Treasure trove.

From now on the blogs are quite likely to veer between utterly miserable, when they are dementia related and absolutely cheerful when  they are dolls’ house related.

As you have noticed this post is in a lovely shiny new category all of its own: 24th scale.  In here I shall shove all the interesting minutiae that surround the building of a new house in this scale.  For the proper how to and the overview I’ll do proper magazine articles, keeping the blog for the chit chat and, probably, the historical background.

As I noted last time, I had, in theory, three houses on the go in this scale and have made the momentous decision  to junk them all and put all the bits collected so far into the Regency house.  Here are all the bits collected so far:

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treasure trove!

The box at the back which is called a file box, rather than a box file was going to be Mr Pepys house at the stage when I was having a literary dalliance with Sam Pepys which was so all-encompassing I made a doll of him in the style of dolls of the time and wanted the house to match.  I was going to have open shelves with balustrades and no stairs.  The scale was not very specific, probably 28thish or thereabouts because, at the time it was jolly difficult to find small stuff.  I invested in some kits

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which I found here and there.  I do like the Cassidy kits, which no one seems to be importing now.  I was always unhappy about putting the corner cupboards in the box; they are wonderfully anachronistic for Mr Pepys, I really bought them at the time  I was making miniature books with the vague idea of doing a library.  That never got done either but I did buy two corner bookshelf kits, which are symmetrical, in date and altogether utterly perfect for a Regency house. Jane Austen probably kept her books in cases like these.

In the box you can see some pewter items I collected for Mr Pepys kitchen.  That means I’ll have to have a kitchen in the Regency house.  Fortunately for me kitchens are rooms that evolve very slowly; a load of pewter jugs would be easily found right throughout Georgian times, but I can also use the range I bought for the teddy hotel because ranges were the latest kitchen convenience in the Regency, their labour saving grates and boilers that needed constant cleaning and blackleading being one up (but not much) on an open fire and either a spit and a smoke jack or a bottle jack.  These two devices speared a big lump of meat on metal spikes which then revolved, either by a fan up the chimney, in the case of the smoke jack or in a shielded case shaped like a huge metal bottle, in the case of the bottle jack.  By these means the meat could be evenly burned on the outside and raw in the middle in the traditional manner.  Enclosing the fire in a range with a chamber next to it controlled the heat and the scorching, and a tank on the other side provided hot water on tap for the first time.

So there will be a kitchen and I’m going to site it authentically half way underground.  In the town where I live most of the high street has shops in Georgian houses.  As you walk along the pavement there are grilles to prevent you falling into the little spaces in front of the windows of the semi subterranean basements that originally housed the kitchen.  I’ll build a pavement and steps to the door, as the house is open at the back you’ll be able to see the kitchen in all its sooty glory.

What else have I found?

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Ten tons of Houseworks windows.  I bought these before I bought the teddy hotel, in fact I bought the teddy hotel to house the windows, which I bought from a lady who turned up at Miniatura.  Her husband had been the miniaturist but he had died and she just wanted to clear everything out.  She looked so sad and was selling at such reduced prices I kept going back.  As fast as I sold something on my table I went rushing over to her and bought another little box.  I only managed to get one internal door because other people kept shopping with her as well.  Fortunately the Greenleaf kits come with all the window surrounds, so I don’t have to upgrade all of them but, better still, as I have the Houseworks kits I can try them against the building, which is wonderful.  There is nothing quite as handy as trying out your ideas in reality on the building.

Already, doing Internet shopping, I am amazed at the range of items in 24th scale which are now available.  On the bottom of the pile of stuff you can see two red boxes of flat packed press-out furniture which were all that was available in a budget range for years.  I reviewed them for a magazine, who bought up packs and sold hundreds because of the article which went on for many pages because I had many ideas.

I am also beginning to be aware of what’s missing.  I shall look at my dolls in the house and see what needs changing.  I think I need to see if I can make a cheaper articulated doll to wear Regency clothing.  This fashion of muslin Empire line dresses was designed to imitate classical Roman and Greek statues that were turning up on the grand tour and being shipped over to England by numerous aristos to decorate their stately piles.  It is from this era that the statue gallery became a room de rigeur in yer average mansion.  The female population, meanwhile, endeavoured to dress as like a Roman sculpture as possible i.e in the altogether.  This necessitated damping down the garments so they would cling to the body.  In the fashionable Spa resorts the most fashionable women swanned around wet and several died after catching cold.

I notice also that there are not many porcelain ornaments in this scale.  Now this is something I can do that I wouldn’t have been able to do all those years ago when I thought  the jointing of Mr Pepys was a marvel of prestidigitation.  If I can make ornaments in 48th scale I can definitely make them in 24th.

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and maybe a fireplace or two, too.

Oh I can’t wait to get started, in fact I think I’ll go and camp in the drive and ambush the postman.

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JaneLaverick.com- happy hours in small history.

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