The fireplace 1

April 2026

I only work in the shed during the day, so at night I relocate to my hobby room and do different work.

At the moment I am working on the fireplace.  When I was young we used coal for heating and I bought an original coal burner/stove, the same as we used to have. Therefore I thought it best to replicate the mantlepiece as well.

I don't have pictures of the inside of the house where I was born, so I use those from the appartment we moved to in 1954.

In front of the coal burner and mantlepiece of our family home

The custom made coal burner and matching coal scuttle

For the bricks I am using a technic that I have successfully applied years ago: paint and sand on paper.

I painted the colours I wanted on paper and sprinkled the sand on the wet paint. The kind of sand that is used for bird cages.

Next I worked out the measurements and tried to get the same number of bricks around the burner as I could see in the photograph.

Then I cut out a few bricks and glued them on the pattern to see if it worked.

May 2026 

So far so good.  A few more tries, a few more bricks glued on and then working out some more measurements.  I almost forgot the indent for the inner part, but noticed it in time.

Today I have cut out the rounded bit in 1 mm thick card.  Cutting a circle is very difficult so I did the job on the scroll saw.

As I am working on two different parts of the dolls house I will regularly switch from one to the other.

Next post will show more about the front with door and windows.