Home on the Range/ the little kitchen begins!

JANINE at MINWORKS always encourages me to show my messy beginnings when it comes to my miniature projects and so... HERE IT IS!
For many months I used the empty kitchen in # 43 Green Dolphin Street, as storage for anything that got expelled from some of the other rooms and of course it piled up and up and up.  It is astounding  just how much superfluous junk these small spaces can handle, and as you can see from the photo below, there is a LOT!  After looking at this pile up week after week and month after month, I stopped noticing it because it actually began to look normal to me.  To distract myself from having to deal with it, I diverted my attention to other mini projects, yet  deep in my heart I knew that sooner or later it would be time to turn and face the music and get on with it.

THE KITCHEN-
FULL of JUNK!

  THE KITCHEN- EMPTIED
The first thing to do was to clean out the debris and assess the available space.
( there is not very much)

For a doll's house, this is probably an average size for a working mini kitchen, but when you have to work around an additional set of stairs in such a small room, things change. 
  I had to make the stairs and I was
SCARED!
:((

This is what the staircase looked like when I bought the doll's house from the thrift store.
HOT GLUE blobs were EVERYWHERE!
I unglued it all and saved the treads and made an new stringer but I am not a great measurer and cut the stupid thing too short!
WHAAAAA!!!!  

After crying and pouting about that big mistake, cut another and 
I gave the stringers a base coat of white and then I did NOTHING again for a long time!  
 I became too intimidated to move any further.  The reason was that I did not know what I wanted it to look like and so I began a futile hunt through PINTEREST  looking for staircases that would hopefully, inspire me and show me the way.  But the more I saw the more worried I became.  Not only could I not make up my mind but the staircases that I saw were WAY beyond my level of skill to successfully achieve. 
><
Fatima, of Beauxminis, LOVES to work with wood and has made the staircase of her GARFIELD with such exactitude and care.  She has recently taken it  all apart right after she'd finished building it, because she wanted to add more wood wall panelling
 along the wall, 
for even greater authenticity.

WHAAAAAA!!!
Why can't I be like FATIMA!? 
 :(

One of my personal mottos is this,
"Be strong and courageous and do the work"
(it's Biblical)
Nobody was going to make this staircase for me and so I better get going and
 JUST DO IT!

And so I did

Of course, these are Old looking stairs, and they are supposed to look like old stone .  I don't  know if any house... any where... at any time... has had a staircase that looks as shabby as these do but that's okay.  I worked long and hard to make this set of stairs to fit in with the walls and to look as ancient as the rest of the kitchen. 
 At least I've achieved that much!
I'm sure that many of you will shudder at the sight of them but they work for me.

 Early on in this kitchen project, I had decided to add a beam to support the floor above and to make the space more rustic as well as give the hand rail something to be anchored to. 
 I didn't want spindles; just something that a doll could cling to for dear life, as she scaled the steep pitch of the staircase.  The support beam later proved to be useful in hanging things on as well as acting as a "wall", as you can see in the photo below

Once the staircase was installed, I had to decide what and where the stove and sink would be.  I kept changing my mind as to what would go where but I also had to come to a decision as to size of each major component because wherever I positioned it, would determine the flow of the rest of the kitchen.  This brought me to yet another stand still as I once again began surfing PINTEREST looking for the main feature.....
THE STOVE
After pinning every conceivable cooker I could find onto my "KITCHEN LITTLES" board, I found myself with too many photos to sift through,  and so I  began an new collection of just mini cookers on a new board entitled:
"HOME ON THE RANGE"
however
 I FINALLY found what I was looking for 
NOT on PINTEREST, but from my own library in these two books by Patricia King

I used the photos from the two gas cookers that she made, as a starting point for the one that I made.
If you are not familiar with this British miniaturist let me tell you that she is all about making nearly EVERYTHING HERSELF, from bits and pieces that she finds from EVERYWHERE.
She is extremely crafty and very clever in turning her trash into her Treasures and I like the very humble beginnings of her many, mini projects. 
  The directions for the stove pictured above was what I primarily referred to, but did not copy exactly.  After I got an idea of the direction the stove was heading towards, I veered off and did my own thing.
Below is my version in its  original raw state.

