Unpicking the threads

The last post here was six months ago and was to say that the photos were a bit screwed up.  Even worse news for anyone finding this blog for the first time - the web albums are now about to disappear.  

I have loads of web albums some public and some private and I pay for extra space to do it.  This means that every once in a while I have to go in and cull some to keep space available for current sharing.  The time has come to remove the Wentworth web albums.

Even though I no longer have the house and am working on my third project it is still 'disturbing' to be shedding it in this way.  I apologise to the folk - who like me - love trawling through other people's work for ideas.

I do still have all the photos of course in my computer so if anyone ever wants to have a look at them - please just email me and I will be happy to make them available.

All change!

(Apologies to anyone who reads all my blogs as this appears (with minor changes) in them all)


I have just spent the best part of today re-jigging all my photo albums for my Blogs .  It was prompted by Google telling me I was running out of room.  This led to having a grand sort out.  On the one hand it was great to have all the new (purchased!) room, on the other hand it was a load of work re-assembling various folders to share with you.  Whatever web album storage I look at, it never seems to do what I want it to do, which is simply to replicate my photo collection as it is in my computer.  The major problem is (with Google web albums and others) that I can't nest folders within folders as I would like to and I end up with a bunch of small folders all jostling for position.  I then have to rename them all so that they will clump together in some logical way.  For example all the albums to do with any of my miniatures need to start with the same word, so they've become  - yup! - Minis.  This doesn't make files particularly simple to construct and probably not that easy to find.  I promise I have done my best with a duff system.

The re-jig means that any blog prior to this date which has a link to an album will be defunct.  I am sorry for that but it would have always been so at some stage.  I was already having to remove the older albums to make room for the new ones.  Hopefully, with all the extra space I now have, the future links will last a lot longer.  

On the whole it will be fine.  When I write a post and create a new album or add photos to an existing one I will give you the link.  You won't have to go hunting and searching for it.  Additionally, if at any time you are visiting  the blog and just want to find something not being written about you can click on the link in the right-hand column labelled  All albums  and that's where you will end up.  When you get there if you click on the drop down arrow of the 'Sort By' option where it says Album Date you can select Album Title instead.  That puts them all in alphabetical order (obviously!) and should make it much easier to find what you want.  The first clump of albums is Clavering then a bunch of Garden albums then a mass of Minis.

Happy wanderings.

Sold

I am genuinely feeling a bit sad when I am writing this.  38 Wentworth Court sold on the 28th September 2012. 

It is still with me for a little while longer as its new owner couldn't take possession until the 22nd of this month.

Such a bundle of mixed feelings.  On a purely practical level it makes sense if this hobby is to continue   We can't possibly have more than two (and a small one!) houses in this house at any one time and, as most of you know, I have Bentleys, Chocolat and Starfish Cottage all taking up space right now.  Also, as I don't want a house to dress and redress as some people do, it will just sit there in stasis and somehow that doesn't really suit me.

As I have said before it was a very personal house, representing bits and pieces of my life with my children and therefore evoking those and other memories when I looked inside it.  That has made the parting harder I think.

On the other hand I am really happy to think it will go on to make someone else happy and that it will have another life and be filled with other stories.  I wonder what its next life will be.  I suspect it might travel back in time from 1990.....

I wish it and its new owners (large and small) all happiness.


(Don't forget, my articles about it are still running in Dolls House and Miniatures magazine from September through to March)

House up for Sale

Well, I've done it... the Wentworth is up for Sale.

I thought I might wait until next Summer but on consideration, now it has been emptied, it probably doesn't matter when it goes.  I will be sad to see it go, but it will be nice to regain the space on the chest of drawers in the bedroom.  That will mean all my doll house hobby will be tidily contained in my 'office'.  I do like 'tidy'!

Here's the advert in case anyone is interested.  It is listed under the Dolls House category and is headed 'Celebrity' Wentworth Court Dolls House.

This is the Wentworth Court which is currently featuring in Dolls House and Miniature Scene Magazine. 

There are seven articles running from September through to next  March.

It also has an accompanying Blog and a CD of photographs.

It is being sold unfurnished, so it is ready for you to make it your own.

