The master bedroom has been wallpapered!

Furniture and decor I've purchased

After recently debating between a bunch of different wallpaper choices (using scrapbook paper, not actual wallpaper) here, the master bedroom has been wallpapered! I ended up choosing something completely different from the samples I showed you a couple of weeks ago. As I’ve mentioned, one of the designers inspiring me on my house flip is Jonathan Adler. I thought what I ended up choosing had that fun, “Happy Chic” feeling I was seeking, but it actually looks a little more on the childish and maniacal side of things than I’d intended. The good thing is, if I choose to take it down, at least I can use it for templates for the next sheets I install in that room.

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

I think I will give it a couple of days and try it with furniture, just to see if it grows on me in a good or bad way. What do you think?

Miniblinds that are mini blinds!

Everyday objects repurposed

Inspired by woven bamboo shades like these and these, I decided to make my own for my mini house. When I saw these inexpensive coasters at Bed Bath and Beyond I knew I’d found my perfect materials.

Inexpensive coasters. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

I cut them to fit, and then attached another piece over the top to hide where the cord would be attached and to give them the appropriate look.

Mini blinds in progress! Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

The toothpick will be used like a curtain rod. Next I added a small line of wood glue and held my blinds in place with a chip clip while they dried.

Mini blinds drying. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Here’s the finished product, with a pair of scissors added so you can picture the scale. I will show them in my mini house later, once the house is a little further along.

Mini blinds made from a coaster. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Slowly but surely…

Flipping my mini house

A look at my mini kitchen and dining area. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

I finally got my breakfast bar removed. It turns out it was screwed into place. Once I figured that out I was able to remove it without breaking it, which I was really excited about since I thought it was such a cute feature. I’ll drill new holes for it and it will get moved a little closer to the bench in the dining area, so my kitchen will be a little bigger than it used to be.

The little bit of flooring that remains is coming out one little chip at a time. I almost cut my thumb off the other day when I was trying to watch an old episode of Survivor and work on my house at the same time. All I can say is, I’m glad this is dollhouse flooring and not something I’m dealing with on a larger scale.

I’m not sure what, if anything, I can do about the fact that the floor swoops down a little towards the carport. I didn’t notice it so much at first, but when you’re sitting on the floor, staring at it for an hour, it starts to become really obvious.

Speaking of the carport, I was able to get the wall propped back up to be straight. So that’s great news.

Here’s a reminder of how my house looked when I first got it:

Day 1 of my mini house. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

The exterior is now dark teal. Also, I’ve decided the exterior trim will be a yellowish color to match my West Elm measuring cup planters. Photos of that coming soon!

Choosing wallpaper for my mini master bedroom

Flipping my mini house

There’s going to be a lot of wallpaper in my mini house. A LOT. Like every room. Since it’s a mini house, I’m going to pile on all the crazy things I wouldn’t want to live with in my real house. (Or in some cases, the things I would want in my real house, but don’t have the energy or money to make happen.)

I’ve been thinking about wallpaper for the master bedroom. Here are several choices:

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Originally, the second picture (green flowered) was what I had in mind. However, now I like the sparkly chevrons and the fireflies (# 9) best. Sparkly chevrons was intended to go the bathroom, in part because it’s got some texture to it and the walls in there a mess from having had tiles glued to them at one time. I love number ten, but at some point my house is going to stop reading mid-century modern if I’m not careful. I think that could be detail that takes it from mid-century with quirky touches to just plain wrong.

I’ll have to think about this.

Which do you prefer?

Tiny table accessories

Furniture and decor I've purchased

In yesterday’s post I was showing off my newest purchases, including a cute coffee table and some mini playing cards.

Cards and a cup o'grog. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Here are details about the playing cards. They are downloadable and printable, for free online, here at jfitz.com. According to this website (which is not affiliated with Flip This Mini House or myself in any way): “Feel free to use for personal or professional purposes…” (followed by additional information. Visit the page to see more information.)

