Carry on with the kitchen...


Thank you for all the lovely comments on my previous post on the kitchen.  I had a problem posting my replies, they all seem to have disappeared into thin air...



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.

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.


I made a wide chimney breast over the AGA cooker.  The chimney breast would have been much lower originally but I didn't want to cover up the tiles on the wall.  It was probably shortened during some renovation in the past ;-)  



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.



I really like the effect of the light coming from the chimney.  For the AGA flue pipe I made a simple round connector into the chimney.  Once the ceiling is permanently attached, the AGA will be kept in its place this way.


More lights were needed of course.  I had kept two applicator caps of hair colour bottles in my stash for years.  They have the perfect shape for pendant lights.  

Making the lights was fairly easy to do:  I cut off the screw tips, primed them, sprayed them a marble colour, cut plastic inserts for them, glued on metal caps, cut brass tubing and threaded wired bulbs through them, glued it all together and finally installed them.  Installing them was the most difficult part!


I must say I think they are a success, I really like them.  Such a pity they changed the bottle caps on the hair colour bottles! ;-) 





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








Comments

  1. The pendant lights are perfect! Also, my work space in front of my current project looks just the same. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you De. Good to know I'm not the only messy one ;-)

      Delete
  2. I love your lights and the LEDs over the stove are wonderful. And you don't want to see my workspace. The only time it's clean is at the end of a project.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Sheila. Actually, I do want to see your workspace ;-) I love seeing workspaces, even if they are messy.

      Delete
  3. Hi Josje,

    I am avidly following your kitchen project, it is full of good ideas; the lights look terrific, so I shall now be eyeing-up plastic bottles wherever I go to see if they'll do the job! I love the messy working shot, I don't know a miniaturist who is neat in the middle of a creative flow, I think the chaos is part of the process (or so I tell myself when I survey the mess in my work room ;D).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So I am normal after all ;-))))) Yes if you can find the right shape those bottle caps are great. I was glad to have found them back in my stash after all of those years.

      Delete
  4. I love your lights and alos the ones in the chimney breast. Great progress!
    Geneviève

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hallo Josje,

    De keuken vordert al heel aardig. Leuk om te zien dat je weer lekker met jouw huis bezig bent. De dopjes omvormen tot hanglampen is heel leuk idee. Ze hebben inderdaad een geweldige vorm. Jammer dat ze niet meer verkocht worden.

    De verlichting is sowieso mooi gelukt. Die ledstrip geeft mooi indirect licht.

    Huibrecht

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dank je wel Huibrecht! Ja ik ben blij dat ik weer eens iets voor mezelf kan doen, dat was al veel te lang geleden.
      Verlichting vind ik altijd moeilijk. In miniatuur is er niet zo veel te krijgen dat ik mooi vind, of het is enorm kostbaar. Maar ja dat is met veel dingen zo ;-) Goed de ogen openhouden dus.

      Delete
  6. I wonder how many of us just finished reading your blog and went to look at all our bottle caps?! Amazing work!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh this is beautiful. The light thrown by the leds onto the tiles wall is just beautiful and the tile skirting absolutely worth all the time taken to recreate your tile files. I love your pendant lights - who would have thought bottle caps could be that useful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Anna! I knew I had to recreate those files one day if I wanted to continue the same style in that room. It was just the amount of work involved which kept me from doing so earlier. But now I have finished them I am glad I did.

      Edit: Oops! Wrote the reply but forgot to publish it. I have done that before on several occasions. ;-)

      Delete
  8. It all looks lovely Josje! I agree it is a pity they changed the caps, they make perfect shades. Uhm, since my work table looks like that permanently I like to call it creative chaos. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Elga! How funny, I always imagined you to be a neat worker! Yes, creative chaos is my permanent work style. Even if I have just cleaned my work surface becomes a cluttered mess in an 'oogwenk' (eye wink) as we say ;-)

      Delete
  9. The lights are fantastic. Such a brilliant idea using bottle caps!
    I'd love to see more of this kitchen.
    Hugs,
    Drora

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Drora! I will show more of this kitchen soon as I plan to get it finished to a state that I don't have to take it out again for fitting lights (or other electrics) and other permanent fixtures.

      Delete
  10. What a difference good lighting makes and your improvised lamp solutions over the sink and stove are both WONDERFUL!
    I also find the pump handle to be an unfamiliar yet interesting feature, which I haven't seen other than here and on Ilona's blog. How exactly does it work in Real Life?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Elizabeth! It never even crossed my mind that there might be people who are not familiar with these kitchen pumps. They are such a familiar thing to us here. OK, not from my time and maybe not even my mother's time and certainly younger people would not know them, but hey, they don't even know what the dial on a telephone is for, haha!
      I will do a short post on the pump this weekend Elizabeth!

