More Modern Roomboxes in Museums

On a hunch I took at look at the Thorne Miniature Rooms in the Art Institute in Chicago. These are 68 roomboxes commissioned by Mrs. James Ward Thorne, most of which are historical European or American rooms. However a few of them are rooms from California during the 1930s, including this one
 

 This one is a French library from the same period:



Obviously Mrs. Thorne travelled in different company than I do, but isn't it nice she left us these beautiful records of home interiors.

A Useful Thing To Do

I was really taken with Neo-Mini's post about the Gerrit Rietveldt House now at the Brooklyn Museum. I've just finished sitting in on a course on Modernism and Design n our summer semester which really helped put all the modernist architecture and furniture in a framework.

I also discovered d that there is a Vanderbilt-Whitney dollhouse in the Headley-Whitney Museum in Lexington Kentucky, as well as a book about the dollhouse 'Cornelia Vanderbilt Whitney's Dollhouse:The Story of a Dollhouse and the People who made It' by Marylou Whitney. Has anyone seen this house?

It strikes me that putting together a list of modern dollhouses/ furniture in museums would be A Useful Thing To Do.



Eloise Kruger from the UN-L website.

My favourite place to browse for modern miniatures is the Kruger collection at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It was put together by Eloise Kruger between the early 1930s and the 1990s. When she died the family donated the 20,000 piece collection plus all the associated papers and correspondence to UN-L. The University has done a stunning job of curating the collection and most of the pieces are photographed and described on-line. In addition there is a special on-line exhibition of Masterpieces Inside and Out which are described in great detail, accompanied by multiple photographs of each piece.

Any more modern dollhouses or miniature collections out there?


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And the winners are.....

Sorry this took so long to get out. I had to learn to use a random number generator AND figure out how to differentiate between those who put a link and those who didn't Then I figured out that the total comments included my replies, so having done it once had to start all over. So counting from the bottom of the page there are 37 comments ; counting again from the bottom of the page there are 28 who said they had put a link on their blog. That makes a total of 65 entries. I used the RNG, but blog press wouldn't publish the images of it in the blog, so you have to take my word for it. Then it wouldn't post at all. ...patience running out ..



The first number generated is 22
count up 22 from the bottom and. INDY POPPY wins the custom made sofa!! Congratulations. Please let me know about the fabric and style you would like.

The second number generated is 42
Count up 5 from the bottom, skipping those who didn't put a link, and the winner of the Reac Lips sofa is ARANTZA MARTIN.
Congratulations. Please send me your mailing address

Finally, because i got to 60 followers, and because i think its good to have a real chance at winning in a giveaway, I did a third draw for a trial sofa I made. I don't have a picture of it yet. It's white with black tattersall check.I will post a picture on Monday. The third number is 29
The winner of the white and black sofa is ANA. Congratulation s Ana. Please send me your mailing address.

Thank you all for participating and for your lovely comments. Remember winners you need to contact me within a week. If you want to leave your address as a comment, I won't publish it.

HVD everyone

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Happy V Dy!

It's Valentines Day in NZ. Sunny and hot, sleepy making. Entries are still coming in so I,ll do the draw at the end of the evening. In the meantime here's my answer to Mini-Aesthetics February holiday challenge. ..

A rustic lodge In the woods. He's cant get there until after she does.




but he makes sure she knows he's on his way by leaving her a little friend to keep her company until he arrives.



Credits: Chair by Reac, lamp by Tiny Tim; no-brand carpet; bed by me; Milly Molly from l'Ours du Marais.
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How cute are these?

Thank you everyone who offered advice about glues. I found some white glue AND some craft clamps at the $2 shop. I'm really tickled with them. So much better than the pink and brown! Neem, my head tells me you are right about plain white, but I just love these. Haven't quite finished them. The arm is hanging on precariously. I need to get some superglue. And the backs aren't done yet. But with a very modern dark blue linen sofa they will look spectacular.

Credits: chairs are Hannson, toile de jouy is from l'atelier du chat botte etsy shop.


Don't forget tomorrow is the draw day for the giveaway. A special surprise in store for that as well.

More 2 mow row!

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Not really working....

Alas, I spent the whole holiday cleaning and tidying. At the end of the day I went to find my foam core and couldn't. So I decided to work on the toile chairs. The first few steps (deconstruction) were easy once I got over the horror of taking apart Hansson chairs (Thanks, Brae, for your irreverent attitude towards a Bespaq bed). I never liked the pink on these chairs and the super shiny finish doesn't thrill me either so they started out looking like this:





In a few minutes they looked like this:






And they ended up looking like this:




As you can see, that's when things began to go pear-shaped. First I knocked off an arm. Then I decided to cover the backs and seats. Small job, you might think. But no...

I have used three different types of glue to try and get the cotton fabric to stick to the cardboard backing, fabric glue ( no), white glue ( no), glue stick ( better but still not good). By this time the back of the fabric is stiff with dried glue and grubby looking. I think I'll have to start all over again, having wasted a substantial piece of the precious toile. So the last word is HELP! What kind of glue should I be using? All suggestions welcome, particularly from those of you down under as we can't always get the brands that you in the northern hemisphere have on tap.

All the best from a broken, stiff, grubby modernist.




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By Jove, I think she's got it!

After searching in vain for a tutorial on making a miniature sofa bed, I googled "sofa bed innovation design" and came across ... Innovation.
And lo and behold these clever sofa beds which look to be adaptable to mini size, including this



And this




And this



And this



Tomorrow is a public holiday, most of which will be devoted to cleaning up the yard and house which will have been neglected all summer, but I hope to steal a couple of hours to finish the toile de jouy chairs and experiment with these forms.

By the way, Ginger has never claimed the Reac Lips sofa, so I am going to re-draw for that. So there will be 2 sofas to be won on Valentines Day 1st prize, custom made; second prize, Reac Lips, which strikes me as particularly apt for the day.

Will keep you posted (no pun intended).

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