The casing is a wooden box that I cut down and then glued on a bottom and a front cover from mat board.
Following Patricia King's outline, I made the top form a plastic zoo fence for the gas grill  and a metal picture frame with a cardboard insert for the oven door.  I then began to add the embellishments as I saw fit.

A Side view

 I sprayed it with 2 coats of hammered metal spray paint 

 I didn't like like the embossed sides afer all!
So off they came

That's better!

Then I sprayed the stove with 2 coats of a "Teflon" colored spray paint

Then I sprayed it again with 2 more coats of mat black spray paint

I painted the handle and the knobs with  porcelain paint but the paint was too old and too thick to go on smoothly so I had to chip it all off  and try it again..... and again... and Again.  I gave up trying to get a nice smooth finish to the knobs, and let them stay as they were.

  See the brass kettle in the above photo?  I had heated it up to get a good look of usage on it and the glue that was holding the bottom on, dropped off!!!
uh oh
"Quick Grip please"

I added the required RUST to the exterior of the stove and a towel made from a paper napkin.
Then I decided that the handle of the kettle could use a "body wrap" as well and wrapped the wooden one with a strip of the paper napkin and lightly wet it to shape it and then tied thread at each end to secure it.  It reminds me of what my great-grandmother had in her kitchen in Seattle.  It is one of my favorite little details!

 Making the kitchen range was actually a whole Lot of Fun and because of it's size I decided to install it under the staircase as it would not only fit but it would disguise a lot of  that which was
unattractive about the staircase.
So here is the stove, in situ.
I hope you like it!

I placed a "tin tile" backsplash (which started life as a silver  Xmas gift tag from the dollar store ) on the wall to catch the grease and lined the overhead shelf unit with the same "tin" on the shelf top and, on the underside. Then I glued on a utensil bar to display the slotted spoons etc. as well as other kitchen paraphernalia.  The utensil rack ( from FRONT RANGE FANTASIES) was something I've had for years and years and am only now using. 
 A garbage bin is to the right, but I may not end up using it.   

Here is a bigger picture of the gas range  under the staircase.  The photos were taken at night using just the light from the doll's house.  It has kind of an old fuzzy feel to it.  I have to say that the shelf above the stove was built specifically to house the jars of English pickles ( Country Treasures) that I bought at the 2014 Seattle Show last month.  The other canning is my stuff.  I love the mix of the different sizes and contents of the jars.

I tried to get a better shot of the back wall and should have removed the sieve. 

 I made a narrow shelf just so I could have a place for a salt and pepper shaker to sit but then it just looked stupid.  I changed my mind and used the shelf for a cutting board and a rolling pin.  To keep the board from falling forward, I stuck a long nail in the underside of the "hood" and the top of the board leans into it.  

You know what?
I really like my little old stove!

And here are some of the other things that I like.
I like the post with the things that are hanging off the nails that are driven into it.  
I bought the basket from the Seattle show last March, but the sifter is old as the hills.

And I like the match holder (Chrysnbon) that I filled with mini matches!
The matches are a small piece of a wooden toothpick which I chopped into small slivers and then glued into the opening.  When the glue was dry I used a red ink pen and dotted the tips of the  wood for match heads.  

When I took this picture I didn't see that one of the mushrooms had fallen out of the bowl and was caught on a leaf from the rose basket. 
 "What is THAT?....  Oh, a mushroom (not a potato), okay, back into the bowl"
Anyway,  these are some more things that I like; 
 I like the basket of roses and the bowl of mushrooms and THE SCALE!
Although it must not be working properly because even with the weight of the bowl, it is still reading "zero!"
:))

The lighting in this photo is from a lamp that I shone into the room so that you could see the left side of the kitchen more clearly. 
 It appears that there is  lots of activity going on under the staircase.

 this is looking from the kitchen stove towards the doorway that leads to the front parlor

And this, my dear friends, is an EMPTY WALL,
 but THIS EMPTY WALL will have to wait for a while. 

I thank you all for your visit 
and hope that I will see you again once I have
SOMETHING TO PUT ON THIS WALL

but what!?

hmmm.....?
 I think I need another
 FIX
of 
PINTEREST!
:D
***
 to be continued .....

elizabeth