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Southwest furniture and accessories?


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My wife and I lived in New Mexico for 22 years before ending up back east but we left our hearts there so we only occasionally get to go back to visit (by train). So now, after 48 years of marriage, she has decided she must have an adobe dollhouse with real southwest furniture and accessories.

The dollhouse will not be the problem. A fellow model RR club member who makes spectacular custom model RR buildings has offered to make her a 1:12 scale one at a wonderful price. It will have 5 rooms on 2 stories, stuccoed 2' scale outer walls, real full length vigas made of saplings from his back yard trees, real custom cut wood plank floors, custom made windows and doors and fully wired. It will take him 3 months to build.

So what's the problem with a deal like that? Well, finding southwest style furniture, lighting, and accessories seems to be the biggest issue now. Considering how many adobe house images we have found on the net, finding furniture and accessories is harder than finding dollhouse forums or local stores these days. Now, I know we can buy custom furniture at custom prices but we're not the US treasury. In fact, my friend makes miniature furniture that can duplicate real furniture down to the fancy wood used, real scale dadoing behind curved front drawers, clawfoot chairs, real glass cabinets, and custom paint and staining. His prices reflect that work. We can't afford that either since we not only need furniture but all the accessories too.

If anyone knows sites or individuals who make miniatures of southwestern design, we'd sure like to know. I'm a retired computer guy and have used the net since it started so I know how to find things (and even looked on Mexican and China sites) but have found very little that is suitable or even adaptable. The only southwestern style lamp e.g. was one with a Cherokee design but it's no longer made.

Thanks on advance for any help.

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Have you considered using mission style furnishings? The name indicates that it was inspired by southwest mission pieces and it is characterized by very simple, clean lines that work well with the adobe style of architecture you mentioned. 

In addition, I would look at specific items rather than searching for a category of "Southwest furniture." You can find individual pieces of furniture that have a very generic look that can be customized. A basic table with straight legs or a trestle table and ladder-back straight chairs can be stained or color washed to give them the more rustic atmosphere that would work well. Avoid high gloss finishes and instead use stained surfaces without varnish. Distressing random spots on edges and corners by filing or sanding down sharp angles adds to the rustic feel. Choice of fabrics for upholstery can also give the right look - leather or stripes that evoke hand-woven blankets, etc. 

Sounds like a wonderful project. I hope you'll share photos of it.

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Welcome to the little family, John & wife.  Mission furniture is not that difficult to make, if you have a source of basswood.  I built a hacienda in 1:24 and found a few kits to make the bed & chest of drawers and a bench seat and ice box; a set of white wire furniture and porcelain bathroom fixtures, and I made the kitchen dresser, table and chairs and stove myself from basswood:

bathroom

Exterior II: courtyards

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Check out Texas Tiny, they have a lot of options that could work for you: https://texastiny.com/

SP Miniatures has some plants and accessories: https://www.spminiatures.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=357

You might also want to set up a saved search on eBay for "southwestern" in the Dollhouse Miniatures category. Sometimes furniture or kits come up that are no longer in production.

As others have mentioned, there is a lot of Mission furniture in miniature that you could modify. Another idea is to reupholster beds, couches, etc. with southwestern fabric. You can make your own southwestern-style paintings, rugs, and tiles by resizing pictures off the internet and printing them on a color printer.

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I have been specializing in mission furniture lately and it is very similar unless you want the heavily carved examples. Look at my mission furniture thread and you can see some simple designs I have been making lately. Most are "test" pieces as opposed to something I would want to sell but I do use quarter sawn cherry, goatskin leather, etc. 

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Wow! I appreciate the replies and good ideas. Let me respond to them w/o quoting all of them:

LeeB - Great idea about searching for "mission". We'll try that. I thought about modifying some standard items and have ordered a plain wood table and see what I can do. She does jewelry making and is very good at it but has lost partial vision in one eye. I am not good at fine work but we do have some ideas and lots of time before the house is done.

havanaholly - nice house! She loved the furniture. Might make us want to try. As to your recommendation of jaxenro, that helps when others give a recommendation. Appreciate it.

fov - We had already found texastiny and bookmarked it but we'll check out spminiatures. Although I have used fleabay for many years, I never thought of a saved search as generally it's something I need now and I'm looking for price. Terrific! As to using southwestern coverings, she'll have think about how much to try. However, I bought a set of fairly plain 1:12 vases from Alibaba and she loved them. She wants to put small turquoise beads and other decorations around them to make them look southwestern so she might go for doing more of this.

jaxenro - I'd like to see more pictures of what you have made so I'll message you with my email. Thanks.

 

I'll add another reply with a pic and description of the house.

 

 

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This is the cardboard full-size replica of the dollhouse with some modifications we made:

Lower left - living room with picture window in back (relative to your view), kiva fireplace with banco, stairway, two windows and front door to left. Porch not shown. It will be removable.

Lower center - kitchen with French doors to patio on right. Window in back (not shown). Note the first miniature I bought for her is a copper teakettle. She loves her tea.

Lower right - patio with adobe 2' scale walls in front and right. Outer wall of kitchen will be adobe. You may see one of vases on ground of patio.

Upper left - Den. Windows will be on back and left side. Railing for stairway.

Upper center - bathroom in back with doors from landing in front and bedroom on right. Window in back.

Upper right - large master bedroom with kiva fireplace on right rear, French doors (drawn on paper because it was moved) with outside railing to left and window to far left. Windows on right side.

Papers on floor represent items of furniture, appliances, kivas, etc for placement of lights, outlets, etc.

Vigas will be as shown but using real saplings. Stairway custom built. Real wood pieced floors in den, MBR and living room. Working on finding tile for kitchen, bath and patio. Fully wired with wire inside walls each running to below house. I'm a retired electronics engineer so I'm planning possible random or coordinated switch activation with manual override. The dollhouse will be on plain stand with wheels so it can be rotated or moved.

Outer walls will be 2' stuccoed adobe (possibly 1') in back left side and right of kitchen as well as 2' high walls with posts to right of patio. Inner walls will be 4". Ceiling of lower floor will be flat above vigas like sheetrock. For upper floor, wood slats will be used instead. It will be roofed (hopefully removable as roof/top ceiling will be below level of adobe walls.

Note, that unlike other dollhouses we have seen, the real house front will be what is to the left, not the back as viewed.

Funny thing is, she first envisioned simple one-room house. Like a real house, they seem to grow when designing them.

The splotchy color is what happens when you take a multi-megabyte picture and shrink it to 180Kb.

 

 

dollhouse.jpg

Edited by Husband of Adobe Dollhouse
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John, I have become hooked on using iron-on wood veneer for floors; I cut it into 6" lengths and split them 3/4" wide:

parlor 2.JPG

I stitch all of my rugs and I love using old neckties for upholstery:

reupholstered furniture and new rug I

Have you considered using builders' foam to make your house?

Edited by havanaholly
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  • 4 weeks later...

You may also want to look for Tudor style furniture. Much of it is dark wood and heavily carved, and can easily pass for Spanish style antique furniture, which is so popular in Santa Fe-style decor. I used these Goebel chairs around a Reminiscence dining table (both pictured below) in a Spanish roombox with stucco walls and quarry tile floors. I thought it looked quite good, IMHO. The barley twist carving on the table legs seemed very Spanish to me (more Portuguese, actually, but who's quibbling?).

You can find loads of Tudor style dollhouse furniture on Ebay. Just be careful of some of the English pieces, which are available in abundance. Many are 1/16th (3/4) scale. Pay close attention to the dimensions.

Here's another example I found with a quick search. Not sure about that bed, but the side cabinet could easily pass for an antique Spanish piece in a southwestern style house.

Bedroom+Left+View.jpg

 

WilliamandMarySideChair.jpg

Reminiscence Table and Chairs.jpg

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Thanks for all the replies.

At this point, my friend is building the dollhouse although, as he says, with the nice weather, he's been busy outside. He says he'll have something for us in about 3 weeks - probably the basic construction without the stucco or finish work on it.

We found that Formica/WilsonArt laminate looks like it would make great flooring for the non-wood-floor kitchen, bath and patio. However, we have to not only find a design we like but have to find a piece small enough (I don't want to buy a square yard or more) with a design she likes. We did find a free sample at Home Depot that she loved but it's too small and grabbing a half dozen would not be nice and would mean there's noticeable lines.

I have also been playing around with making custom decals with an inkjet printer and Hayes Water-Slide Decal Paper. I printed a number of Southwest and Native American designs on a sheet and then tried them out on various materials - white-painted wood, oak veneer, corrugated cardboard (for color testing), etc. It worked great for designs even as small as 1/4" (or less if simple). Because printers don't actually print white, it results in white being translucent and light colors partially so. So darker or multi-color backgrounds like wood and the brown cardboard would distort white or light colors. Thus they are good only for decals with darker, rich colors. Also, the more water-absorbent the background, the more water is sucked from the decal too fast to position it well.

I then tried to print terra cotta tile on a decal. I found a nice picture online, then using simple software, I duplicated the pattern to fill the printed page. It looks wonderful! I have not tried to actually put it on any surface because we don't know yet the exact dimensions of the final rooms. I did test some decals to see if I could cut them out individually then places them side-by-side. That worked great. One cannot see a line between them as one would if the material were thicker. That means I can probably print out multiple pages of terra cotta to cover a floor and line them up without having a visible line as one would have with paper or Formica or other thicker material.

If anyone is interested in seeing pictures of what my test decals look like, I can post them or send them.

I envision this is going to work for making items more southwestern looking.

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2 hours ago, Husband of Adobe Dollhouse said:

We found that Formica/WilsonArt laminate looks like it would make great flooring for the non-wood-floor kitchen, bath and patio. 

I am using the old fashioned sticky back floor tiles...the 12in RL vinyl ones...for my SW kitchen and bath. Terracotta for the main tile and a blue for the inset (going for a chopped square set on a diagonal look) anyway, these can be cut to scale size/shape. They used to be available as single tiles at HD and others but think they sell by the box now though. I have also found them boxed inexpensively at Family Dollar, Rose's, Ollie's etc...stores that sell discontinued lots.

https://youtu.be/SvMZ-LRptcA

Edited by FurMama
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2 hours ago, Husband of Adobe Dollhouse said:

Because printers don't actually print white, it results in white being translucent and light colors partially so. So darker or multi-color backgrounds like wood and the brown cardboard would distort white or light colors.

Can't you paint white on the dark surface to overcome this limitation? I really like the idea of using decals for detailed design.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi Husband of Adobe House,

I feel your pain! My mother was a miniature enthusiast! She had many dollhouses and room boxes that my father made.
I inherited her adobe house and southwestern church. Both were furnished and tiled with REAL terracotta hexagon tile floors. She made these 2 pieces in 1989 and I shipped them from Kentucky to Arizona in 2017. I have been repairing and redoing little by little.

She kept receipts of everything she bought. I was sick when I found out that almost all of the places where she purchased southwestern minis were no longer in business!

I have a magazine that featured a southwestern room box that she had done. There were many ads in that magazine for southwestern miniatures and I tried all of those too. I didn't have any luck there either. It's so sad that we have so few miniature places left.

I tried for almost a year to find mini terracotta tile but no one carried 1/2" hexagon terracotta tile! I finally found some terracotta clay at Hobby Lobby and found some small cookie cutters for candy. I rolled out the clay, used the cookie cutter and cut out 1/2" terracotta tiles. They had to air dry and some needed sanding but I was very pleased with how they turned out. I'm so lucky that both of these miniatures were already furnished.

You've got a great shart. There are lots of tutorials online. I found several through Pinterest that really helped.

Good luck to you.

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  • 2 months later...

Well, the timeline for the dollhouse had a major delay because my fellow RR Club member and expert modeler fell and injured his head. That cost two months of time for us but a lot more for him. But things are back on track. He just temporarily brought over what he has done on the main floor (and I posted pics in the gallery). He hopes to have a major advance in about a month with both floors mostly complete. He'll be starting on the vigas, the stairway and some of the interior work soon. He just got in the zillion terra cotta tiles (see front porch pictures) that we ordered for the kitchen and patio (that alone set us back $250) and can now do those floors also. Still a ways to go. Luckily, we got our first shot of covid vaccine today so we have a chance of surviving until the house is done.

Meanwhile, she has gotten the southwest couch and chair for upstairs sitting room and the southwest kitchen and chairs for the kitchen from Etsy, and we've got in some miscellaneous things (bathroom tub, china, & a bunch of small items).

