Round Barn & POPS

The round barn in Arcadia Oklahoma is a small gift shop/tourist attraction along the infamous Route 66.

Here is a section drawing that shows how the building is put together.  It was built in 1898, before statehood.  After years of neglect, it was nearly in shambles, but loving restored in 1992.

One of the displays inside the barn is  this miniature architectural model of the barn itself.  The barn has been the subject of documentaries and even in a calendar of Route 66 attractions.

The barn has it's own website HERE

My son Cole posing by the sign out front

Here is a picture of me and my mom at the barn.

 Here is a shot of the ceiling structure inside the upstairs room.  There are no supports and the span is quite impressive.  The room is rented out for parties and meetings.

This is true reason my kids like to stop in Arcadia Oklahoma - an ultra modern soda shop called POPS.  POPS has it's own website HERE

POPS contains a restaurant and a truly amazing assortment of soda pop from all over the world, and it is a great place to find a toilet between Oklahoma City and Tulsa!

I chose a canadian orange creme soda, my son chose a chocolate soda, grandma found a sugar free black cherry soda and my daughter found a pink lemonade from France.  Special thanks to my wife taking the picture!

Cozy Cabin Porch Light

I got some great feedback on my last post about which light to use for the front porch.  You influenced my decision!  

 I was leaning towards the lantern on the left, but ended up using the lantern on the right.

 It looks great.  One of the things I like about it is that it is roughly the same diameter as the logs on the front porch and a similar shape.

 I came across these plastic deer at an estate sale for 25 cents each.  I am going to use their antlers to add to the current antler chandelier in the living room.

 I made the current antler chandelier out of paper clay

Cozy Cabin Wiring

I started the cabin project quite a while ago.  This week I have had the cabin up on the work bench and elevated on a couple of plastic bins so I could get into the "crawl space" underneath and work on the wiring.

The foundation is less than two inches tall and is a framework of supports under some thin plywood.  I have been drilling holes through the frame to gather all of the wiring and get it routed to the power strip.

 The wiring has been kind of temporary, up until this point and I didnt want the weight of the house to damage any of it.

I designed an elevated base for the master bedroom fireplace which will hide the electrical strip. Once I get the wiring all squared away, I plan to resume working on the stone.  I am going to create stone with paperclay for both fireplaces, the porch, and the foundation all the way around the cabin.

I won an ebay auction a while back with several light fixtures.  I have narrowed the front porch fixture down to these three.  I am leaning towards using the lantern on the right, which is your pick?

Cozy Cabin Couch

Things are starting to take shape in the new studio space and I took some time today to work on the Cozy Cabin project.  I have been debating on what kind of fabric to use for the living room.  As luck would have it, my favorite pair of jeans recently became available.

I have been planning on using this couch in the cabin because I have a nice sofa table that it works well with.  The couch and and a matching wing chair were some of the first 1:12 scale furniture pieces I purchased several years ago. The photo in the background was one of my inspiration photos.

The strawberry covered couch came apart pretty easily which made changing our the fabric go pretty smooth.

This is where I am at so far.  I was able to use some of the existing stitching and seams to give the sofa a more tailored look.  I added cushion to the back.

Here is a view from the rear, which is actually the side that will be facing viewers in the cabin.

Here a few of the other pieces of furniture that will be in the living room.  Some nesting tables and a bear skin rug.  I found the wood armchair at a local flea market, I dates from the 1940's.  I made a denim cushion for it too.

Next up are some throw pillows!

How It All Started

I have been asked quite often, how I got started collecting miniatures.  As far back as I can remember, I loved to play with miniatures, and design scenes.  I spent countless hours as a boy building elaborate houses with Legos, Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, 
and my erector set.  I used to draw all kinds of houses and floor plans too.  My wife and I had a chuckle a while back when we discovered a few of my old floor plan drawings - each one had a large "play room" designed into it.


The first few images are snapshots of some of the first miniature furniture I was exposed to.  It is all by Kage.  These particular pieces were stored in a shoe box at my Great Grandmothers house in Parowan Utah.  I used to love to get that box out and play with them as a child.  She gave them to me as a child and my collection has grown.  To see my Kage collection, click here.

When I was around 5 or 6, I inherited a slightly used, Fisher Price Little People house and a few pieces of furniture that came with it.  I have written about it before here.

Soon after that, I also got the Fisher Price Little People houseboat.  

Early in my childhood, Star Wars hit the big screen.  I loved it, and collected the action figures.  I soon was building housed for the Star Wars figures with my Legos, Lincoln Logs, and the erector set.  I had built a working elevator with the erector set that I used over and over.  I discovered some furniture that was the same scale as my Star Wars Action Figure and began collecting it.  It was by Fisher Price also.



I removed the chalk boards from my toy box, and used them as floors, while creating walls with my Lincoln Logs and Legos.  I found a toy box just like my childhood one for sale online! 
Mine still had the hutch/shelves attached on top.  At any rate - the chalk boards pop right out and make great floors for Lego Houses and Star Wars People.

I still have the Fisher Price furniture that I used to play with.  More to follow.

Glass Bead Christmas Tree

This is a re-post from last Christmas.

My mother in law gave me a kit that she had purchased nearly a decade ago.  It was a Christmas Tree made from glass beads. The kit had a few ornaments and a wood base and a glass dome and hundreds of miles of wire and glass beads. The branches took a very long time to try and get into place and attach to a wire armature.   I added a few items including a string of working lights.  I hid the battery pack in the giant red present.  The lights are by Lemax and I was disappointed that they are not very bright.  I used a some antique ribbon that I found in an old building nearly 25 years ago in Nevada.  I believe it dates from the 1920's.  

Here are all the items under the glass dome.  I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Village 2013 - The New House

Since we moved into the new house earlier this year, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out where we were going to set up the Christmas tree, the Christmas village, and how we were going to do the outside Christmas lights.

As the new miniature room was finished, and we were moving the miniatures from the garage, I saw the sheets of plywood that I have used under my village in previous years.  I had been going back and forth between setting up the village upstairs in the new studio, or finding a more public place for it.  It doesn't help matters that our living room is octagon shaped with traffic coming and going from 4 sides. Then it hit me! 

 I could move the couch out a couple of feet from the window, and wind it around the back.  Kind of like a window display.  I decided to add a dramatic slope down to the floor on the kitchen side so that my little nieces and nephews could enjoy the view too.

First step, drag all of the boxes out of the garage and pull the foam inserts out.

I stacked to empty plastic tubs under the sheet of plywood to give it the desired height.

Here is the view from the other side

I cut a piece of foam core to fit the oddly shaped corner of the octagon shaped living room and I traced around the curve of our sectional.

I supported it with 3 smaller plastic tubs left over from our move.

I had my son 'strength-test' the new base.

The next step was building up areas with the pieces of foam and creating the sloping mountain down to the lower level.  I think adding a lot of variety in the terrain makes the village more interesting.

We did a preliminary layout of the village and moved the foam around until everything looked just about right.  Keep in mind, we are going to cover the rest of the area with fabric batting and fake snow to smooth out the ups and downs.

 I won't go into the lighting this year, but you can see details of how I light the village by clicking on my post from last year here.

Here is the "skyline" from across the room

Here is the skyline including our Christmas tree and its reflection.

I added some snow flakes hanging from the ceiling this year.  My son loving calls them "apocalyptic" snow flakes because they are so large in relationship to the scale of the people and buildings.

I hope you enjoy the village as much as we do each year!  

To see the 2015 village click HERE