18 June 2020 V2

www.miniaturetimetraveller.com Miniature Time Traveller Magazine Issue #18 4 My Brocante— Gay Buchanan In the township of Bulls in the Horowhenua there is a beautiful antique shop, ‘French and Sons’. It is my favorite shop. Much as I would love to furnish my home with some of their treasures, they are all too big for my small dwelling place. However, I usually manage to find something small to bring home with me each time I visit. The latest purchase was a French lavender, long stems with highly perfumed flowers and low silver- grey foliage. This wonderful shop was the inspiration for my Brocante, with its black and white tiled floor, brick and silver pressed tin wall, and the back porch with the pots, baskets and plants with a view down a small path lined with lavender to a huge shed and more treasures. My mini porch view is my friend’s wonderful garden in Great Chesterford, UK. The shop project started life as a weekend retreat with the Kapiti and Lower Hutt miniature clubs. The original shop consisted of a single-story shop frontage with a 4.5-inch deep interior, but as I was assembling the kit I was wondering if it was possible to give the shop more depth. Once home I decided to enlarge the building and add a second floor. In hindsight, however, altering the footprint and height of a completed shop was not a good idea. Lesson 1: put original aside and start again from scratch! A box of suitable stock sourced from my stash was ready to fill the shelves. The problem was my vision for this project changed and a further sort through saw several pieces rejected. Lesson 2: Complete the build and then purchase/choose the contents. The upper floor is still to be furnished, and the roof is temporary while I decide if an attic room is to be added. The large mirror is a copy of the industrial mirror which, before it was sold, hung in the real shop. My version is sized down to 1/24 th scale, as in 1/12th scale it was too big! The table below the mirror cost $4 from Pete’s Emporium. I added a lower shelf, and extra thickness to the legs and a dark stain completed its transformation. The shelving unit on the right started off as a simple set of shelves. Looking towards the back of the shop