Now you are going to find this a curious title, let me explain.
My last blog was on the door sample I made last night. Before going to bed, before 2 am for once, I set the door at the base of the staircase I was about to finish and suddenly my blood ran cold!
YUP !
Scale wrong and NOT the door but the stairs! I measured the rise and instead of being 16 mm they were more like 23 mm ! a HUGE difference mulitiplied by 12. I have no idea how this came about as I had already made a staircase shown in a previous post for a house I didn't finish and that scale was perfect so I have no excuse at all! The door sample just looked crazy small against the gigantic steps and the more I look at them the more gigantic they seemed. I had made three sets of steps and three landings already and nothing is therefore to scale and will have to be redone completely.
I promised that I would share the good and the ridiculous, this is the latter by far. Tomorrow I will draw up to scale the whole staircase and see if I can still insert the three landings but now everything is different. I can only deduce that my eye/brain had not yet adjusted to the scale and what seemed 'right' then is now not. I was so wrapped up in the technique and finding solutions that I missed the essentiel. At least now my experience has shown me 'how' so now it should go faster. Instead of blubbing I feel like laughing it is so funny.
Above you can see the desk I bought to build the house on and the great window lighting, it was all going so well. Two days ago an antique mirror fell off the wall and broke into a hundred pieces, just saying ! The blue line is the ceiling height of the ground floor, 30 cms or 3 m 60 in RL, quite high but in proportion for a Georgian drawing room. The doors will eventually be taller.
You can immediately see the problem, the door looks too small. The door is in fact 16 cms high making it 192 cms in real life, quite good for a door but slightly too small for the ground floor Georgian rooms. My stair risers are 2.3 cms high ( 27 cms in real life ), they should be 1.6 cms or a little more than 19 cms in RL. The difference in scale is HUGE. The treads at 2.2 cms are in fact ok!
This is the extent of my stair work so far. It turns out to be good thing that I 'stepped' away from this to sort out the house or it could have been worse !
When I worked in couture we would often put a pattern on a dummy and cover it for a day or so to come back and see eventual 'faults' anew.
Here I put the door sample against the first staircase I made to check and it's perfect so I have no excuse for not getting it right.
It still looks slightly small but this is a cottage stair so is really ok for scale.
Ugh! I feel your pain. Your stairs are beautifully made with exquisite craftsmanship. No sticks for you!
ReplyDeleteHi ! yes but I realise that it's in doing somethign that you learn to actually do ,,, it IS funny though !
DeleteHello Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame that the steps are out of scale, but thank goodness you noticed it before you did more work on it.
Big hug
Giac
Hi ,, yes I think that my idea was making the space they took up on the floor smaller and it meant making the steps higher but as soon as the door was put against it , it just screamed at me ! huggs
DeleteI have had so many of my own "what was I thinking" moments that I can clearly feel your confusion! The bad news is, you'll never really trust yourself again and will check and recheck at every opportunity. The good news is, you'll never really trust yourself again and will check and recheck at every opportunity! It's a good thing, and luckily, with your ability to laugh at yourself and then move on, you have the right constitution for miniature dollhouse building!
ReplyDeleteThe doors look amazing, and so does the small staircase and hallway!
Hi Jodi , yes check and check then check again !! serves me right ! but no problem I am back in the saddle, still laughing though !! huggs
DeleteI am always grateful when after a particular miniature mishap I can console myself that it was in miniature and not real life! However, mini electrical matters seem so much larger than 1/12 scale!
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying following your adventures.
Regards Janine
My god so true, I am so nervous about electrics, I read one blog where the house caught fire !
DeleteWelcome to the club Stephanie! Just ask if any of us haven't already done something similar and given ourselves the proverbial forehead slaps after the fact!
ReplyDeleteIt's such a shame that your beautiful staircases is going to waste, but as you've said, better to find out now when it can be corrected than later when it's too late!
It will not be my last booby by far and having done one stair its much easier to make another ! huggs
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