In October/November 2022 I took a class at the Smithsonian called Build a Tiny Interior, taught by Marcie Wolf-Hubbard. Yes, it’s an offshoot of a class I have taken a couple of times before taught by the same artist – Build a Tiny House!, and you have seen examples of my Tiny House work here on the blog.

As I have mentioned before, I have always loved dollhouses and as a child spent a lot of time building my own mini homes in various materials. Now so many years later, I am rediscovering this path with great pleasure.

In a short series of posts I will tell you about my Tiny Interior project.

All right. Let’s get down to business. In three class sessions, we focused on making a vignette of a room or interior space. Each student in our class had an idea of what that space would be: small child’s bedroom (that’s my project – I wanted to depict my granddaughter’s room); ice fishing shed; beach house; grandmother’s kitchen; and artist’s studio.

I had gotten my son to send me some photos of my granddaughter’s cozy little bedroom. Here is the view I chose.

I had some decisions to make about construction of the vignette. Marcie’s work is very sculptural; her interiors are all one piece, with everything integrated. I love the look of her work. But my mind works differently. My interest, however, was in making something with moveable parts, probably because of my long history with dollhouses. I also thought that maybe someday my granddaughter might want to play with the Tiny Interior or to add to it her own items.

So I decided to create the room and separately build the furniture and accessories.

First, I drew the room in one of my sketchbooks. I find that by drawing something, I retain it in my mind. I don’t have the ability to visualize anything in my head; I must either look at it or, I’ve found, somehow interact with it.

I assembled supplies for the project. I planned to use a cardboard box as the basis for the room. I also needed tape, glue, exacto knife, scissors…plus my stash of various cardboard boxes that I use as the basis for making items of furniture. I set aside some small boxes that I thought might work for my purposes.

All right! Now the preparations are done. Next I will make the room itself.