January 2025 – JPT Unraveled

Right before the holidays, I emptied all of the rooms in the Mouse House so my husband Andy and our wonderful neighbor Patrick could carry the cabinet from my basement studio to our living room upstairs. I could hardly watch as electrical wires are in every room and I fretted that they would disconnect during the move. Miraculously, it all stayed intact and every light worked after I plugged it in.

The “refurnishing” took a couple of days and a few tweaks but I can finally say…

THE MOUSE HOUSE IS FINISHED!

I gave myself ten years to build this and am proud to say I finished it in seven despite fairly normal life interruptions including; a five year high school volleyball coaching job; a basement flood and consequential remodel of my entire studio; an “almost” devastating fire (lots of sooty smoke!) in my basement closet five feet from the Mouse House; two sons leaving the nest; four deaths in our family; AND a three year move to California.

Below are photos of each room. There are LOTS more images throughout my blog with pictures of how I constructed everything as well as a better perspective as to the size of the rooms. (The scale I worked in is 1″ =1′.) Scroll way down into this blog for the many details.

THE BASEMENT ENTRY

THE FURNACE ROOM

THE WORKSHOP

THE PANTRY

THE LAUNDRY ROOM

THE BATHROOM

THE KITCHEN

THE KITCHEN LOFT

THE DINING ROOM

THE PLAYROOM

THE KIDS’ BEDROOM

THE SWING IN THE HALLWAY (and my “Shrinky Dink” stained glass!)

THE NURSERY AND MASTER BEDROOM

THE STUDY

THE LIBRARY

THE ART STUDIO

THE HALLWAY ENTRY TO THE ATTIC

THE MUSIC ROOM

THE TEEN HANGOUT IN THE ATTIC

THE ATTIC STORAGE ROOM (It was impossible to get a good photo of this room through the glass!)

So there you have it. I’m sure I’ll add and subtract things over the years (and the pictures highlighted some cracks in the Paperclay trim I need to repair and paint), but all in all I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. On to one of my many “next” projects, including a MECHANIZED miniature house with lots of motors and movement–Santa did give me robotic supplies for Christmas……!

JOAN POTTER THOMAS
January 19, 2025

NOTE: I am trying to figure out how to add links to my blog posts by category so people (including me!) don’t have to scroll through the entire blog to find how I built a particular room. For now, I’m hopeful that these dates will help a little

THE PANTRY
The food storage area in the Mouse House was a priority from the beginning of this project. I knew I wanted to highlight miniature fruits and vegetables and make “canned” and boxed items to showcase on shelves.

I built a simple shelving unit and made bottles of food using beads, pieces of dried clay, and various spices. I constructed boxes and cans from cardboard and covered them with packaging labels printed from the internet.

The wooden vegetable storage unit was built with basswood and then filled with many of the fruits and vegetables I sculpted out of polymer clay while in California.

I placed the shelves in the back of the pantry, the vegetable bins under the window and a sideboard on the interior wall. The final piece of the pantry is the basket on a pulley system that can be raised through the pantry ceiling/kitchen floor so food can be brought directly to the cooking area.

THE KITCHEN
I worked the longest on the kitchen as I started designing and planning the layout from the very beginning of the seven year process. Details such as the tiled wall behind the stove (made with scrapbook paper covered in gloss), the kitchen sink set-up and the refrigerator I refurbished were made a long time ago.

There are many components to this room, including: the loft storage, the pulley system, the shelves with the spice rack I made from beads and the dishes sculpted with clay; the food, such as the spaghetti in the strainer in the sink, the onion on the cutting board, the goods in the refrigerator and the cookies on the table; the hand towels and sink skirting; the wine rack and wine bottles (made with pipettes, paint and printed labels); the pictures on the wall and fridge; the cleaning supplies under the sink, etc.

Since I built everything over a long time period I don’t have many individual pictures of the construction processes so I’ll just have to remember via the photos!