Gasthaus Pfeifer

An update.  I have started to work on the platform that this little house sits on.  In real life it might be on a foot traffic only street that is paved with stones or brick.  I choose to use brick and I added a beer garden.   I still have to finish the tree with some leaves but it is coming along.  Going to put it up for a couple of weeks since we are having company but will get back to it soon.  It needs some more landscaping.  The pictures do not do it justice.  It looks fabulous.   

___________________________________________________________________

So it has been ages since I have looked at this little doll house.  When I started to clean out and rearrange the cabinets in our utility room, I found this house.  Well, I got distracted!  I will keep you advised of the progress.

 

While in Germany I purchased some doll furniture and it was just a bit smaller then and 1"/12".  When I got home I searched for a smaller dollhouse to accommodate the furniture not knowing what i would find or what style or anything.  I found this kit and it was perfect all around.

So this is where I am starting now.  The main part is put together and the base coat is on.  

The floor is painted and the inside walls are a creamy off white with a yellow tint.  I am working on placing the furniture and have gotten a base coat on some of it as it will be transformed from being blue!  I had to make the tables since there were none in the set of furniture.

I have painted the trim and applied it to a stucco finish that i put on the  outside of the house.  

Time to add a new roof.  Each tile is sanded and then glued.  Lots of patience here. They all curled when I applied the glue.  They had to be held in place until the glue set but once dried the sides laid flat.  Another problem was the fact that they were not exactly the same size so spacing was difficult.  I began by measuring and making a straight line for the first set of singles to go up and then measured from the top of them drawing another line and so on.  

Working on the front of the house, the kit contained two different kind of shingles, made of different material and here again, different is size so had to work on spacing.  Just a good thing I am not a roofer in real life!  I would be fired.  Being a bit of a perfectionist, I had to keep telling myself it was a dollhouse!  

Roof tiles are complete and benches painted.

Trim for the inside of the windows is cut and painted.

Trim is glued in place.  Still need to finish the base board under the bay window.

Tough fit on this trim.  Had to trim the trim to get it to fit correctly.  I should have used a smaller trim piece but this is what i had!  Sometimes you use what you got instead of buying new.  These little houses can get mighty expensive.

Tiles painted and outside is almost complete.  Will be doing some flower boxes and a sign and a light.....all the good fun things yet to come.  

Getting ready to work on the booth seating.  I bought these in Germany and have painted them, and antiqued them to look like a stained wood finish.  

All pieces cut and and ready to paint for booths and corner shelves.

Pieces painted and started antiquing them.  Painted them a beige color and then used an antique finish found with the acrylic paint at Hobby Lobby.  

Let the gluing begin.

 Now on finial step on the finish, a clear coat and it will be done.  Going to wait to clear coat until I have all the pieces finished.  

Found this wonderful small check material and got started on some cushions for the booths. 

Parts cut and laid out to make shelves and baseboards.

 I have used a number of different paints for this project.  A base coat for all the furniture in a light beige covered with an antiquing paint that acts like a stain to gain the effect on the furniture. Shelves are painted white along with the trim throughout the house.

Shelves are in place.

Time to start work on the bar.  Some progress is already been made.  Should have taken more photos as I was going but you get the idea.  

Construction is complete as you can see....back of the bar with a wine rack and necessary shelving while the front is decorative with ample leg room and a foot rest for those standing along the bar.

Next in line is the fireplace surround and mantle.  Constructed from bits and pieces of molding and trim from other projects but it turned out pretty good.  Fake brick finishes off the hearth.

Cushions finished and a hook for a plant inserted in the frame of the booth.

And not the fun begins.  While I still need to do some work on the front door and outside, I could not help myself from putting in some of the cute things that make it come to life.  The coke is chilling.  I used little packets you get in a pair of shoes for ice.  Not sure what they are called but it works.  

The sandwiches are made from foam and paper and look like the real thing.  Covered to keep them fresh.  The buffet is set with chips that are really green pepper seeds.  One plate is ready for serving.  napkins are made form same fabric as the cushions. The silverware was a present for Christmas.

These little shields are charms I bought in Germany at some of the places we traveled.  Didn't know what I was going to do with them at the time but knew I had to have them.  They look great above the mantle.  

I found this small cuckoo clock in German too.  It is perfect for this spot in the gasthaus!

While my german is not very good, I was told these signs were used to mark a table that was reserved.  One side is the name of the establishment and the other means "table reserved for regular customer".  You can also see the tile floors are in place too.  

I was also told this little club would be present in all German gasthauses.  It was used on unruly customers.  Hausordnung means "house rules".  Guess there was no need to explain.

