not exactly wallpaper

                            New ideas from new mini blogs!
 Yay! My challenge would be to make a scene without PDR or rement. Witness the above. I was trying to think of a wallpaper that would take me outside my comfort zone but mostly I don't like wallpaper at all. I used these 2 squares of glass tiles to  make a modern kitchen. That was wild for me! 

The goods: oh PDR sink, minimodernista table and chairs, rement Milk bottle, Delph espresso machine, mighty world dishes and cafe pot, glass tile floor and wall. 

If you want me I am at http://Leftcoastmini.blogspot.com/ 

xoxo CM

Thank you Carmel doll shop for the Easter card, I have always relied on your exquisite taste!

Update: Here are the flowers I sent my Assistant for Easter, held by the Assistant's husband. (The one who drove the SUV to pick up the Tynietoy House.) They were at his family;s Farm and his little nephew said about the flower arrangement "It looks like a Dog not a bunny!"
I checked the 1 800 web page I bought it from and it was advertised as "and we even put bunny ears on our popular carnation dog arrangement". You just CANNOT fool those farm boys!
I guess bunny ears on dogs IS de riguer this year.

                                   Hope you had a Happy Easter and Holidays!

  CM

Springing about! And more Tynietoy for the Garden

 

Every Spring I arrange these hand carved daffodil people in my window with flowers. They are made by Rjabnnik on etsy,

and on flickr here.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjabinnik/4326871164/

 

My Little Assistant is especially enamored with them. Bulbs seem so
magical anyway!
 
     Thinking of Spring and gardens,  Tynietoy Garden pieces are very hard to find. And valuable...

 

Rare garden accessories made by Tynietoy

from Ann Meehan http://www.meehanantiqueminiatures.com/

 I have the two benches but finding the other pieces is like finding a needle in a haystack! Or as Ann says about rare Tynietoy pieces, "Like finding hen's teeth!"

          Tynietoy Townhouse with garden from a past Skinner auction catalog

            Tynietoy Arch!  Want!   from past Ron Rhoads auction catalog

Benches, lawn mower and planters, rare!  from past Ron Rhoads Auction catalog.

And I am frustrated because I am bi coastal. I am on the West coast and my Tynietoy House is on the East Coast. To see more go to "Antique & Collectible Dollhouses and their Furnishings", by Dian Zillner & Patty Cooper. pages 157-161, Schiffer Publishing 1998.

 I used to think it was hard herding my collection around one house, now I am spread 3,000 miles apart. My plan is to keep the Tynietoy on the East Coast and the Christian Hacker on the West Coast and everything else in in the Attic. But then I miss my MH1. It is the easiest Modern house to use and it is 1:12.


And then you know I have two blogs. This one and Leftcoastmini for my modern design play. Eek. And My budget has been  torn between the antiques dealers and modern designers too. 

Time for some streamlining.  What? How? I don't know. If I can't play in my Tynietoy right now, you know where I'm headed? The real garden. It is Spring. Cheers CM

Tynietoy Dollhouse

Was on vacation in Washington DC. Visiting my Assistant and the news from the sonogram is It's a boy!!!
The baby is due late July and is doubling in size. Such a miracle!

And I am suffering from a bad case of rugburn...


The news in Miniland is "It's a Tynietoy"! I am lucky enough to have found a Tynietoy Townhouse in Pennsylvania.
It required a 4 hr drive and I am in debt to my pregnant Assistant who (with great discomfort to herself) and with the best son in law in the Universe helped me pick it up in their SUV.

Here is the front wooden facade. Some of the markings one looks for are the original blue painted architectural detail around the door and lintels. I was told this was a "garage find" and had suffered some water damage.

It looks to me as if someone started renovating it, sanding the front for painting and was stopped before the original design was completely removed. The windows are poorly done in what looks like white-out on acetate. The curtains are not original. I like the front door a lot though. The floors are warped. There are 2 chimneys, one looks newer. 

