Still Here and Still Doing Minis

Real Life keeps getting in the way of my pretty much favourite pastime,  but I haven't stopped making stuff despite that. It's just that I keep having to put the minis on hold in favour of things that need to be done. It has also been difficult to get together for Mini Wednesdays due to Real Life, like snow storms and illness, getting in the way of fun.

Although it doesn't look all that spectacular, this is the beginning of a small, two-room up and down cottage that is a late 19th century book bindery. The cottage's carcase is being provided by Santa, aka the Carpenter-in-Chief, and is a regional, wooden structure known in The Netherlands as a Zaans Huisje. or a little house from the Zaan River area, north of Amsterdam. You can look up an outdoor museum, De Zaanse Schans, where examples of these little utilitarian cottages as well as a number of windmills have been placed along the banks of the Zaan as a sort of recreated village. I first visited this museum in 1970, on my way home to Canada from the Middle East, when it was quite new and there weren't all that many buildings and mills in place yet. Most recently, I visited about 5-6 years ago with my older daughter, who wanted to see the country I grew up in. The museum had expanded dramatically in the intervening decades, and we both loved our day there.

The table is the work table, and the top of it needs an appropriate edging put on it. I'd like to try half-round for that, and think I have the correct thickness in my stash. If not, I may try sanding wooden skewers to make my own. The other pile of stained wood is the actual work bench, which fits across the back of the cottage. It has a couple of interior dividers, and a single shelf. 

The plans for the cottage are in Dutch, so I have to do some translating for my spouse. It will be finished in boards, horizontal as well as vertical, and painted in the same green colour as the trim on the wooden shoe workshop (waiting for the lights, there!), with white paint on the various architectural details. 

But, right now, I'm working away on nearly finished Christmas gifts, as they have to be in the mail next week to guarantee delivery (well, that's what the Post Office claims, anyways!). One of the reasons for the lack on entries here has been the fact that I was asked to work two  days a week at my volunteer job for "a couple of weeks", which turned into a month and a half of very physical, hard work. I admit now I'm too old for that sort of work. Last week was my first one back at one day a week. That I can still handle....

My sincere thanks to "Huibrecht", of the blog Huis ter Swinnendael, who was kind enough to send me the plans for the tools and furnishings that will create the book bindery!