To make a mini set for myself, I saved the image of the cards and then pasted it into a word doc so I could easily locate the image of all the cards within the margins of the page and print it at the scale I wanted.

Start with some good quality scrap booking paper that has a repeating pattern on the back. The smaller the image, the better. One side of the page needs to be white.

Scrapbooking paper. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Now print your cards on the white side and carefully cut them out.

Tiny playing cards. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Since they’re grouped in a tight bunch, you can cut them into four strips, lay the strips on top of one another, and slice off four cards at a time. Then trim them and round the corners. It actually all goes very quickly.

The result is an adorable set of cards, for the cost of a sheet of paper. Here they are again:

Cards on a cute coffee table. Just $.69 from St. Vinny's for the coffee table and just $.69 for the paper the cards are printed on. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

The little coasters are adhesive cork dots from the craft store. I stuck them on some cotton fabric and peeled them off several times, to lessen the stickiness of the bottoms. They make perfect coasters or little cork pads to go beneath potted plants.

Tiny cork dots. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

The dots that remain will go into the mini office eventually, as a bulletin board.

The tiny grog cups shown are going to get cleaned up later today with some silver jewelry cleaner. If it doesn’t eat right through them I’ll post results soon.

Construction Update & Something Old, Something New – Part Two

Flipping my mini house

My house isn’t looking too hot.

As you can see, removing the kitchen and dining area floors has been disastrous. I would say I’ve walked away from the project for a little bit, but since it’s in the middle of my living room, it never really goes away.

Painting the upstairs floors yellow was a mistake. I recently decided to buy mini wood floors for the whole house and be done with it. Construction is on hold while I wait for the floors to arrive, and until I get the kitchen and dining room floors properly removed.

I plan to relocate the small bar separating the kitchen and dining area so it’s more centrally located between the two rooms, making the kitchen a little larger and the dining area a little smaller. It will depend on whether I can move it without breaking it. Right now, just like the floors, it’s glued in kind of like it was welded. Maybe once the floors are finally all out I can wiggle it loose.

Here is a grisly in-progress look of things:

It's always darkest before the dawn. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

To keep myself interested, I haven’t stopped shopping for furniture and decor. Miniature items have been popping up at estate sales and thrift stores lately. Let’s take a look at my recent treasures!

Tiny, fabulous finds. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Though I already have the Jonathan Adler-inspired coffee table that I made, this one might bump that one out of the running. Let’s take a closer look at it, with accessories and some hand soap to show you scale:

Cute coffee table. Just $.69 from St. Vinny's! Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

The set of miniature silver pieces was just $5 at an estate sale.
The incense burner is going to make an adorable free standing stove for the dining area.
I will be posting the downloadable, printable playing cards shortly so you can make your own mini deck!

Something old, something new

Furniture and decor I've purchased

Despite the horrendous demoing process (No pictures necessary. Let me just say, I’ll be lucky if my house stays intact as I tear out these superglued-in floors), I am maintaining a positive attitude.

I recently acquired this vintage miniature dresser that features hand-painted rosemaling. It is solid wood and has great details, like mid-century legs and real drawers. It was just $6.00. What a find! It’s going to be a wonderful addition to the master bedroom. Rosemaling might be classic Norwegian, but to me it screams 1972.

Tiny dresser with rosemaling. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Also, for the office, I got a miniature Mr. Arty! It’s meant to be a key chain, but the key chain portion was easily removed. Once that happened, Arty took off running like a gingerbread man escaping from a cookie sheet. He tried to get out the window, but the glass blocked him in.

Any art majors out there recall seeing this little wooden guy (and his counterpart, Handy) reclining in classrooms across America, supposedly helping us to capture the nuances of the human form. Now my mini dollhouse will have its own little Arty to recline on the office desk or bookshelf. I think once he gets used to it, he’ll realize it’s a pretty nice place.

