Tudor Dolls House: Decorating the Interior

Plastered and beamed interior walls in a Tudor dolls house

If you think whitewashed walls with timber uprights showing, beamed ceilings and wide floor boards, you'll have the decorating elements for most rooms in a Tudor house.
   In a dolls house, these are easy to recreate. I used the white paint/talcum powder/sand/ glue mix I did the outside with, to simulate the plastered walls. For the beamed ceilings I stained lengths of thick balsa wood, carving slivers and pieces out at irregular intervals for the hand-hewn adzed look. The upright exposed timbers are thinner pieces of balsa, treated the same way. The floorboard planking can be scored directly into the dolls house wooden floors with a craft knife or awl.

1:12 scale panelled walls in a Tudor hall

   The public areas of the Tudor house were posher than the domestic rooms. It was all a case of showing wealth and power by creating settings to impress visitors. So you could make a hall (the largest room, used for dining and entertaining) with a flagstone or tiled floor, panelled walls and a large fireplace. The ceiling could be elaborate plasterwork or beamed and painted with patterns or scenes. If you have a steady hand, you could paint a frieze around the edge of the walls to add to the imposing effect.
   If you were a rich Tudor merchant, you wanted everyone who came to your home to know it!