The Castle Undercroft

Wiring is always the hardest part of construction for me. Finding the best place to run the wiring and remembering where you hid it afterward is one of the problems. (Which is why my RL swimming pool pump is not running. But that is another story ) :) 

I want to just build it and decorate not stress over wiring and how to get from one room to the other without creating an octopus of wires. The Hungerford Manor was much easier. Tape with embedded LEDs runs along the front of each room and is hidden in the front framing. That won't work for this project so it is slow going. A friend said a castle should be dark and dank. That would have been much easier but no one would see anything at all in these rooms so I will have to persevere.

I decided to create each room in the castle with a false ceiling so that the wiring could be easily hidden. Sounds like a good idea but the wires still have to get to the power source somewhere don't they? And the battery has to be accessible.

Well I'm getting there.
The castle perches on a cliff and the Undercroft is an assembly of 4 rooms set into the rock of the cliff; the staff dining room, the kitchen, the armoury and the wine cellar. I think the wine cellar used to be a dungeon but the present Lord of the Castle is a much nicer person than his forebearers.
The wine cellar is really close to the guard's dining room so I see that he installed a wrought iron gate to try to protect the wine. Or maybe it was there when the room was a dungeon. I'll have to ask him.

 The false ceilings help hide the wiring and I'm hoping that each floor of the castle will be removable but just in case that doesn't work I'm going to furnish each level as it goes up.

This will be the Armoury.

And the Kitchen

 The 2 views into the guard's dining room and the stairs.

 One room left to light and then I get to play with the furniture.
cheers
 Gayle

The Castle Experiment ..continued  The Privy Stairs

It has been awhile since I worked on the castle. Something just didn't feel right about it and it sat rather forlornly on the table for a few months being avoided. I liked the overall shape but just couldn't seem to get excited about continuing.

Then I realized that I just didn't like the large pieces necessary to build the main keep and went back and redesigned it as separate rooms that join together. It seemed a shame to tear down the parts already built but things sped along rapidly after that.
Now the main keep is a series of 6 separate rooms and they are nearly finished.

Each room is going to be similar to the Hungerford Manor rooms; individual free standing structures, but they have added tabs to slot together. That should make things easier to build.
Here is one of the walls.

 I  added false ceilings to each room to hide wiring.  Things were moving along nicely. The main tower stairs were already done and I wasn't going to change those and then. Suzy mentioned a privy!.

OMG you can't have a castle without a gard de robe. I find those strangely fascinating and have way too many photos of the ones I have seen in various castles. The view through that 'opening' is always scary and I can only imagine having to use one. That would be necessity overcoming all fear of heights.

But definitely a necessity. The only place I could find to put one was on a wall of the stair tower. You don't want a gard de robe over a window or a door way. So the tower came apart and the wall was recut and although it is a lacking a bit in privacy the castle now has a gard de robe.
I think it will need a door but for now necessity will have to overcome modesty.

Cheers
Gayle

It you are building your own castle please check out the Tudor and Old World furniture kits on my web site 


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Beatrix Potter’s Hilltop

We went to Hilltop today in the Lake District. I finally got to see the original of the miniature I did of the kitchen and take a close look at the one object that I didn’t include in the miniature. It was a roasting spit and I just couldn’t figure it out from my research photos. Got talking with the National Trust staff and they asked to see the miniature. They were so enthusiastic about the miniature and made my day. Seeing the miniature sitting on the table in the real room was a real treat. A huge Thank You for the opportunity.

If you haven’t been to Hilltop try to make the trip. It is wonderful. 

Cheers

Gayle

Kensington Dollhouse Festival 2019

Now that it is on display I can tell you.  ...
The KDF is always a highlight of my year. Plus it gives me a chance to see friends and tour a bit more of England. This year has an added bit. I entered the PIMA contest. The fact that I got something completely finished and was pleased with it  is unusual enough but it also gave me a chance to do some unique pieces. When I'm designing kits I have to always keep in mind that someone else has to be able to follow the directions and end up with the same result. For something unique, I can carve and sand and play with the original a bit until I get the look I want. I doesn't matter if  I can never replicate it again. Mind you I did four versions of the miniature before I was happy with it.
Now that the show has started and the displays are out I can share some of the photos of the finished piece.
It is a quarter scale room box of the kitchen in Beatrix Potter's house in the Lake District. She bought Hilltop with some of her first earnings from her books and it was her favourite retreat from the pressures of her life in London.  Eventually she moved to Hilltop and lived there for several years.
The house now belongs to the National Trust and I'm really excited to be going to see it after the Kensington show.  I know it is a bit backward to do the miniature and then visit the house but that is the way things go sometimes. It helped that there are several photos of the house on the internet and an inventory of the furniture.

