Exterior Almost Complete

None of us will ever forget this spring of 2020. I read recently that it’s like Mother Nature has sent us all to our rooms to think long and hard about our bad behavior. Covid 19. The optimist in me thinks that after that long and hard thinking, we are all going to come out of this enlightened and will want to continue in a better direction as an honor to those we’ve lost. With some inspired leadership we just might.

Nursery Furniture: Child’s Dresser #921 ($20.00) and Child’s Bed #919 ($16.00).

Gary and I are really OK at home with lots of projects to keep us busy. Of course, most mornings I head down to my shop to work on my little house, and he doesn’t see me until dinnertime. There’s been progress. The exterior is finished except for half of its 20 casement windows and a couple of exterior French doors. However, it may be the stress of the world’s situation that has caused me to set aside (tedious) windows and doors temporarily with all their tight measurements, tiny hinges, knobs and handles. I’ve been concentrating on furniture, most recently baby furniture for the nursery. It’s cute and comforting…like the embroidered miniature baby blanket. The little dresser will get its mirror when my Seattle glass store reopens. These are my first attempts at dovetailed drawers, and after some trial and error(sss), they’re acceptable. Not that anyone will see them when the drawers are closed, but it’s all about the challenge and my respect for Stickley’s beautiful furniture designs ( that ALL had dovetailed drawers for sure!).

Dovetail Detail on drawers of Child’s Dresser
Child’s Table #639 ($8.00) and Child’s “Settle” #211 ($8.00)

Gustav Stickley, I read somewhere, designed houses so that the fireplace was the first thing that someone entering the house would see. Not too close to the entry to cause drafts into the main room, but close enough to invite the person inside to enjoy the warmth and shelter the fireplace promised.

Photograph from “Inside the Bungalow”

One of my favorite books about America’s Arts & Crafts Interiors is “Inside the Bungalow” by Paul Duchscherer & Douglas Keister. In it they refer to the fireplace as the “symbol of hearth and home.” Years ago, I saw a photo in that book of a fireplace that never left my mind, and I knew a fireplace like that one would end up in my miniature house somewhere, someday. Now, this house of mine has four fireplaces, in the living room, master bedroom and studio, three rooms that are located one above the other in the floorplan sharing a common chimney. The fourth is in the dining room on a wall with the kitchen stove directly on the other side. They share a chimney that goes up a chase through the middle of the house to the roof above the third floor. I’ve researched this house plan as much as I can and find no indication about how it was heated.  It’s possible that there was a coal fired boiler in the basement, but there are no specifics on the plans for plumbing and heat registers associated with a hot water or steam heating system. It’s also possible that heating was left to the family’s fire maker and the home’s four fireplaces.

This fireplace will be in the dining room. Based on the photograph, I made a cardboard model of the copper fireplace hood, with lots of trial and error! I hand hammered the copper sheet stock before cutting the pieces and silver soldering them together. The fireplace will eventually be covered with a pinkish brick and slate on the hearth. Stacey’s Masonry is closed now due to the Covid 19 pandemic, and my brick order is on hold. “Sheltering in place” has given me a lot of time to devote to my house and its furnishings, but I will have to put the bricking of this fireplace off for a while. (To see this finished fireplace, check out the “Photo Catch-up post.)

Hood on Unbricked fireplace
Cardboard Hood Pattern
Hand-wrought Copper Fireplace Hood