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.
Now the finale: here is the whole room and its furnishings.
You can see how I trimmed the box so that the room didn’t feel too high or narrow and yet would show off the furnishings. I think it worked out well.
I am also happy that the room does not feel too crowded even with all the items in it. I am glad that I waited to trim the box until I was sure of the furniture sizes.
I purposefully did not make any more accessories for the room. My granddaughter is still very young and I wanted to think of safety, so I avoided creating small versions of stuffed animals, for example. Everything here is sturdy and too big to swallow. Also, I figured she would add her own toys, dolls, etc. to the room, as she likes. After all, it’s her room!
I would be happy to answer questions about any aspect of how I made this Tiny Interior. And I hope you will consider trying something like this yourself. It really is a lot of fun.
OK, let’s look!
All right, that is it for the Tiny Bedroom Interior. Thanks for following along with me. I loved doing this project. It was a way for me to send good feelings to her from me and my husband, as grandparents.
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.
Now we head back to decor, since the furniture is ready and waiting.
Inside the room
In real life, my granddaughter’s room is a restful white. But, in the Tiny Interior, I decided to make it colorful and lively, to reflect all the new thoughts and ideas a small person has as she learns about the world.
And, her granny likes a whole lot of color and pattern.
So…I let myself go! The room bloomed in vivid color.
Here is the back wall with the window:
Here is the wall to the left. You can see I have trimmed a corner. The artwork is a photo of an actual piece in my granddaughter’s room. It was made for my daughter-in-law, her mother, when she was little, by her grandfather. My daughter-in-law and her grandfather were very close and my granddaughter is named for him.
Here is the right-hand wall. It was hard to get a photo of it because of the narrow space. The artwork in this view is a painting I made for my granddaughter. It depicts me in the center, holding her, with my two grandmothers one on each side of us. Both of my grandmothers were very special to me and I feel their presence even today, though they have been gone for many years.
Grandparents and love and good wishes, that is the theme. Here are closer views of the two artworks.
Outside the room
Now, here is the exterior. I kept the decoration toned down so as not to compete with the interior.
This is the back wall of the room. In real life, it is an outside wall, and so I made it brick.
Here is the right-hand wall. It represents daytime. There are five flowers, one for each of us, my granddaughter, her parents, and my husband and me as her grandparents.
Here is the left-hand wall. It represents night time, just before bedtime. And there is a guard cat to keep the bad dreams away.
OK, that’s the structure. Next time, the whole Tiny Interior, completed.
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.
When last we saw our Tiny Interior it was in a transition state. Nothing about it was completed but several processes were going on. At this point I decided to focus on doing the furniture because I thought that once I saw how it looked in the space, I would be able to do a better job on the room decor.
I used several small boxes to form the structure of a dresser and a crib. Since I planned to papier mache these items I didn’t have to make my frameworks pretty; they just needed to be sturdy.
You can see that for the dresser drawers I attached cardboard to simulate the look. I also cut out the bottom of the box to make legs and then fit another piece of cardboard underneath so the box would not be open at the bottom.
For the crib, I used a box and cut the two long sides away; I glued it on top of another box and cut out the legs. For the slatted sides I used cereal box cardboard. I cut a series of openings and left a line along the bottom that I then glued to the “legs” box. I glued the top rail in place. Then I taped everything up good and secure.
You might say, why didn’t you just leave the box as it was and cut the slats in the long sides? The reason was that I wanted to use an exacto knife to cut the slats nice and even. I could not accomplish this cutting into the interior of a box with scissors, I felt.
When I went to the papier mache step, well, applying it between those slats was tedious and difficult. Looking back, I should have papier mached the slats, then attached the top rails and papier mache them. Oh well, it did get done and it looks fine. Which is what counts.
The dresser by comparison was a breeze, since it is basically a sort of cube with little detail to fuss over. I did need to work carefully in applying the papier mache to make sure the drawers retained their definition.
