A Bluestocking Knits

I've been cleaning the new-to-me doll's house the past few weeks, starting with wiping it down inside and out with a damp cloth.  It was pretty dusty.

This is all the stuff that was in the main room, except for the "full-size" suits of armor.  Inside the box with cotton wadding are some rather nice little pewter tankards.  The little star-shaped object is a lid for something long-gone.

Maybe it isn't quite as obvious in the photo as in real life, but the left side of the roof has been wiped with a damp cloth and dried, and the right side is as-is.  The improvement is remarkable.

Teeny-tiny light bulb on the ceiling beam.

You don't often get to see a dusty fire, but this is what one looks like.

There are a few more things broken or bumped off than I realized, but so far nothing that can't be fixed, and I think I rather like the idea of a house that looks as though it has been lived in for a hundred years or so.

Someone on the Greenleaf miniatures board suggested that I see if the roof on the left side could be made to hinge or lift off, so David had a go at it.  The blue masking tape is things that need to be repaired.

The back bar, cleared off, dusted, and replaced — luckily the things weren't glued, only museum-puttied.  The house will be an old inn that has been converted into a family home, so this part will remain as a reminder of its "old coaching days".

I managed to squeeze the camera inside the front door space, with a flashlight behind aimed at the ceiling, to get this photo — interesting, since I hadn't been able to get a good look at the staircase before!

The contact paper was buckling and rather poorly laid up in the attic, so I've pulled it out — it came up very easily, with just a few fiddly bits left in the corners that I had to remove with tweezers.

This is just past the door that had the faux tapestry on it, looking towards the front window.  The medallions are in fact a selection of old metal buttons with the shanks removed — clever.

I discovered to my dismay that the original builder laid contact paper throughout the whole house.  Someone in the interim laid down the various wood floorings, on top of the contact paper.  This one is lifting up just a little bit, though on the bright side, so far it's the only one.

I rather liked this "wallpaper" (actually fabric glued to paper), but as I waved the duster around, the loose edges started raveling and peeling up, so I resolved to take it off.

Teeny-tiny crane in the fireplace in the old kitchen.

This is the room upstairs-left, from the back of the house.  The piece of wallpaper on that jutting corner just popped right off, and the other is quite loose — I'm not sure yet if I will re-paste it or remove it.

The biggest surprise has been the solution to the Mystery of the Superfluous Chimney Pot.  This was unfortunately not solved by my powers of deduction but by bashing away at the raw paneling with a paint scraper.  On the bright side, I don't feel guilty any more about "remodeling" since the house is clearly not in its original condition anyway!

I've pretty much decided to rename it Hardy House — imagine the confusion of living in a house called The Inn!  "Hello, is that the inn?"  "Yes.  Well, no!" etc. etc. etc.  Hardy House has I think a pleasing euphoniousness without being saccharine, and is of course a nod to Hardy's of Redlands.  I foresee a few little inn-jokes by the current occupants in reference to its history (see what I did there?!).