Arty (key ring version), the little wooden guy who help you draw. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Arty, escaped from his box, having ditched his key ring, relaxing on the blinds. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Inspiration and tiny decor items lurk everywhere

Everyday objects repurposed

When I’m in the creative zone it’s kind of hard to shut it off. At any given time, I have ten (or twenty, or thirty) different projects swimming in my head. From books I’m writing to houses online I’m dreaming of buying to my imaginings of going on Project Runway (even though my sewing talent level is more on par with Threads), I’m always dreaming about my next creative endeavor. Lately my mini dollhouse is on my mind quite a bit and I find inspiration everywhere. Example: What do you see here?

A.) Some bodywash on a bookshelf

B.) Something out of place. Is that still wet? It might leave a mark. Maybe you should have set it on a coaster or something.

C.) A disposable bottle and a cap that looks like a tiny, modern bowl.

If you said A, you are a normal person. If you said B, you might be a little bit neurotic. If you said C, let’s take a closer look!

Ooh! Look at the lovely curving lines of this bottle cap. And the rich, gold color. If I flipped it over and ripped off the top I’m sure it would look something like this…

This is going to make a great little holder of mini fruit, mini balls of yarn, mini magazines, mini plants, and other items. What did I tell you? Tiny decor truly can be found anywhere if you simply look a little closer.

Mini modern bed and pom pom accented bedding

Handmade decor for my mini house

Inspired by modern miniature beds like this, I have created a bed for my miniature master bedroom. The frame is made of part of a picture frame and some thumb tacks. The mattress is made of a piece of Styrofoam covered in quilt batting. It is a work in progress. I plan to give it another coat of paint and maybe add a headboard.

The sheets, comforter, and pillows are made from a fabric remnant, a curtain, and some mini pom pom balls. Since the master bedroom is not that big, this bed will be the focal point of the room. You may recognize the LOVE pom pom pillow from a project I started several weeks ago.

Mini bed with pompom details. Photos by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Wooden handles turned modern love seat (and don’t forget the tiny newspaper)

Everyday objects repurposed

Since the only furniture I can find is Victorian, I’ve been busy making my own interpretations of mid-century modern furniture. I made this little love seat from two wooden handles, part of an old napkin, and some wooden balls. Let me take you through the process.

It started with some wooden handles I found at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. I’ve determined, at least in Madison, there is no place better to shop for dollhouse decor than hardware stores. The Restore is great because there are tons of tiny trinkets, washers, nuts, bolts, handles, and hinges. All kinds of things to capture a person’s imagination, all for very little money.

Two wooden handles held with tape while the glue dries. Another in case you are confused. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

I glued two handles together. Here they are, drying. The other handle is shown in the photo in case you need a little help picturing what these handles looked like before I taped them together.

Once they dried I glued some wooden balls to them. The wooden balls are inexpensive. I got this entire bag at a garage sale or thrift shop for very little money:

Here is an in-progress look with the the glue drying:

I turned part of a set of napkins into the fabric for my love seat. Here is the in-progress of this step:

Once the glue dried, I painted the love seat and then wrapped the fabric around the love seat and sewed it into place. I topped it off with a little pillow.

The thing the newspaper sits in is some little metal contraption, also from the Restore. Some kind of bracket or something, I guess. To me it just says Magazine Rack. I bought several bags of these. I have no idea what they are actually used for. I have them in other colors too. For a buck a bag, I couldn’t pass them up.

It took me two tries to get the newspaper the right scale. I didn’t worry about the details of printing on both sides of the paper, or having different text inside. I simple pasted in the same image over and over, printed it, cut it out, and put it in the magazine rack. To me, it works fine.

The end result is a cozy place to sit and read the paper:

flipthis(mini)house

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

decorating

The master bedroom has been wallpapered!

Miniblinds that are mini blinds!

Slowly but surely…

Choosing wallpaper for my mini master bedroom

Tiny table accessories

Construction Update & Something Old, Something New – Part Two

Something old, something new

Inspiration and tiny decor items lurk everywhere

Mini modern bed and pom pom accented bedding

Wooden handles turned modern love seat (and don’t forget the tiny newspaper)