Modern mini art

As you may recall, I made this mural for my mini house’s office…

Mid-century mural for the office. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

but have since eliminated teal/blue from my house’s color palette.

Also, I realized after creating it that it would have clashed with whatever wallpaper I ended up choosing for that room.

I liked the design of it so much, however, that I decided to create a small painted canvas with a similar design.

I started with a tiny canvas from the local craft store. These sell for about $1.99 each. I drew the pattern on with pen.

Tiny canvas. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Then I filled in the borders using a fine tip brush and the colors I plan to have throughout the house. I painted the edges of the canvas black.

Tiny painting. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

This is a quick, simple, inexpensive project anyone can do. The secret is to use a very fine tipped brush so you have control over applying paint to such a tiny space. I can’t wait to hang it in the office!

Escape from Thorne Mansion

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Favorites from the Past…
Before I began Flip This (Mini) House, I’d occasionally post about miniatures on my other blog Holly Recommends. A new feature here on Flip This (Mini) House is the refeaturing of some of these articles. Here is one from 2011 about Thorne Mansion.

HOLLY RECOMMENDS

A friend of mine, knowing I love miniatures, recently sent me a link to a game. The object? Escape from the Thorne Mansion, an elaborately decorated, miniature world. If you have never been to the Art Institute of Chicago and visited their extensive display of miniature rooms, you are missing out.

“The 68 Thorne Miniature Rooms enable one to glimpse elements of European interiors from the late 13th century to the 1930s and American furnishings from the 17th century to the 1930s. Painstakingly constructed on a scale of one inch to one foot, these fascinating models were conceived by Mrs. James Ward Thorne of Chicago and constructed between 1932 and 1940 by master craftsmen according to her specifications.”

— The Art Institute of Chicago

Try it for yourself!

ESCAPE FROM THORNE MANSION

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Thank you Contemporary Home in Miniature!

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Thank you to the breathtakingly awesome Contemporary Home in Miniature for listing me as “The place to go for exciting and innovative ideas on how to make your own fixtures and fittings.” I can’t tell you how much that means to me!

That was fast!

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I just received the 50 Posts Award! It feels like I just started. Thanks for following Flip This Mini House!

WordPress 50 posts award

Creating a stencil for floors

Flipping my mini house

To make your floors fit, create a pattern or stencil using paper, the way clothing designers create patterns before putting scissors to their fancy fabric. This works for wallpaper too. Here are the steps I took to install my living room floor.

First I cleared out my living room. Next I began constructing my stencil, basing it off the shape of the far wall. See (below) how it fits like a puzzle piece against the wall? This required a fair amount of adding and subtracting to get it right. I’d slice a little bit off here, tape in a little extra there, until I had it just right.

Create a stencil to lay on top of your flooring. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Next I added another portion for the section of flooring that is by the railing. Then I put the stencil on top of my flooring and taped it into place.

Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Next I carefully cut out my floors. I ended up with this:

Now came the moment of truth. Would this amorphous shape fit just right into my mini living room?

Yay! It fits! And since the floor is actually made of individual slats of wood affixed to a paper backing, it’s flexible enough to maneuver into place.

Below, if you look to the left of the stairs going up to the bedrooms, you can see one small piece going the wrong way, where I stuck in an extra piece since the flooring was just a bit smaller than the length of the room. Once I install wallpaper, white baseboard trim, and put furniture in place, this will be practically unnoticeable. Chip clips are handy for holding the flooring in place as adhesive dries.

Use chip clips to force your floor flat. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Finally, I’ll pile some books on top to help ensure it stays flat.

Keeping newly installed floors flat. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Living room wallpaper is going in soon! I can’t wait to show you the results!

Creating a miniature medicine cabinet and bathroom accessories

Handmade decor for my mini house

I decided to create a medicine cabinet for my mini bathroom. I fashioned it using a mirror from an old eyeshadow compact and a plastic box that once held pins in a sewing kit. Here are the original components in their natural state:

Plastic container that originally held needles and pins. This will the interior and door of my medicine cabinet. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Side view.

This mirror goes on the front of it. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

I was able to snap the mirror off the eye shadow without breaking it, which was great. I glued it to the lid of the box and used regular clear tape as a hinge. I painted it with white paint (unfortunately, plastic hates to be painted). I lined the interior of the cabinet with paper and inserted a little shelf that is actually the same floorboard material I’m using for trim (also plastic-y, also hates to be painted).

Medicine cabinet interior, shown with tape so you can better imagine the scale. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Next I needed some little bathroom accessories, like glass jars of cotton balls and fancy little soaps wrapped in tissue paper. For cotton balls I used the kind of mini pompoms you can buy at almost any craft store. Here’s a look:

Big jar of mini pompoms beside mini jar of mini pompoms. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

To create soap, I used a real bar and cut off little chunks. A couple got wrapped in white tissue paper, and one was set into a tiny ceramic bowl that will make a great soap dish.

Mini bars of soap made from a regular bar of soap. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Little soap.

