Nonsuch House

 Above are the front and rear facades of the new birdhouse. The design work is now 95% finished. The roof edges still need trim, a few other little trims pieces to tuck in here and there. The carving details will be designed later when I have the real parts to work with.

This Elizabethan birdhouse has been named "Nonsuch", not to be confused with nonsense. Unless of course you realize that non-sense means I haven't got the sense to know better than to use a tiny artist trowel to put stucco in between that many jig sawn puzzle pieces. I foresee watching/listening to a great many movies and audio books to get me through those endless stuccoing sessions.

Nonsuch is an old English word. Henry VIII had a Nonsuch palace done in the Tudor style, long since destroyed.

There was a Nonsuch House in Elizabeth I time, also long since destroyed. Now that was an interesting structure, it sat on top of the Medieval London bridge, it too had a passageway through the center and it was also timber framed. The structure was prefabricated in Holland, taken apart, shipped over and then put back together on top of the bridge. I wonder if it was burned up or taken apart and the pieces reused to make other buildings?
Photo of a model of the old bridge at the Dockland's Museum:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensutherland/6871737215/in/photostream/

So Nonsuch it shall be because it is after all a bird palace and there is none such other birdhouse around although there are other real life, very large, Elizabethan birdhouses also known as Dovecotes.

Elizabethan Gatehouse Mockup

Front of house

It feels good to have finally settled on what I wanted to make for my birdhouse project. A bit of research was done, then next step was making the basic CAD model for the massing of the Elizabethan birdhouse and now I have the cardboard mockup almost finished.

Back of house

The cardboard model turned out very close to my vision. But looking at it I decided I will add a half inch to the height of the second story and trim a half an inch off the lower edge of twin dormers on the front. Those kind of subtle changes are why I take the time to mockup the project in cardboard, I can see these subtle things more clearly. It will be very easy to make those two changes in my CAD model. In the image below you can see where I am querying the CAD model for some of the dimensions I needed for cutting the cardboard parts.

Next I will try adding two fireplace chimneys to the roof of the cardboard model. Chimneys are a lot of work to make and they are also an issue in terms of holding up to weathering outdoors. Therefore I will have to decide if I feel they are absolutely essential or not. They are a significant design feature on Elizabethan buildings so I must try them to see if they contribute to the overall impact.

After that chimney decision is made I will start putting all the details into the CAD model, the doors, windows, trims, brackets, timbers, etc. This birdhouse is really going to be loaded with lots of architectural details and carvings.

Cutting board and tools

There will be two birdhouse boxes built into the first floor. This piece is going to be sent to Texas so I will be sure to add lots of insulation and cross ventilation so the bird boxes don't turn into ovens in the hot sun. A historic form of early settler's house in Texas is called a "Dog Trot Cabin". It is basically two cabins joined with an open roofed breezeway between them. That design feature cools the building. If you look at this Elizabethan Gatehouse design you will see that I am going to take advantage of the same kind of cooling feature for my feathered friends.

The second floor and attic dormers will have glass windows in them. Inside the structure I will add low voltage LED lighting to shine out them at night. So not only is this piece going to function as a birdhouse, it is also a lamp and of course first and foremost it is an outdoor sculpture.

It could also be a dollhouse as I have designed it in 1:12 scale but than was not what was requested and it would take a lot more time too.

Birdhouse for a birdhouse

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2010

One could think of the new design as a dollhouse for a dollhouse but in this case it is a birdhouse for a birdhouse.

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2010

The photo shows the new miniature sitting inside the bottom (feeder) floor of a 1:12 scale half timber structure I made as a functional birdhouse years ago.

Curtains and copper

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2010

I spotted a fabric in my local quilting store I thought my do for the curtains in the box bed area. Of course I had to buy a 1/4 yard of it. For some reason the print and colors reminded me of the Provencal prints although it is not one.  I think the fabrics terracotta color is going to be just right in the room. It will play off the terracotta of the fireplace bricks and highlight the copper pots and pans.

There will only be a little bit of curtain showing once I get the front made for the box bed. I want to get the curtains and mattress made before I put on the front face. I have not finalized my design for that piece of woodwork. I am still trying to decide if I will carve in a bit of a wave motif, or repeat a  celtic knotwork motif to tie in with the baby bed or maybe a bit of both. I hope to make up my mind in the next few days. I am feeling the need to get the walls fixed into position and get to the roofing.

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2010

The slate shingles I made seem to have provided the stimulus to drive me to move on to the roofing stage of the project. I really want to glue them on but I can't just yet as the edges will be prone to damage and I don't want to risk that. I did get the roof boards glued onto the bed shed ready for the slates to be installed.

I don't have a big collection of miniature items but I try to have on hand enough things to create a bit of a display inside of houses for shows and photos. One thing I do love is copper pots and pans. I used to own them for my real house but I downsized and let go of most of my antiques and decorative items. However it takes little room to have them in miniature size so that is where I indulge my love of such things. It was fun to open the boxes I store them in and play dollhouse trying out this and that item in the room to see how it will all look one of these days.

Tomorrow is the Seattle Dollhouse show. I am going to take my camera along to share a bit of the fun with all of you.

Sink Drain

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2010

I started filling in the wall area on the outside of the cottage that is behind the stone sink. There is a stone drain trough that comes through the wall. It projects from the wall so that water from the sink does not get the house wet. This is a traditional detail used with the old sinks. I decided to infill between the timbers with stones rather than stucco. This helps to create a focal point for the big gable wall.  More stone work to be done to create a small foundation under the house.

The drain block is made from soapstone but the rest of the stones are limestone that I collected from an old quarry near Lime Kiln Park on San Juan Island, WA.

I never showed you a photo of the outside of the window. At the lower edge of the window frame is a molding that helps direct rain water away. It overhangs the window frame opening and has an undercut so the water drips off instead of running back onto the frame and into the cottage. This is also a traditional detail on old wood windows.

I need to start making exterior window shutters and the hinges for them this next week. They will be fairly basic in design, I don't want to spend the time to make louvered shutters. Guess I am feeling much too lazy to create the jigs for that task.

Finding Inspiration

Old Fireback

I am a book lover, always have been, always will be. Over the years I have collected quite a few books on old buildings from used book stores. A few of these books in my collection were printed before 1900. That means they are not protected by copyright. Google along with the Gutenberg project has taken to scanning these books and making them available as free downloads. I will give you a sneak peak here of one of the old books in my collection "Art in England" by Aymer Vallance. This book in my collection happens to be available for free as a download from Google. It contains many photos of old half timber buildings and a very good discussion on the design styles and details used on those old buildings. There are also illustrations of furniture, hardware and even needlepoint chair covers.

Here is a link to the free downloadable book from Google. Copy and paste it into your browser.
http://tinyurl.com/mju6jm

When I was browsing through the book at bedtime yesterday I was reading about the subject of firebacks. Firebacks are cast metal plates used at the back of the fireplace to protect the brick work so it last longer. This also helps prevent chimney fires from spreading through cracked mortar on the back wall of the fireplace. What I found interesting was that one method of making the mold for the fireback was pressing objects into a bed of clay then pouring the molten metal over the clay. The impressions in the clay become raised areas. Well how simple is that for making a miniature fireback? Of course we can use resin instead of melting metal. Get some clay, press some design by using metal stampings or other small objects, create a surrounding dam and pour in the epoxy resin. Trim off any flash after the resin is cured and spray paint it flat black. One of the items they pressed into the clay was rope. You can see the rope impressed fireback in the illustration above. Go to page 76 of the book for the discussion on the history of old firebacks.

I love being able to share a good book with all of you.