Looking back at my older posts, the first two components for this workshop project arrived on my work table for Christmas 2022. The other components (so far) arrived for my birthday last year around this time, I believe. However, I have been working all along on the items to go into the workshop, as they can be made with hand tools while the others need table saws and drill presses. MDF is the basic wood for miniature structures, as it forms the "carcass", as it's often called, for the finished project. There will be layering of decorative features on the outside eventually.
The building is based on typical Dutch village architecture in the Zaan River area, northeast of Amsterdam. These were wooden fishermen's houses, two stories with decorative false fronts, generally two rooms up and two rooms down, with a central staircase. Shops and businesses were housed in very similar structures, and were traditionally painted a vivid green colour, with white bargeboard (Victorian gingerbread) trim. You can check out an open-air museum that houses a number of these homes, along with a large collection of operating windmills, by looking up "Zaanse Schans Museum".
This building has one large room upstairs, and one downstairs. There will be a false back wall with windows and if I can fit it, a door, leading outside, with the actual back wall featuring a photo of a country scene along a river or perhaps an industrial backyard - it depends on what I can find! Along the left wall is a staircase with a half landing, leading to the upper floor. This floor is storage, office space and mail room space, with a table to sit and eat your lunch at. The front facade has one upper window in the peak, and a central door flanked by two windows. I may change that to one large window, however, with an offset door.
This is an overview of the equipment realised so far; shelving and work tables, of course, but also a block for hammering leather along with the heavy wooden maul, hand book presses, a press aide, sewing bench, bookbinder's guillotine, a small box with a padded leather top and a drawer that holds gold leaf sheets, and some small tools, brushes, glue pots, small hammer, etc. Still to come are a bookbinder's saddle and a large floor press.
And of course, endless tool-type items; knives, engraving rollers for decorative leather work, paper, glues, cardboard, and the usual sort of workshop clutter. Funny thing: I volunteer for museum accession work, and this past week a question came up regarding some tools found in a museum storage area that no one was able to identify. However, I recognised them as the engraving rollers from a bookbinder's workshop. A quick look at the original file listed the tools as.... engraving rollers for leather work on book covers! Research for minis can make you look very clever....
I'll feature the items in more detail starting this week. We're away for Canadian Thanksgiving, which is also a family birthday and a family wedding weekend, as well as our first chance to see the house and land my son and his wife (and puppies) moved on to in July. My son will be away, but we'll visit with our daughter-in-law and my husband's sister, the birthday girl. The wedding is a small affair, the widower of a cousin of whom we are all fond, to an old friend. We're all happy they found each other again!
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