The Den of Slack

emilymorganti.com

Page 2 of 234

Unfinished Bespaq kitchen for the Turret House

It’s been a couple of years since I touched the Turret House. I have a tendency to go all-in on a dollhouse for a while, and then put it aside for an even longer while. (Ahem, speaking of which, I’ll have an update on the Mansard Victorian soon…)

To refresh your memory, this is an ornate Victorian bashed from an American Craft Queen Anne Rowhouse, which I’m decorating with over-the-top colors and details. I’m planning on a fancy interior as well.

Last week, during a late-night eBay search, I came across this unfinished Bespaq kitchen and impulsively decided I needed it for the Turret House. I paid $245 with Buy It Now. I’m glad I happened to check eBay before bed, because I’m sure it would have been gone by morning.

I have a similar kitchen set that I bought ten or more years ago for the Little Belle (which has also been sitting, untouched, all this time). Both of these kitchens also include an island, which you’ll see farther down. The walnut kitchen did not come with a sink.

I paid significantly less for this set (I think $20 per piece), and someone on one of the mini forums later informed me that it was a knock-off. I didn’t notice until too late that the cabinet next to the fridge doesn’t have the medallions that are on the other cabinets.

At the time I was aware of two 1:12 kitchens made by Bespaq. One was the Provincial, which has medallions.

The other was the Mercer, which has plain doors.

I assumed mine was a half scale Provincial, but after someone told me it was a knock-off, I looked into it and learned that there was only one 1:24 version of this kitchen, which had plain doors like the Mercer. Long story short: my walnut kitchen was not genuine Bespaq, but I didn’t care. It’s still a nice set and I got it for a good price.

Continue reading

Momma’s Kitchen cabinets & flooring

Haven’t been mini-ing much lately, but here’s some progress on Momma’s Kitchen.

The walls got a few coats of the yellow paint that came with the kit. I found an off-white on my paint shelf that’s close to the cabinet color, and used it in the area that shows through behind the glass cabinet doors.

The next step is to apply glaze to the resin cast cabinets, window, and door. I’m not sure what this stuff is, but it’s like a gray wash.

I used a sponge brush to spread glaze over the cabinets. It pools in the cracks, at the edges of the door panels, and around the hinges.

Then I dabbed it off with a paper towel.

And finally I used a damp paper towel to get the glaze off the flat parts. Here you can see an unglazed cabinet on the left and a glazed cabinet on the right. The difference is subtle, but the glaze adds a little bit of grime and brings out the details.

I felt like the details weren’t popping enough and repeated the process three or four times on each piece. I had some glaze left over so I decided to do it on the fridge too.

Here are my glazed pieces in place. I might have overdone it — they look pretty grimy! But white kitchen cabinets do have a tendency to get this way…

The next step was to glue down the flooring. This was much quicker than my hand-laid floor in the Mansard Victorian.

And then I tackled the countertops and backsplash. The kit came with these pieces taped down on a piece of MDF. They’re paper, and the packing tape covering the paper adds a glossy sheen. You’re supposed to use a ball stylus to score the grout lines, but I don’t have one, so I used a size 22 tapestry needle. In this picture, the long backsplash piece have been scored and the others haven’t yet.

Continue reading

Momma’s Kitchen by the Guys from Texas

Back in 2006, I took a class with the Jon Fish and Larry Osborn, aka the Guys from Texas, at a (now closed) store named The Miniature Scene. They were offering two workshops while they were in town: a 1:12 Craftsman roombox named Oak Shadow, and a 1:24 kitchen roombox in a flour canister named Momma’s Kitchen.

I did the 1:12 class because I loved the Craftsman style and I hadn’t yet been fully bitten by the half scale bug.

It was a great class and I love my finished roombox (even if it has been sitting empty and gathering dust since I moved four years ago), but I always had a pang of regret for not taking the Momma’s Kitchen class. The Guys from Texas later added sugar and tea canisters to the set.

Fast forward eighteen years… I finally nabbed an unbuilt Momma’s Kitchen off eBay!

I took a second Guys from Texas class in 2010 (Cypress and Fog), and in both cases they did a lot of prep work and supplied everything needed to finish the structure. This is also true of Momma’s Kitchen, which came with the cabinets and all of the materials to finish the kitchen, including electrical, flooring, and even paint.

The cabinets, door, and window are cast resin that have already been painted off-white.



Cassidy Creations, which at this time was owned by Kathy Moore, sold a resin stove, fridge, and sink to go with this roombox. According to a comment Kathy made on Facebook: “The resin stove and motor-top fridge were originals cast by Larry, given to me as birthday presents so that I would be able to provide them to most participants via my shop, Scale Designs.”

I happen to have one of each of these that I bought from Scale Designs at the time, and have been using the fridge and stove in the Mansard Victorian.

As luck would have it (if “luck” means “way too much time wasted on eBay”), I recently acquired an older Cassidy Creations fridge kit that’s metal and has an opening door. I was already planning to use that one in the Mansard Victorian (once I work up the courage to build it), so I can move the resin fridge to the roombox.

I don’t have an extra stove, and I want to keep this one in the Mansard since the cabinets were built to fit around it. So I have to find another stove for the roombox.

Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 The Den of Slack

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