Triang DH/8

Introduction to Triang DH/8

‘A Devonshire Cottage with four rooms and staircase.  Very neat interior decorations. Fireplaces in all rooms.  Front opens on hinges.’

Measures: 21 inches high 24 inches wide 14.5 inches deep

Probably dates between 1924 and 1932.

Well look what do we have here a lovely Triang DH/8, this is a big heavy house.   What a shame I don’t have any room for any more house’s and especially one this big. Umm ………. maybe it could squeeze in, or maybe not. [I must try to remember my shed is not the Tardis] I might just put in bid, and see what happens.  Like tossing a coin. if I win then I will find room, if I loose then finding room is taken out of my hands.

Well guess what, I won. My Auction Lot consisted of a DH/8, a strange red building with a lift to transport little plastic gnomes to each floor, a box of little national dressed dolls and  a few little treasures.  It looks as if someone had started to restore this house, the base and the door have been stripped down.  The door has its little letter box, but it is missing the lion head door knocker.  All the white paint is new and the windows have been repainted.  The roof is original, and is made up of individual tiles and, at long last, I have two chimneys, so many of my smaller houses have these missing.  The chimneys are very solid, and quite heavy.

Three of the rooms have original fireplaces and one room has a range.  The house has been repapered, except for the top right room, but it does have a new wallpaper trim.

The side and back of the house have the original brick paper, it is so thin and there are a few pieces missing.  I will probably leave this as it is, just sticking the paper back and perhaps put some sort of sealer on to stop any more paper flacking off.  I am thinking with this house not to over restore it, but try to save as much as I can.

 

The roof has two replacement tiles.  This is the first time I have had a house with a roof made this way, with individual tiles.

A very worn and rusty Triang Label.

All the windows have been overpainted, and should be brown, all have the glass intact. Just imagine having glass in a childs dollhouse now.  The metal on this window is very distorted, I am not sure how to correct this, as it does seem a bit thin where the metal has bent.  There should be cardboard shutters either side of the windows, so I will be hunting for holes, to see which windows have shutters.

This house will be quite a challenge for me, as I have not restored a house of this style or age and I don’t want to over restore it.

 

Rooms

The Triang DH/8 has 4 large rooms with a central staircase.  All the rooms have been redecorated in some way, either complete walls or edging paper.

This room would be the kitchen, complete with the kitchen range. The floor paper is original, a small piece of original wall paper can be seen behind where the range was fitted to the wall.

I have removed some of the wallpaper in this room.  I think at some point there was a kitchen dresser, as there is some white paint on the wall that matches up with a dresser.  Also there is a nail hole, which may have been used to fix it to the wall.

It is hard to see the pattern of this paper, but it looks like a big red flower pattern.

I have removed the new old wallpaper, underneath it was painted with blue gloss paint.  There was no way I would be able to save any original paper.

This is such a pretty paper with a pink flower pattern, it would make lovely bedroom wallpaper.

This room is decorated with original wallpaper, but it has been badly rubbed and a new paper trim has been stuck on the walls.  Also I think a snail had taken up residence in this room, having a good nibble at the floor paper.

While I am on the subject of wallpaper, I must show you a picture of the inside of the door.

The paper is a bit worn in places,  but you can just about see the chickens and eggs pattern.

I am going To keep this wallpaper as it is on the door as it is, I think it gives a bit of character to the house.

 

 

Windows

There are 5 metal windows, the windows are attached to the front panel with small pins/nail in each corner.

The windows and glass have been removed, four of them are in fair condition, one is very bent.  They will need repainting as the frames should be brown.

The reverse side of the windows also need treating to prevent the rust getting worse.

I think it will be very difficult to straighten out this window, as the metal has stretched and will not lie flat.

This is a piece of the glass from one of the windows, it is definitely not child friendly, look at that jagged edge.  The glass was held in behind the frame with 2 small nails.

It is hard to see, but there are two tiny nails top and bottom to hold in glass.

 

Window Frame Repair

This is the window that needs to be repaired, as you can see it is quite badly bent.  Once the paint was removed, I attempted to straighten out the window frame, but the metal had stretched so much, it would not go flat.

The frame needs to be cut and then soldered back together, this is something new for me.  So a bit of trial and error.

The window frame has been soldered together, it just needs to be sanded back into shape.

Well I am quite pleased with the result, I think I have done the best I can.

