Optimizing Space in a Contemporary Miniature – Marshall Erb’s Designs Portfolio

Optimizing Space for an interior designer specializing in small-space living is a constant challenge. I continually research how other designers handle it. Marshall Erb in Chicago has a wonderful way of using space, which is so important when optimizing miniature space.

Look at all the elements in the photograph of a dining room table set in an alcove. Picture how you could utilize this idea in a miniature. It’s a clean way of using more elements without the room looking cluttered, which is so important for modern miniatures.

Go through Marshall’s Portfolio which offers so many ideas for modern dollhouse decorating.
Susan Downing

It seems the choice is unlimited. But out of all these bolts of fabric, the right one to use in a dollhouse miniature may be missing.

The Perfect Dollhouse Curtain Fabric

When looking for the elusive perfect curtain fabric, think beyond color. The weight of the cloth and its pattern or weave are critically important.  I feel that when we focus primarily on color and don’t consider the “technicalities” of pattern size and the weight of the fabric, we risk falling in love with inappropriate material. The color is gorgeous, but perhaps the pattern is too large, or the fabric too stiff and heavy.

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Petronella Oortman’s cabinet dollhouse on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Cabinet Dollhouses

A Cabinet Of Curiosities

The term cabinet was originally used to describe a room, rather than a piece of furniture. A “Cabinet of Curiosity” could contain collections of unusual items: fossils, scientific studies, oddities gathered from newly discovered lands. These rooms were often lavishly decorated, the treasures displayed in a setting designed for their maximum effect.

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Brooke Tucker Window Treatment

As an interior designer, I constantly manipulate objects to deceive the eye and give the impression that a room is larger than a tape measure indicates. Curtains offer great opportunities to do this. In dollhouses too.

There is no law saying you have to keep curtains adjacent to the window, as Brooke Tucker did in the Sitting Room miniature box below. It is simply a custom. Extending the fabric vertically and horizontally is fine. Just make sure the proportions of fabric within the “frame” made by ceiling, walls, and floor looks right to your eye.

Below are three window treatment tricks decorators love to use.

Hang Above the Window Frame

To create the illusion of a taller window, mount the rod above the window frame, about halfway between the frame and the ceiling molding. A track mounted on the ceiling also lengthens windows. Be sure to account for the extra fabric when measuring. Ms. Tucker might have done something of the sort in the vertical picture below. Who knows if the top of the valance is inline with the top of the window or not?

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