The build: Laying down the foundations.

Hello my friends,

I think this title is quite apropriate. There are no cementmixers in site. Nor is there a large hole in the ground where foundations will be made. However. If you have read this blog from the beginning you know that I first started sketching and drawing several buildings in different styles and of different era's. (Georgian, Neo Gothic and Dutch Classicism) Then, when  I had chosen my theme and era, I built a maquette or mock up of the future miniature house  from cardboard and paper.

And now finally, over two years after my first sketch, I have started the first of the twenty-one rooms in earnest. therefor now is the time to tell a bit more about the construction that I have in mind.  I will not build the house as one solid behemoth of wood, paper, glue and paint. The house will be made up of three 'cabinets' one for each of the three wings as you can see in the drawing below. So we'll have the west wing, the central part and the east wing.

All good things come in three's

Every one of the twenty-one rooms will be its own roombox. The grand staircase and the ancestal gallery in the central part  will be double height and rise up almost 68 cm. (am I mad?) but the other rooms will be proper roomboxes. When finished they will slide into place in the structure of the house that also forms the outer shell of the house.

Lines, lines, lines...

The roomboxes will be made not per floor but per wing. Therefor I will start with the seperate rooms in the east wing. This means that from the service rooms in the cellar I will first make the "kookkeuken" (warm or cooking kitchen) and the "Rentmeesterskamer" (stewards room).

From the Beletage I will make the ''eetkamer" (diningroom) and the "kleine salon" (small drawingroom). Then comes the pivate apartment of sir Zonneschut with the "bibliotheek" (library) and the "blauwe slaapkamer" (blue room) and a corridor on the second floor. Finaly the attic floor will show the "kleerzolder" (clothes or washing attic) and the opbergzolder (storage attic).

When they are finished, which will take a few years I guess :-S, I will start on the second phase of the build which will either be the central part or the west wing of Huis ter Swinnendael.

All the outer walls together....

But back to the first room. If you click on this link you can read up on the 6 rooms that will form the cellar floor of the house. That page is written in Dutch but with the translation tool in the top right you can translate it into your own language  if you prefer. But as I said only two of those six basement rooms will come in the wing that I'll make first And those are those in the pictures below. 

Model of the "Rentmeesterskamer", the stewards room. 

Model of the "kookkeuken", the cooking kitchen.

My first attempt to cut the walls were not succesful. I did it by hand and the cuts were not nearly as precise as they needed to be. I am saving up for a table saw but with all the miniatures I buy in between that fund gets to be depleted every few months. ;-D

So I have drawn the walls of the first roomboxes with the help of a computer design program, in order to send them to a company that lasercuts different materials to order. I have to tweak the drawings a bit becaus I have decided that the walls that will open up the rooms as doors will be in different places than originaly planned. I plan on doing that after next weekend when  I have visited the miniature show in Arnhem.

And, as you can see in the picture of the Kookkeuken, I will have a lo of tiles to make... A huge pile of tiles...

I honestly can not wait. The game 's afoot!

Huibrecht