Although we are not specialized interior designers, we do know there are certain rules one must follow in both life sized and miniature rooms in order to attain pleasing results, these rules relate to the elements of symmetry, balance, scale, color, texture and pattern. Each architectural period throughout history used the fundamentals of interior design in distinctive ways,. For example, Colonial homes were usually small so little attention could by paid to symmetry or balance, but symmetry was often an import design feature of the larger wooden doll houses of Georgian homes and the Victorians that were apt to defy the notion of regularity in their decorations.
Scale is an element of design that is all the more crucial to the crater of miniature rooms because he or she is accustomed to life sized scale and to seeing home furnishing in proper proportion to each other. But the rules of scale and proportion sometimes have to be broken when working with miniature rooms. Scale is vital to a crafter of miniature setting. For in a dollhouse, you cannot afford to miscalculate the size of room, architectural details, furniture and accessories, they must all be in proportion to one another with relationship to the size of the room itself.
We must consider the placement of larger wooden furniture pieces. Fortunately there are only two rules which have endured for several decades. The first is that the dining room table should be placed in the center of the dining room with the sideboard on a long adjacent wall. The dominant piece of furniture is the sofa or couch, to provide seating for several people. A tea table in front of the sofa and a small occasional table next to the sofa are proper. A second large piece of furniture such as a wood rocking chair or should be centered on a large wall adjacent to the sofa wall. A comfortable chair or two and a small desk finish off the living room. In a life sized bedroom the best should be placed on the largest wall if possible. However, if the room is small as in wooden doll houses, don’t divide it with a big bed. Other bedroom furniture is position, a dresser a chair leaving lots of space.
The motifs favored in patterns during the three periods under observation. Colonial designs were few and simple the tulip and sunflower being typical. Georgian motifs showed the interest in ancient Greece, as well as in the Orient and France. The Victorians took their motifs from ancient Egypt from the world they lived in and from religion, and these included fruit flowers and ecclesiastical ornaments.
Finally a word about color in wooden doll houses is regarded by many professional designers to be the most important ingredient in interior design for it is the ingredient that unifies a room or a house and stamps the owners personality on it. Color plays a vital role in authenticating the appearance of a dolls house. Just as there are popular decorating colors today, so too does each period have its own particular theme. The role of texture in interior design is more subtle than that of color, but just as important. Favorite Victorian textures were flocked wallpaper, velvet draperies with lace under curtains, marble and bronze statuary, and closely woven rugs.