      Delete
  11. Beautiful work! I had a giggle reading your reply to Anna above because I often forget to click the publish button! If other comments are continuing to disappear into the ether I would suggest they are going into people's spam folders. This often happens to me and I have to get in touch with the 'happiness engineers' at Akismet who always sort it out for me quickly. One possible reason for the comments being regarded as spam is if you publish a number of comments in quick succession. I am told this is what spammers do and it triggers a reaction in the Akismet program. Akismet usually ask me to give an example of a comment I have made (exact wording preferred) and the blog site on which the comment was made. I hope this is helpful to you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your suggestion! I had a look at Akismet but I think it is only for Wordpress. It is helpful for me though, as I am working on a new website using Wordpress. I had never heard of Akismet before ;-)
      As for the blogger comments, I think it has to do with Apple Safari not playing nicely with Google Blogspot (or vice versa). I have had this problem before, it looks like you're signed in to Google, can reply just as normal but when you publish the comment it just disappears without you noticing it. I sometimes forget this happens. Even with clearing history and cache etc. it keeps happening. Very annoying. When I use Firefox (like I am now) it is all fine.

      Delete
  12. I realise that you are Blogspot and not Wordpress but the method of dealing with missing comments is probably the same.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just to be sure I checked the SPAM folders as well, but none of the comments are in there. Thank you for trying to help me though! I appreciate it.

      Delete
  13. je suis trés impressionnée par votre trouvaille pour fabriquer les lampes . je ne sais pas regarder le monde réel pour dénicher des objets parfaits pour la miniature . je suis moi aussi incapable de comprendre comment marche votre pompe à eau . je connaissais ce système sur les fontaines publiques mais je ne savais pas que cela existait à l 'intérieur des maisons . j 'ai hate de voir la suite . votre cuisine est devenue trés grande et cela va vous permettre de créer une endroit rempli de merveilles .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Catherine. I was trying to think of tips on how to look at the full scale world to find objects to use, but it is difficult to explain. I think the best thing to do is to look at photos of what other people find and use to 'train the eye' so to speak.
      As for the water pump, I was going to write a post this weekend, but I didn't have the time so I'll do that some time this week.

      Delete
  14. WOW your pendant lights are gorgeous, very clever, and the AGA lights look good too.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Using the hair colour caps was an ingenious idea and they've turned out really well. I also like the strip of tiles used as your "mopboard". I've never seen nor heard of that before and it's a lovely touch. Also, the light coming in over your Aga is a great effect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Irene! Funny, again as with the water pump, I thought the mopboard was a common feature in houses all over the world. The Dutch housewife ore maid liked things practical and clean back then. They still do I suppose.

      Delete
  16. I really love your kitchen, The lights are perfect. I have not worked with lights"yet". I am fairly new at Miniatures, Received my first dollhouse kit in Feb. of this year. I do make my own furniture ( I think I do pretty good}. As for a messy work space, lol, I didn't have my own work space so my living room was it, Let me just say my husband built me a little work shop of my own quick :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha, that's funny! It is nice to have a space where things can stay messy without worrying about unanounced guests, isn't it?
      It is good to think about lighting before you get too far into finishing your house, so you can still get to places to run wires or copper tape etc. If you don't know where you'd like the lights, or how many in the room, it is a good idea to run some wires anyway (without connecting them). For instance to hang a ceiling light and maybe some lights by a wall. If you don't need the wires you can always pull them out again, but difficult to install once wallpaper is up. The copper tape gives you more options that way, but I don't know how stable that is, I have never used it. I only use round wire. Anyway, there are lots of videos online to help you with that nowadays.

      Delete
  17. Hi Josje! I am late to this comment stream... but I have to say I Always have to look twice at your posts to see if they are mini or RL scale! This kitchen just takes it up another notch! I am with Elizabeth on not being familiar with the pump handle... but we had smaller versions over here in all the old "Western" movies you could see them at the horse troughs! LOL! Your mop board is beautiful as are the lights over the AGA (hidden though they are), but the ones over the sink... so modern and industrial and absolutely Perfect are what fooled me! Beautiful work! I am so glad you are working on this project again! :) Oh, and my work space is a complete pile of tiny bits and pieces that will come in handy so must never be put away! :):) And speaking of comments, I have been having trouble getting into my own blog comments lately... it is very frustrating! But I seem to be able to access the comments on other blogs with no problems. Hopefully the engineers will adjust something to fix it soon!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Oh Josje, the lighting looks amazing! Well done. Your tile work is superb. This room has so much character already!
    Simon

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment