OCTAGON CASTLE TOWER
This dollhouse is mounted on a 14" tall 4 legged stool with a turntable so it can be rotated. The tower house itself is 43" tall and 18" across at its widest point. It opens vertically through the middle to a spread of 36". The overall height from the floor is nearly five feet. I consider the scale to be somewhere between 1/4" and 1/2".
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It didn't start out this way. Instead it has gone through a phenomenal transition, and it was as if every step of the way the structure was speaking to me---telling me what it wanted.
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There were only 2 floors originally with a roof. They stacked together like a layer cake and were unstacked to see inside.
I was always fascinated with the Victorian Octagon House architecture style. (Many were built, only a few still exist.) |
And I envisioned a central chimney with fireplaces in each room on each floor. Then I thought a totally open floor plan for the first floor and only enough partition walls on the second floor to divide up 2 bedrooms and a bath.
At that time I left the exterior natural wood with only tomato red accents and a brown roof with its brick chimney poking up through the middle. It looked like a beach house.
I started custom making my furniture and accessories designed and sized to fit the rooms regardless of scale. It was so much fun I made more than would fit into the house. I had a box full.
At that time I left the exterior natural wood with only tomato red accents and a brown roof with its brick chimney poking up through the middle. It looked like a beach house.
I started custom making my furniture and accessories designed and sized to fit the rooms regardless of scale. It was so much fun I made more than would fit into the house. I had a box full.
So I started building more floors for my Octagon House. One on the bottom became the basement, one inbetween the 2 original ones and a third on top under the roof. Each one had to be designed so the connecting staircases would interlock with their stairwells, yet not interfer with the over abundance of fireplaces. Now there were 5. Then I dreamed up the idea of a glassed in garden type floor under the roof. It became #6.
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About that time it dawned on me that it would be impossible to unstack each floor and put it down somewhere so the next one under it could be seen. I built 1 final floor, a cellar to put under the basement and the 4 legged stool with its turntable platform that screwed to the underside of the cellar floor.
Then to make a long story short I achieved the impossible by slicing each floor (except the cellar and solarium) crosswise in half and mounted each side to the matching floor side above and below. The two stacks were attached to the cellar and solarium with 2 specially fabricated hinges. Now the house would not only pivot on its stool but swing open to see everything in each floor at one time. |
Finally I mixed a few shades of gray acrylic and painted the entire thing from top to bottom castle gray.
The evolution from beach house/Octagon house to Octagon Castle Tower was spread out over a number of years, and now I think it looks like something Disney Studios might have created. |
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