As I worked on the crib I found I needed to add more structure to the back top rail to make it look right. No problem, just add some more pieces of cardboard with tape, as looks correct, and then apply the papier mache! In the end, I ended up with a cute little crib. Here it is painted and with details drawn in with India ink.
And here is the dresser.
Now that the furniture was complete I felt the need for a couple of accessories. The bed looked kind of hard and uncomfortable. So I sewed a little mattress out of fabric scraps and knitted a simple little blanket.
For the rug, I considered various options, such as terry cloth, etc. It always came back to scale. I didn’t want the pile on the rug to be knee-deep to the Tiny Occupant or with loops so big she would trip and fall. There is also the issue of how crowded the room might have become.
So I took a collage I’d made for another purpose and turned it into a visually appealing but flat rug.
Here is all the furniture and accessories, completed.
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.
Now it was time to make the room itself. I used a cardboard box. I stood the flaps up and taped them into place with the paper hinging tape to get some height to the room. I also did some preliminary trimming (see the right hand side, it’s a little hard to see at this angle but later photos will make it clear) because I knew I didn’t want the room to be too narrow. It needed more of an open feeling, so that it would be easy to see inside.
Next, I gessoed the whole thing black and cut the window out (using an exacto knife).
I started to think about how I would shape the box. It’s still too enclosed. I drew some more trim lines but did not cut them until later on, when I had started to make furniture and could see how much room the pieces were going to take up. You can see one of the lines at the front. I’ve also put in window framing.
I interrupted the room construction process at this point to make the furniture. So that is what I will show you next time! Here you get a bit of a preview.
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.
You may remember some Tiny Houses I made a few months ago, Numbers 10, 11, and 12. I wrote a post describing in detail how I made them. They are smaller than my other Tiny Houses because I create them from the small cardboard boxes tea bags come in (such as Yogi tea or the like, with 20 tea bags).
I also cover the surfaces with papier mache, and then I decorate them, as opposed to how I have done the bigger ones, where I collage, draw, or paint right on the surface.
I’ve sort of got a little sub-genre going here of TH’s, it seems, and I’m working in a series right now, constructing each one similarly but giving it individuality through its decoration or variations in roof structure, window placement, etc.
It’s fun, and I guess I’ll keep going until I get tired of it.
So, take a look. Here we have Tiny Houses 13, 15, and 16. I made the latter two at the same time, with #13 being done on its own. That’s why they are photographed differently. This is their front interior view. I think you could store little objects inside if you wanted to.
Here is Tiny House 13.
And here are Tiny House 15 and 16.
All right. I’ll keep drinking tea and there will be some more TH’s like these coming along sometime, I think.
I’ve been friends for quite a few years now with a wonderful artist I’ve never met in person. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? But it’s true. Here is the story: Nancy Bell Scott and I met through mail art, and we have exchanged artworks through the US Mail for some time. Next thing you know, we corresponded through email, and then…we are friends.
Before I go any further, take a look at her work. If you are like me, the glowing colors, the delicate papers, and the punctuation of the inked black lines will draw you in, again and again. I think you will also be interested in her use of asemic writing (it was through her work that I first heard of asemic writing, in fact). And I’d also like to say she gives her works the best titles ever – they are stories in themselves.
I made her a Tiny House not too long ago and sent it to her. Here are some photos. Here are views of the front, interior, and sides.
Here are some more shots of the interior:
And here are some angled shots of interior rooms. I know I am showing a lot, but I hope this way you can get a sense of how the decor appears in each room. With each wall that I construct, that is two surfaces to embellish (which suits me fine!)
A few more detail shots. I especially like the front door on this house. (You see it below as the orange rectangle. I used a hole puncher to make the array of holes (you might recognize the interior of the door in this way, in the earlier photos).
I think it would be fantastic to have a real door with small round windows scattered all over it like this.
I also like the roof – I used coffee holders for the roofing material.