The first of the lights for the gasthaus was also a present for Christmas. Battery operated.  More lights for the house are on order.  

Tables are set.  One of our customers is enjoying some wine and cheese with a guest and the other table is set with ice tea and fancy little plates waiting for the pretzels being made.

Wine for the top of the bar ready to be delivered to a waiting customer.

Bar and back bar are given their paint job with the top being left natural and given a coat of modge podge to make them shine.  A beer mug sits waiting for a customer.  (This mug was part of something I had for my Barbie dolls back in the day.  Has to be 55 years old or so.  Might be a bit big for this venue but they do have big mugs in Germany!  I have some stines to be put in later.)  The barrel with the tap sits on the end of the bar for easy dispensing.  Barrel was purchased and I made the tap from parts of other things I have collected.

I picked up these little guys somewhere in Germany.  Typical art form.  Just love these.  

Now for some completed pictures.  I say completed but as anyone who knows anything about dollhouses, they are never, ever completed.  

 Starting on the back bar.

Looking to add more bottles and a shelf and glasses and other things.  These bottles look so real it is amazing to me.

Started transforming the bedroom furniture.  I purchased this furniture in Germany almost 20 years ago along with the booths and chairs in the bar. They were painted blue with red and white flowers.  They were a bit crude but caught my eye for some reason.  Someone asked me today  "Do you build these from scratch or do the pieces come pre built and you put them together???"  "wow...do you have a plan or just create them ad hoc???"  YES!  The answer is some are purchased, transformed, or created from scratch.  

I have gotten the sofa constructed.  Now to get it upholstered.  Will be looking for just the right material.  Sounds like a shopping trip.

Starting the upholstery on the sofa.  

Sofa complete with nail heads and pillows....sewn from little pieces of material that match the material I will be using for the bed.  Each one is stuffed with cotton and fringed.  With a little lovely heart pillow for good measure.

Placement  of the sofa in the top of the gasthaus.

We now have pretzels on the menu and the back bar is stocked.  Cards are on the bar for guest to play.   It is common for guest to stay after a meal to play cards.  So much fun.

We find grapes at the end of the bar ready to be made into wine if need be!  

Some of the lights are in.  I used battery operated lights for this little house.  Such a good idea.  The ceiling lights and wall sconces are held on with magnets so you can remover them to turn them on and then place them back on the ceiling.  

Some additions I added yesterday.  A bible, and a pet bulldog.  Not sure about his expression.  He looks unhappy to be there.  And some little German dolls that I purchased in Germany all dressed up and just relaxing on the front benches of the gasthaus.

I decided to try my hand at making a plant for the gasthaus today.  I have done some research and combined tips from several different blogs that I have found.  It started with a punch and some post-it notes paper.  

Then the little hearts are put between layers of wet...very wet....paper towels.  The idea is to moisten them to make them pliable to form them into leafs shapes. 

I used a water soluble maker to draw some lines where viens might be but also to add a diversity of color. 

Then folded the wet paper towels over the heart shapes with the maker on them to get them wet.  

I carefully removed them from the paper towels with a tweezers and placed them on a double sheet of craft foam.  With an embossing tool, I pressed the leaf at the top of the heart where it would be attached to the stem of a plant.  While holding that in place, I took another small....very small, embossing tool and shaped the leaf drawing the tool from the top to the bottom, giving it texture and shape and spreading the color a bit to make it subtle and not so definite lines.  This was the easy part believe it or not.  Took about 2 hours to make 60 leaves.

Here they are all dried.  Just waiting to be assembled.

Assembly was difficult and tedious, I will not kid you.  Working with tacky glue and gel super glue, I attached each leaf individually, picking  up each leaf carefully with a tweezers and dipping it in tacky glue first and then super glue and then attaching it to the stem (thin wire).  Work with small drops of glue on a paper during the process.  It drys so fast that a big dab of glue would just be wasteful. Once they were dry, I added drops of super glue to the back of each stem for extra stability.  Even with that some still fell off while putting them in the pot.  But I was able to reglue them.  Just frustrating  Such a small spot to hold the leaf onto the stem.  One tip I read suggesting painting the back of each stem but since mine did not show I skipped this tip.!

My flower pot is simply a small dollhouse wooden bowl.  I drilled holes in four places along the top and cut wire, twisted the top to make a hanging pot.

I glued florist clay to the pot and glued the wires into the holes that I drilled.  I then cut the stems and using tacky glue on the end of each stem, placed them into the clay.  After it dried I hung it and shaped it to look as real as possible.  Here it is hanging on the booth.  

Next we will try making a fern.  They should be simpler since I will be gluing a wire stem along the whole length of the leaf.  We will see.