A Few Tiny Cottage Kitchen Snapshots

I  wanted to let everyone know that I'm making making some progress on my dollhouse remodel. My work is slow because, well, we are also remodeling our real house {a cottage transformation in real life scale!} and we have a million projects going on at once here at home. But progress is progress!

I'd like to share a few snapshots of my dollhouse cottage kitchen remodel so far.  I've finally collected all of the "remodeling" supplies needed to finish it - all of the tiny crown moulding and window trim and beadboard and baseboards...and the lower kitchen cupboards should arrive today.  I have the uppers already, but the lowers will need to be put together, painted, and installed before the beadboard goes up. Wow, just like remodeling a real house! Oh, and my painted tin ceiling is installed along with the kitchen electric wiring, but I haven't taken photos of that yet. Just a few table and floor snapshots...

Right after I started my dollhouse blog, a very talented miniaturist, Tallulah of Tullulah~Belle Originals sent me the adorable little flower arrangement in a tiny teapot you see there on the table. She makes these and is soooo talented! I will take some better, close-up photos of the flowers when I'm closer to being finished with the kitchen {again, these were just random snapshots} but aren't they just precious! Thanks again, Tallulah!

The cake was my second attempt at making anything miniature. {I apologize for the crooked photo...the floors really are level!} The first thing I made were donuts, well before I bought the old farmhouse dollhouse to remodel. I'll always have fond memories of making these little things with my youngest daughter.

Can't wait to make more little sweets! I still have this Storybook Cottage to build when more of the farmhouse is completed. It will be my miniature patisserie.

I love how the "old" plank floor turned out. These planks had to be painted and distressed individually and then glued down one by one once they were dry.  I tried gluing them first and then painting them all at once after they dried, but they all curled up on me when the paint was wet! I had to rip them up and start over, but it was well worth it. A lesson learned!

I bought the vintage style table set at Hobby Lobby. It had been on the shelf for several weeks because a table leg was broken along with a couple of chair legs.  So I asked the manager if I could have a discount and he gave the set to me for just $10! I superglued it all back together and painted it. I still have to distress the edges of three of the four chairs. It's a bit challenging to work with such small pieces. One little oops and you've practically sanded a table leg right off!

For those of you who may be new to my site, my dollhouse blog is mainly used to tell a fictional story centering around the house and it's remodel, but I'll be updating it here and there with little sneak peeks and updates, too. Thank you for coming along on this fun adventure with me!

{Oh, and for what it's worth, here is a shot of what the little kitchen looked like before I started.  Quite scary, eh?}

"Home Forever in Our Hearts"

Small Beginnings

I've been having such a grand time picking out and buying some of the mini materials needed to get started on my first dollhouse. Crown moulding, baseboards, beadboard, chair rail, a new interior door - all for the first room that I'll be remodeling - the kitchen!


I chose one of the bigger rooms for the kitchen because, well, I just like big kitchens! Besides, there needs to be lots of space for all the baking that will be done here in the future! I will be creating the tin ceiling myself, as well as the new hardwood flooring. I've already removed the little fireplace shown in the photo to make space for the cast iron antique style stove that I've ordered {it's on backorder and will arrive in August}. What do you think? It was only about $16 at Miniatures.com!




I've done some preliminary work on the space like sanding and wood filling, but besides waiting on more supplies to arrive, hubs needs to get started on dollhouse electrical work. I know that technically I could do this if I read up and studied on it a bit, but this is part of what he does for a living, so I'll let it be his contribution to the house! I would be perfectly happy without lighting {most of the lighting that I like is really expensive and the more affordable ones, I'm not too thrilled about}, but my girls are tickled pink with the idea of having working lights.

I'm also up in the air about the windows in this dollhouse. While they are charming in a vintage dollhouse kind of way, they also seem to be too chunky and the mullions are out of scale. They window opeings are not a standard size - a bit larger, actually, so I'm wondering if I could even make standard sized replacement windows work with some shimming and a bit of work? Or maybe I could just replace the mullions by making my own? Or should I just retain the basic original "charm" of my first dollhouse and not worry about them? Hmmm...

I'm working on a bit of furniture as well and am almost finished with an island. I haven't yet figured out the layout of this space but I do know there needs to be room for the stove, a sink, and a row of lower cabinets with perhaps shelving above {no doors}. There is the island to make room for as well as an informal dining/work farm table.

Tell me, in miniature world, does traffic flow and functionality really matter as much? Or is it "the cozier the better" in most cases? So much to learn!

I so appreciate all the new followers today! Thank you, Tallulah Belle, for the sweet shout out!

A Miniature Chocolate Cake

Hello there! I would like to formally introduce myself as I am brand new to the world of miniatures - and what a fascinating, whole new world it is! My name is Kim and I am the author of the blog "The Twice Remembered Cottage" - which is a documentation of progress as we slowly turn our home into our own cottage haven. I decided to create this blog to document my miniature projects, however. If you are a miniature pro, a newbie like me, or just thinking about getting started, I welcome you and your thoughts and ideas as I begin to figure things out. I have a feeling I'm going to need all the help I can get!

I recently decided to try my hand at making a polymer clay miniature cake and while there is definitely a lot of room for improvement, I'm pleased with how it turned out. I don't think I quite got the layers even or straight but it really does look like one of my real life crooked cakes! I don't have any fancy cake plates or serving dishes yet, so I made both the cake plate and the saucer holding the slice, too. What fun!




For this cake, I followed the general instructions of this wonderful tutorial written by the fine miniature artisan Betsy Niederer. If you have a moment, check out some of her beautiful work on Flickr. Simply amazing!

The Old Jacobson Home Place