 The kitchen has a lovely flagstone floor and big Victorian fireplace. There is a desk beside the front door that Beatrix used for some of her writing and the spinning wheel was used for the wool from her own flock of Herdwick sheep.

The Welsh dresser was one she bought at a farm sale as was the grandfather clock.

The front garden has a lovely view of the hills and of course daffodils are growing there.  If you look closely you may see a little rabbit hiding in the garden.

If you are at KDF  please vote for my display.

Update: The room box was third in the People’sb Choice Awards. Thank you to everyone who voted!!!




Cheers
Gayle

THE CASTLE EXPERIMENT 3

 I know I should figure out all the design for the castle before I start working on the interior but I'm impatient to see what the Great hall will look like. So I convinced myself that I needed to finalize the wall paneling to make sure it all fit. :) That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
The gallery floor took a few tries to get it to sit properly. One door on the gallery leads to the next part of the castle and the other will lead to a walkway on the castle walls.

I'm not sure how many roof trusses will work so I just added the end ones for now.  I have a castle chandelier put away that is already wired. Now I just have to find it. I originally made it for the Hungerford Manor and then lost it. So I made a second one. Of course once it was done I found the original. I put it carefully away.  Somewhere.
In the mean time it is on to the next section of the castle; the main keep.

THE   CASTLE  EXPERIMENT -2

Ok It is official. I HATE STAIRS!!  They either don't fit or are too wide or they don't join properly to the lower flight.Or I was a twit and cut them backwards. How do you even do that??  I think I cut these about a million times. Or at least it feels like it. But  'by jove we've got it'.. Finally. 

The stairs are done and after several tries they fit in the tower where they belong. 

Quick glue them in before they mutate.

These are some of the parts that didn't fit so far. I could build a crooked castle with these. or maybe two.  The number of rejected stair parts was too depressing . I threw those out as I went along.

But now things are starting to move. Or they should until I hit the second set of stairs in the next part of the castle.  Here is the finished Great Hall waiting to be decorated.

Next up is wall paneling and the roof trusses.

cheers

Gayle

www.petworthminiatures.com

THE CASTLE EXPERIMENT

Sometimes it feels like some sort of cosmic connection is at work. Small and Small group started talking about doing a castle challenge and I just had to laugh . This is what was sitting on my drawing board waiting for me to get started.

It is turning out to be a big project and I thought you might like to see how it develops. There has been a lot of re-cutting and changes as it goes along and i will try to keep this up to date as I go.

Once I decided on the basic style of the castle it needed to be sized and configured. If I did it to anything close to the scale of most RL castles , even in 1/4 scale, it would take over my house. So the challenge is to work it into a size that is reasonable but still gives the feel of a soaring majestic building. or as close as I can get to it.

 I really like the one photo I found of a castle on a rocky cliff. That will give me a chance to play with paper clay and make rocks. I love doing that!  It also meant I could design it with an undercroft or basement area. If I make it with peep holes through the cliffs that should be fun. There is something about looking through little openings into another world that is a big part of the fascination of miniatures.

The foot print also had to be smaller than 12 x 12. If this ever becomes a kit it has to fit into a shipping box. :) 

 I couldn't do it. So I divided the base into 2 parts. Now that works.

The lower level will have a big kitchen and what may turn out to be an armory or maybe a stable. There are 2 smaller rooms that I think will be a wine cellar and a dining room for guards and staff.

The large openings on the outer walls are the peep holes and all the sides will eventually be made into cliff walls. 

Before I can build up I have to do the interior wall treatment or I will never be able to get in there to decorate. The next floor sits on top with tabs so I can remove it and work in the basement but I want to do some of the finishing because I can't wait to see what it looks like.

It will only be seen through the peep holes so I decided to just use printed stone walls and floor rather than scribe the stone into a plaster coating. I also have to get the stairs figured out. Those are always a problem and theses have to fit with the ground floor above and the next flight up to the 2nd floor.

It took awhile but I think this is a good start. I'm going to add lighting eventually and some ceiling vaults in the smaller room bit I can't do that until the ground floor is ready to install on top.

The next step is the Main floor and the stairs. Those have to be figured out before anything else. I'll let you know how it goes.

Cheers

Gayle

www.petworthminiatures.com