The 18th century dolls house belonging to Sara Rothé shows the same position of the beams in the kitchen.  A cross beam supports the fireplaces on the floors above.

In my kitchen the beams supporting the walls are all plastered over, the rest of the beams are visible.




In a drawer I found a battery operated strip of LED's.  I have never used LED's before but I thought they would look nice inside the large chimney breast.  So I cut off a length and soldered them to the wires of a transformer.  These run on 4,5 Volts.

With normal light bulbs it doesn't matter, but with LED's it is important to connect the plus and minus correctly.  If the lights don't work when the power is on, the wires may be the wrong way round and you'll have to change them over.





And finally, just for fun, another shot of the kitchen in progress.  A little further back.  A messy worker...who?  Nooooo, not I.... ;-)

The patchwork was easy to do and I soon moved on to the room next to the kitchen in the basement.  This room is at the front of the house and will probably be part pantry, part study.

I bought some copper miniatures from Elly's estate.  As they have some hammered surfaces, I assume they were made by Philippe Bordelet.  The way they are made also suggests they are by Philippe Bordelet.  However, the soldering and finish on them is really quite bad.

In the past I have bought copper miniatures from Philippe himself and they are nicely made even though his soldering could have been better.  So, maybe these were early pieces or he just didn't have his day when he made them.

Whatever the case may be,  I decided to clean up the solder joints a bit.