Window Frame Painting

The window have now been stripped of paint and repaired [There should be five windows, one didn’t turn up for the photo shoot.] I have spray painted the windows with off white paint. The windows are resting on drawing pins so they do not stick to the cardboard. Once the paint on the windows was dry, it was time to paint the frames.  I have carefully put masking tapes around the edges to make a straight line. The frames are now complete, I am quite pleased with the outcome.

Front Panel

This is the front panel of the Triang DH/8, The windows have been repainted and the frames are bent.  The front door does not have any fittings apart from the letter box. [Restoration of Windows].

 

Reverse side of front panel, showing some unusual wallpaper with chickens and eggs.  I have preserved this panel with mat varnish, so will not be replaced.

Windows and Doors removed.

The front door had already been partly rubbed down, the hinges and letter box need to be removed.

 

Newly painted door with shiny letter box.

I have removed the hinges from the front door and all the interior doors.  They have been brushed with a small wire brush to remove the paint, then the edges hammered flat on a metal surface.

Nearly ready for painting.

Painting complete, I have mixed white with a little cream, as plain white was too bright.

I made brick wallpaper to go onto the front panel.  It may look as if the brick paper is much lighter than the old one, it is in fact very similar to the original, if you match it to the paper under the window frames.  This area of paper is much lighter as it has been protected.

Restored windows have now been added along with a nice green painted door, with a shiny letter box.

Front Panel complete with new shutters.  I could not find any evidence of any shutters being next to the upstairs windows.  Small holes in the bottom panel showed where the bottom shutters had been.

Small nail holes are just visible in the brick paper.

 

 

 

Fitted Furniture

  Kitchen Dresser

Some of the older Triang Dolls houses came with various wooden furniture and fittings.  The DH/8 came with 3 Fireplaces and a Kitchen Range and possibly a Kitchen Dresser. [There is evidence in the kitchen one may have been fitted].

  Kitchen Range

This is the original kitchen range from this house, it is in good condition just needing a bit of clean.

 

  Fireplace

Two of the fireplaces are original.

The third fireplace is original but has been over painted, and has replacement brick surround.

Restoring the Fireplace

The surround has been painted with brown, yellow and white paint.  It may have originally been white, but I have decided to strip  it right back to match the others.

 

The surround has been stripped, sanded and painted with brown paint.  It was then sanded again and stained.  The colour is as close as I can get it to the others.

The fireplace has now been given replacement brick, and new flame backing for the fire.

A Little piece of History

If you look carefully at the fire grate of this fireplace you will see it has been stuffed with paper.  Perhaps added by a small child, to recreate a fire in the grate.

 

Gently picking it out there were small pieces of paper and a little piece of coal.

Unfolding the paper, it turned out to be tiny pieces of an old newspaper cutting.  It reads: To P. & O. S. N. Co.  14 Cockspur St., London S. W. 1 Please send me details of the NEW P & O TOURIST CLASS LONDON, INDIA, AUSTRALIA And Intermediate …… by the Steamers MOLDAVIA & MONGOLIA (17,000 tons) STRATHNAVER … STRATHAIRD (22,000 tons) Bombay …………. From £ ..9 Return £39 Single. £70 …. I have dated this piece of newspaper to about 1932/33.  The Strathnaver was launched in 1931 and the Strathaird’s maiden voyage was on 12 February1932. More can be found about the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., on the P & O Heritage Website.

 

Roof and Chimneys

This Triang DH/8 has a very unusual roof, not printed tiles, but individual cardboard painted tiles.  It also has two large chimneys.

The roof is in quite good condition, with just a couple of tiles missing on the side edge.  The cardboard tiles have been a little rubbed over the years and the edges are peeling.

My first job was to clean the roof of many years of dust and dirt, this was done with a damp cloth, I didn’t want to make the roof too wet.

The edges of the card tiles need to be secured as the card layers are separating.  I did this by using PVA glue on a cocktail stick, to get between each layer, then smoothing it over with my finger.  This was a very sticky job, but my finger did the job.

Once the glue had dried, and my fingers cleaned, the worn edges needed to be coloured, this was done with a dark brown felt pen.  I went around each tile including the space between each one, and along the roof edge.  Doing this also removed the dust between each tile.

I thought that finishing with varnish would not give me the finish I wanted, so I used a dark wax polish.  This worked really well, as it blended in the pieces I had touched up with the felt pen.  I have not been able to reproduce the two missing tiles, this is a work in progress.

Chimney Pots

The chimney pots only needed a coat of paint, they were very dirty.

The chimney pots are quite heavy, it is just as well the house has a good strong roof.

The bottom edge of the roof has been touched up with red paint.  I am quite pleased with the results I achieved on the roof, as I have not done one like this before.