Lady Pierce Redecorates

Some people thought it was funny that the AM magazine article quoted my husband as saying, "If you get a dollhouse, you'll never have to rearrange the furniture again". He really did say that and it was while he was holding his back after shifting my huge ball-and-claw foot victorian sofa from one side of the living room to the other........and back again. Men can drive their wives crazy in a lot of ways, but one sure way wives have of making their husbands crazy is by rearranging the furniture. If you have a husband who complains about your miniature habit, point this out to him. If you have a dollhouse, you can play "furniture-go-round" all by yourself and he can stay in front of the tv watching a ball game. That alone should justify the cost of a whole new mini living room set! Trust me on this! I have 16 dollhouses full of furniture and my hubby has never once complained about the cost of any of it.........but he has often commented about how nice it is that he's never had to move that damned sofa again.

I used to play furniture-go-round a lot before I discovered miniatures. I'd not only move furniture around one room, but I'd switch entires rooms full of furniture back and forth. I know some of you are nodding when you read this. You did it too! But with the arrival of the first dollhouse, the urge to rearrange the real house just disappeared. I still get the urge to rearrange and redecorate, but now I do it on the miniature scale and it's sooooooo much easier and sooooooo much more fun!

So the latest urge to redecorate has been with my Pierce. The Pierce is my baby. She's the first dollhouse kit that I bought and the second house that I built. I should 'splain that. I searched and searched for a couple of months before I decided on what I intended to be my *one* dollhouse. Yep, innocent little thing that I was, I really thought that all I wanted was one dollhouse. So I spent a lot of time looking around and researching before I decided that the Pierce was my idea of dollhouse perfection. After I ordered the kit I had a little panic about being able to build a house that big with no prior experience so I ordered an Orchid as an experimental torture house. That's my witch's house and it turned out so well that by the time I finished it and was ready to start on the Pierce, I'd ordered three more kits. One thing I can say for myself, when I embrace a new passion, I *really* embrace it!

Anyway, the Pierce is still my baby even after some 30 other houses. I think she always will be. I spoil her a little bit from time to time and buy something new for her but overall, her furnishings are still a collection of the first miniatures I ever bought. Not that they aren't pretty, but they're a little rough. We all know how our taste in miniatures evolves and the Pierce hasn't made that evolution with me. Don't take that wrong! I'm not a miniature snob! I don't give a rat's butt about labels. Yes, I have Bespaq and I love it, but I love it because it's so delicate and in perfect scale not for its name. I like what I like and that means that the Bespaq might be happily sharing space with a $2 mini from Hobby Lobby. If I like it, I don't care what it's name is. I call them all Bob anyway.

But when I bought some of my first miniatures, I wasn't that aware of scale and balance. I've learned a lot about that and that's what I mean about my taste evolving. I've learned more about staging realistic miniature scenes and that's why a lot of my mini redecorating occurs.

Well, besides all that, it's just fun!

The Pierce has been very quiet and ladylike as she persuades me to redecorate some of her rooms. I've been happy with the kitchen and the music room and I upgraded the bathroom last year. The living room and bedroom were still rather primative tho and that's what Lady Pierce has been discussing with me.

We decided to work on the bedroom first. I found the perfect Bespaq armoire and bed for the room, then added a bombe dresser and mirror, nightstand and vanity. I mixed and matched pieces till I found the ones that pulled it all together with "the look". I hadn't dressed the bed yet because I just hadn't had time. (It's like the shoemaker's kids going barefoot........I spend so much time making beds for other people that I never get around to doing my own) But I've had a couple of days while I wait for some supplies to arrive for a couple of upcoming orders and I decided to dress the bed.

I really thought that it was going to be done in emerald green satin. That was my original plan and I could see the rich colors in my head. But when I started to actually audition the fabrics on the bed, nothing worked. The green satin was way out of scale (yes, color has scale). It just overwhelmed the room and was too masculine for the bed.

That's the point in the creative process when I start flinging fabrics around the studio and it looks like a textile factory exploded. I kept coming back to a lovely piece of cream silk but it seemed so bland that I would toss it back in the pile and then find it in my hand again a few minutes later. I finally gave into the fact that it was "the one" and started considering how to un-bland it.

It's been awhile since I've done the kind of embroidery that I ended up using. As a textile artist, I love silk ribbon embroidery and the way I can create a delicate flower with just a stitch or two. I also love hand dying my ribbons to get the perfect shades. So I dusted off my textile skills and jumped right in. Happily, I wasn't as rusty as I thought I'd be. I gave the bedspread a bit of loft with some thin batting and hand appliqued the lace on in layers to get it to "drip" just right. The embroidery came out nicely with teeny little rose buds with delicately turned petals. I even got the lace fitted around the corners of the mattress. As long as I was on a roll, I dressed the vanity bench as well. I don't normally do frilly, but Lady Pierce is happy with the way her bed came out and that's what matters.

There are more pictures of the bed here. I'll get it into the Pierce tomorrow and update some pictures of the bedroom with it's new look.

I'm so excited! I finally got a new dressed bed for the Pierce! It's going to look beautiful reflected in the mirrored doors of the armoire. And best of all, I got to redecorate a room without giving anyone else a hernia!

Yet one more reason why I love miniatures!

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