How about a couple of views of the Tiny House 14 in an environment? Here it is on my desk:
And here it is out in the wilds of my back yard.
Well, that’s it for Tiny House 14, now settled in a new location. I hope it gives enjoyment for a long time.
Well, you know all about my Tiny Houses. I’ve made a lot of them and I hope to keep on going. I think my interest in creating these structures comes from several sources. I’ve loved houses, house plans, and architecture since I was young. It was a favorite pastime of my family in childhood to tour houses under construction in our neighborhood, which was being built up during the time I was growing up.
In adulthood my husband and I continued this pastime of viewing sample homes, open houses, and the occasional house-in-process.
Along these lines, I also had several dollhouses in my young days, as well as building small villages outside with my sister and friends with scrap wood, under a shade tree to beat the hot summer days. And there were the boats my dad made for us with scrap wood that we sailed in the creek at the end of our yard…and how about all the little cars and the roads we made for them…and the paper dolls and their homes…
I guess I could go on and on. You may be saying, what does any of this have to do with TODAY?
Well, in the Build a Tiny House session I took back in July, I built houses. And then I thought I’d try some furniture. Here are my first attempts from that time in July.
Armchair!
Bed!
Small Chair!
How did I do these? It’s surprisingly easy. I constructed a basic form using thin (think cereal box) cardboard. It was important to take the time to make sure the form was sturdy and could hold up. For the two chairs, I built the forms from individual scraps; for the bed, I cut down a box to make the basic shape and then added the head and footboards.
Then, using the papier mache skills I learned in the Tiny House class (look here for a description) I covered the framework and built up the forms.
Once they had dried (about 2-3 days) I painted them with acrylics, acrylic markers, and India ink.
Wow! What a lot of fun! I will be making more furniture.
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Here is the armchair in the attic of Tiny House 9.
In this class, though, I wanted to try the method. So, I started small. I used cardboard boxes of the type teabags come in (think Yogi Ginger tea, for instance). I took off the lid and used it to create a floor, resulting in a simple two-story interior.
Here are the houses I made, and then I’ll tell you more about how I created them. Here is a view of their interiors.
Our instructor uses the traditional flour and water paste, but I had a quantity of this art paste already made up, and I thought I’d try it. I was pleased with the results and intend to continue using it in the future.
Well, all you do then is dip your paper into the paste and apply it to the house. You can lay it on flat or you can crumple and squish it to build up wrinkles or relief area. The house does become quite wet, and I needed to be careful to support it at time or let it dry a bit (that is where working on more than one house at a time helps out, I could skip around).
I covered every surface, finding that the wet gluey paper slid on very easily and could be maneuvered around corners and into crannies as needed. Once I was finished, I let the houses dry for about three days. They were significantly stronger than the cardboard boxes that they’d started out as and were ready for paint.
I painted directly on to the surface but many people gesso first, to even out the surface and reduce show-through of the papers.
OK! That’s where we are. I really enjoyed using this technique and I am full of ideas of ways to use it. Thank you to our teacher Marcie Wolf-Hubbard and to my classmates for a great experience.
Yes, another tiny house! I took another session of Build a Tiny House at the Smithsonian in July, 2022. Here is one of the houses I made.
It is larger than any other Tiny House I have made at about 15″. This is because I used a larger cardboard box as my base for the house. I can see that having more room to work with of course gives me more scope for architectural details and for decoration. And it makes me wonder about making even bigger, more elaborate ones…
I covered the box with black gesso and then used acrylic paints, markers, and collage for the surface decoration. Here are front and back views:
As you can see, it even has some stairs! (Not that they go anywhere, I just liked the idea of having stairs and I wanted to try out the techniques).
Here are more exterior views:
Here are some details from the exterior:
And details of the interior.
There you have it. Tiny House 9! Thank you to our instructor, Marcie Wolf-Hubbard, and classmates for a lot of fun.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
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