Please contact me for links to its web albums and its Blog where you can find masses of more information.  EBay prevents such links being included here.

Dolls House Emporium Wentworth with Burghley basement.

Quick Style – i.e. DHE professionally finished exterior.

Decorated and trimmed throughout down to the tiniest detail such as a door bell.

Good quality real wood floors.

Blinds at all the windows.

Carpets.

Sixteen lights including two chandeliers.

Four fireplaces, all light up.

Wiring in place and everything working.

Fitted ELF kitchen.

Total value of items over £700.

No reserve price so this starting point is a real bargain.

Smoke free, pet free home.

Must be collected from Bury, Lancashire - too large and heavy to post.  

Prefer cash on pick up please, but you can pay to my Paypal account if you prefer.

The cannibal

As I keep saying I will not be near my Wentworth while the articles I am writing about it are ready to publish so I am living in hopes that memory and a lot of photographs will do the job.  I already have many images of the house and its contents but I spent an hour yesterday capturing some more just in case.


With that done and having made the decision to sell it next summer when we get back here again I decided I might as well empty it and find things to go in Bentleys.  It isn't as easy as yo think to just work out what's there and make a note so that it doesn't get duplicated.  There are so many tiny individual pieces in a collection it is nigh on impossible to be that accurate, so I decided to just get on with it.  This is the stuff I found for Bentleys.....

As I went along during the removal I tried to group the contents into Bentleys, Chocolat, Starfish Cottage and leftovers to keep or sell.  This soon became a logistical nightmare and it soon became Bentleys and 'the rest'.  Here's the rest........

In 1/1 world I have lived in eleven homes in three countries in the last eighteen years and without exception have been sad to leave each of them even though we have chosen to move on for whatever reason.  My homes are just that, and a home is much more than a house.  It is somewhere I make to fit comfortably around the way we live, they make and hold memories, I plant gardens and it all grows to be somewhere I come to love.  Leaving them is always sad and feels as though someone is cutting some string containing nerve endings which joins me to them.

I was astonished to find the same emotion attached to my 1/12th home.  It was perhaps a tad more meaningful breaking up this particular mini place as it contained actual memories of my life with my children and linked me back to how I felt when I moved on from their childhood home eighteen years ago when my peripatetic life began.  

Fame and fortune

Just to remind you that, if you buy September's Dolls House and Miniature Scene magazine, you will see my first article on the Wentworth.  It is out today. I have had an advance copy and it looks fine.  They have changed a couple of things very slightly and made a couple of mistakes when labelling the photographs, but nothing that actually matters.  The girl's bedroom is described as the spare bedroom and one photo shows the house on the basement and infers the basement is an Argos trolley.  As I said it only shows up if you are the person who wrote it.  I am very happy with what they've done with my stuff.

I have to get my copy in miles ahead of schedule because we will be in the States when some of the articles appear.  This also means I need to take a zillion detailed photos for when I am on the other side of the pond, just in case anything needs adding to or changing when I am over there and I get asked for a rewrite or photos.

I am planning on that photo session 'freeing up' the Wentworth so that I can cannibalise it for Chocolat and Star Fish Cottage.  When I come back next summer I am planning on selling the building to give me more room.  As I keep saying my home won't accommodate four projects.

I will probably have it stripped out by September so anyone reading this can have first dibs on it then if they are interested. The Quick Style (this means the exterior was professionally finished by them) Dolls House Emporium kit with free Burghley basement cost £250. If you add on paint, trims, wallpaper, carpet, wooden flooring there is at least another hundred pounds spent. It will also have sixteen lights, four fireplaces and a fitted ELF kitchen - more than another three hundred pounds. So something like £700 in total. I would like £200 for it. For someone who wants to save over five hundred pounds and a lot of time it would be a bargain.

You would also be owning a property with a blog and a series of (7) articles published about it.  After February it will have the seven magazines as part of the deal and a CD containing hundreds of photographs.

Fame at last ......

Thought I'd do a bit of self-promotion and give you a heads up on the September issue of Dolls House and Miniatures Magazine (on sale 26th July) where there will be the first in a series of six pieces written by me about the Wentworth.  Here's their advert for it (and other things, of course!) in the back of this month's issue.