Joel is making the living room furniture which you probably saw in his postings. Due in tomorrow.

All we can do is wait.

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  • 1 month later...

We're at Phase 3. Phase 1 was the cardboard version. Phase 2 was start of first floor with some flooring done.

Phase 3 (in gallery) shows first floor well on its way. She has most furniture in house, some of it courtesy of Joel Axanroth, some purchased on Etsy, some from China and modified (or not) and some throw pillows she made herself.

We soon (by the end of the year(?) hope to have it finished. Definitely, at this rate, many more months. We're making a few compromises to get it done, like going with dowel vigas instead of using real branches but mostly as planned.

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3 hours ago, Husband of Adobe Dollhouse said:

We're making a few compromises to get it done, like going with dowel vigas instead of using real branches but mostly as planned.

John, this is the time of year to prune many bushes. If you were to venture out with a pair of clippers or garden shears ... :ninja:

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More like loppers or chain saw since the vigas need to be 1" for the dollhouse. Actually, havanaholly hit it on the head and that is what I had already suggested to the boss - we simply make the dowels look like tree trunks with a little work.

I forgot to mention - my builder is going fishing out west and visiting the Grand Canyon for the month of March. So it will be a while before we have anything new.

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  • 1 year later...

Any updates on the project? I have been collecting Southwestern and Native American miniatures for years. Some artists to search out (I have searches set on eBay) are: Rainbow Hand, Gloria Bogulas, Theresa Wildflower, Susanne Russo, Joe & Kay Franek, Thomas Natseway, Geri Narango, Nantasy Fantasy, Chris Natachu, Edna Olsen, Judy Shields, Ella Yazzie, Nellie Tsosie, Sadie Begay, Sale-jo, Elizabeth Whitman.

I like original art but when I'm looking for "fillers" I use small jewelry findings to make shelf sitters and accessories, like beads with a silver disk top and turquoise or coral pieces on top, or zuni fetsh beads decorated with micro beads, I made bolo ties and cuff bracelets for tiny pieces of broken sterling jewelry. Some sterling silver charms work well for decor. I also printed some nice photos scaled down and made my own frames. Good luck!

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13 hours ago, larkinbird said:

Any updates on the project? I have been collecting Southwestern and Native American miniatures for years. Some artists to search out (I have searches set on eBay) are: Rainbow Hand, Gloria Bogulas, Theresa Wildflower, Susanne Russo, Joe & Kay Franek, Thomas Natseway, Geri Narango, Nantasy Fantasy, Chris Natachu, Edna Olsen, Judy Shields, Ella Yazzie, Nellie Tsosie, Sadie Begay, Sale-jo, Elizabeth Whitman.

I like original art but when I'm looking for "fillers" I use small jewelry findings to make shelf sitters and accessories, like beads with a silver disk top and turquoise or coral pieces on top, or zuni fetsh beads decorated with micro beads, I made bolo ties and cuff bracelets for tiny pieces of broken sterling jewelry. Some sterling silver charms work well for decor. I also printed some nice photos scaled down and made my own frames. Good luck!

The project was finished about 6 months ago and she has been working to find the last of the furniture and a few more lights and lamps. Mostly she finds stuff on Etsy.  I'll pass on suggestions. Thanks.

Check out the final pics on https://forum.greenleafdollhouses.com/gallery/album/8582-adobe-dollhouse/

We visited NM in March (by train) in celebration of our 50th Anniversary (in June) and she found some trinkets there to use.

I wrote an article that I submitted to NM Magazine about owning an Adobe House in North Carolina and made it read like it was a full-size house. One has to wait to the end to see the pictures and realize it is just a dollhouse. The editor said she enjoyed it and would hope to publish it. We'll see.

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Maybe contact miniature shops in the southwest to see what they have.  A friend particularly likes Auntie Em's in Glendale, AZ.

 

Or visit a mini show...*shameless plug:  we have one coming up in Tucson at the end of October https://tucsonminiatures.weebly.com/show--sale.html

I'm running the raffle, and we have some GORGEOUS SW decorative pieces this year.  Sterling silver, hand painted Indian pottery, more.  There are one or two vendors who specialize in SW, too.

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