Are you ready to see the finished product?

Bathroom with handmade medicine cabinet. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

As you can see, the paint continues to scrape off, especially when I open and close the cabinet door. I’ll need to touch it up again and then leave it alone. Despite its imperfections, I think it’s pretty cute!

I’ve been getting lots of work done!

Flipping my mini house

My mini bathroom is really coming along! The tile floor has been grouted, trim has been installed, the sparkly chevron wallpaper has gone up, and the mini blinds I made from a coaster are now on the wall. Here’s a look at all the progress:

Progress in the mini bathroom. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

As a reminder, here are some before photos:

Bathroom before.

Bathroom floor installation, partway through. Photos by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

For information on making your own mini coaster blinds, take a look back at this post from a few weeks ago.

Progress in the blizzard

Handmade decor for my mini house

I’ve made some progress on my house (and the creation of accessories for it) in the last couple of days, thanks in large part to the blizzard that has kept me stranded at home. Here are some updates for you.

Here’s a look at this little blanket, in progress, with some scissors in the photo so you can get a better idea of scale:

I also installed some tile floors in my bathroom:

Grout coming soon! Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

I was going to go with tealish blue stone, but as I shared in a recent post, I changed my mind and decided to cut blue from my house’s interior color palette. These yellow tiles were purchased at the start of the project, and once again seemed like the best choice, so I went for it and installed them.

Here’s are some photos of the “before”:

and “during”:

I’ll grout them soon, and install some wall paper. This horrible little room will be bright and cheery before you know it!

I also made a little rug/throw, using the pot holder loom I’ve mentioned in previous posts (every kid had one of these at some point, and they’re great for making mini weavings!)

Here’s a peek at the finished result:

Also, some of you may recall me making a thread-wrapped lampshade for my (real, human-scale) home, in my blog Holly Recommends. Well, I decided to make a little thread-wrapped lampshade for my mini house as well. Here it is:

A mini, thread-wrapped lampshade, set on top of a tiny vase makes a cute lamp. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Choosing a color palette

Flipping my mini house

As I began choosing decor for my mini home, I had the idea that I wanted to go with mainly mid-century oranges, yellows, and greens, but with fresh metallics thrown in, and some teal (the color of the exterior) here and there, to tie the outside of the house and the interior together. In a human scale house, this combination wouldn’t be very overwhelming. I quickly discovered, however, that in such a small space it wasn’t working to combine so many colors.

I created this mid-century inspired mural several months ago, for one of the walls in the office.

Until yesterday, I never wavered on my devotion to it. However, once I put it in place and began evaluating how it was going to fit in with other wall coverings and materials, I saw that it clashed. The room on its own looked cute, but a dollhouse is literally a house with one whole side of it torn off, and every room needs to work together cohesively.

Editing can be difficult. To better convince myself, I laid out several likely wallpaper choices together to see if I was happy with the overall effect.

Wallpaper choices. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

To me, these work well together.

I added in some of the furniture and accessories that will be going into my mini house.

Wallpaper, furniture, accessories. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

I’m still feeling good about it.

Now here’s the part where I add in some of the teal accents, throwing in a few extras not really intended for this space, like the stool, just to see how the colors work together.

There's starting to be a lot going on here. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

At this point, it starts to look a little off to me. Between the gold accents, wallpaper throughout, strong black and white elements, and other details (Macrame owl, anyone?), I can safely say the teal has to go. I think I’ll paint a new mural for the office, similar to this one, but in shades of taupe, brown, and black.

Thank you Darice!

Flipping my mini house

A couple of weeks ago a friend let me borrow her heat tool. She thought it might loosen up the remaining part of the kitchen floor that wouldn’t budge.

Stubborn floor. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

I’d been trying to tear out the floor for ~~weeks~~ months, and was at the point where I was actually damaging my house, since the remaining bit of flooring was stuck so firmly in place.

I had doubts about whether the heat tool would work because I’d tried so many tools and cleaners to loosen it up, and I’d had so little luck.

To my amazement, it worked like a charm. It turned the adhesive back into a somewhat liquid state, and the remaining bits of the floor came up in a few easy sections.

Like Pangaea breaking apart. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

The final result was this:

Ready for new floors to be installed! Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Thought still a little uneven, it’s now smooth enough in my house for my new wood floors to go over the top. I am SO happy to finally be able to move on to the next step! Thanks to my old friend Beth and my new friend Darice, my house is ready for its dream kitchen to go in any day!

My husband thinks Darice looks like she needs to be hidden in a sock drawer. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

flipthis(mini)house

Join me as I turn a flea market find into a mid-century marvel

Author: Holly Tierney of the blogs Flip This Mini House and Holly Recommends

Modern mini art

Escape from Thorne Mansion

Thank you Contemporary Home in Miniature!

That was fast!

Creating a stencil for floors

Creating a miniature medicine cabinet and bathroom accessories

I’ve been getting lots of work done!

Progress in the blizzard

Choosing a color palette

Thank you Darice!