The stairs going straight up look original, the hallway panels on the

second floor look, new, to me. The doorway decoration felt slightly raised as though they were made of paper and glued on, or of thick paint. The upper left bedroom had been sanded, painted an odd green and the door frame clumsily  repainted. Really a poor job. The canopy and bedspread are not original either though the bed is and came to me with the house.

But I am so lucky because many of the Townhouses were simply repainted inside and this blue detail is missing, as in the below example from a previous auction.

 This is an old picture from auction catalog showing a Townhouse repainted inside leaving no architectural detail.

Go to McKendry's seminal dollhouse history for background and to the Master herself, Susan Grimshaw at http://www.tynietown.com/.  She has collected Tynietoy since she was a child and is writing a book about it.

Oh, the rugburn??? I went from my Happy Shaw House where I kept my Tynietoy furniture and this Townhouse back and forth, faster and faster. I have hardwood floors at home and was not used to kneeling on wall to wall carpet. When I woke up the next morning I was dismayed to have a bad case of rug burn on my knees. The kids thought it was hilarious...

So Susan is in isolation, still in the hospital and they are testing for pneumonia. OK Susan! That's enough of that! The rug burn humor is for you.

CM

A letter to my fellow mini house collector, Susan

Susan I know you are lying in the hospital with a spiking fever. I hear you may not be going home till Monday and have one last chemo treatment to endure. Here is a picture of Susan in her wig after her hair fell out. Tres chic, no?

Well if you have followed either of our blogs, hers is Susan's mini homes and is listed in my side bar, you know we spent Christmas in Paris this year. I have been telling her about the detective novels of Cara Black. Cara is a San Francisco native who spent time in Paris.
Her female detective, Aimee Leduc discovers a mystery from each arrondissment in Paris (well not all 20 yet). I am reading "Murder in the Bastille", and one police officer is housed in the Marie in Place Leon Blum, our metro stop. 

There are many wonderful comments like how the crosswalk we used to go to the market once housed a guillotine and the cobblestones ran red with "aristo" blood.

And how the 11e is being corrupted by le caviar gauche who are turning workshops into lofts, like our hostess' place.

But what brings me to writing this post is one of the characters is a
craftsman who works with antiques. He just complained about the new breed of wood workers from the Charles Boulle ecole. The school our Boulle founded. Did you know Charles Boulle created the chest of drawers????? Too funny.

Charles Boulle mean nothing to you? Read Susan's and my last posts! (ok mine is about 6 ago).

These books come in audio version at my library if it is too hard to concentrate and read. They will just have to be our vacations for now until we return to Paris again. Funny how "Boulle" keeps turning up. Especially for you at les marches puces!Cheers! CM

Join the Mini Modern Super Pac, Vote now!

Wrapping up the I house and putting it to bed!

Mattel 1950's wooden bedroom furniture

Matches the Livingroom set in the I house

Before 

After,

 Goodnight I house,

Goodnight re vamp,

Goodnight Mattel bedroom set,

and Jonathan Adler lamp.

Goodnight Moon,

Goodnight Delph. 

Goodnight PDR serpentine shelf

Goodnight hacking

what more can I say,

and the noisy old lady hooting "Hooray!"

Off to DC,

Vote for Mini Modern by going to the link here http://modernminihouses.blogspot.com/

Goodnight, CM

The I house Office: 2nd floor

The house came with these steel colored spiral stairs and I love their design. I even um..."borrowed" another set from my Little Assistant's dollhouse. I can return it now.

Be still my Hacker heart! Look at all this pink and purple I  transformed!!!! YAY The set is by Gloria and can be found on 

ebay. I put the tower under the desk instead of under the monitor.

                         The Patient's couch before... ah hacking ...

                          That Eames chair before hacking...

Notice the miniature kleenex box on the coffee table... This is the office of a therapist. Your dolls are invited over to unload their burdens. The white power plug under the desk is by Delph Miniatures.

Another favorite trick of mine is to use little woven rugs as wall
hangings. CM