How I made the Hobbit Hole

Here are some photographs documenting the creation of my Miniature Bag End from when I started in March 2009

the very first piece of wood that I cut! (ok I later scrapped it, but still!) you can also see a bit of the wood panelling that I made myself.  HUGE thanks to my partner Graham who taught me how to use power tools lol.  He also helped me with advice on measurements etc and put up without a dining room table for months on end.  Graham is a VERY tidy person so he deserves a medal for allowing me to have hobbit stuff everywhere!!!

the first frame that I made.  I decided after I had got to this stage that the walls were too thin (3mm) so put this model above in the bin and started all over again and added another room!!!!!!

The new frame – if you look closely you can see I already had made the front door – this was one of the first things I made and why the varnish doesn’t quite match the colour of the wood panelling I later settled on! another thing I have learnt to live with for now

I tried 3 different sorts of wood panelling and varnish before I settled on mahogany.  And I am still not 100% happy with it because it is darker than the wood in the movie.  The panelling above got ripped out several times and I even made my own wood panels (see top photograph) but it was a nightmare trying to cut circles in it because the wood was too brittle.  I met a really helpful guy at Miniatura show who sells tudor panelling in mahogany wood so I ended up buying and using that for the house – it looks good and was sturdy enough to cut circles out of to go round the door frames.

Starting the tiling in the hallway.  It is great during this project I learnt carpentry, electric wiring, flooring, grouting and all sorts (but all in miniature so not much use in my own home!)

More flooring laid – the stone was the hardest because the pieces are not even sizes so trying to get them fitted into the space was not easy for my ‘girl’ brain

starting the panelling above – I fitted skirting board, then panelling above that then the handrail above the panels

close up of the panels and stained glass windows

start of the front wall using mini bricks, concrete filler stuff and paint

close up of living room window.  This window and the windows in the hall are a direct copy (well as close as I could make) of the actual windows in the movie.  The others are mostly improvised from my own imagination.  This window opens and closes with the tiny hinges and is made out of perspex, thin wood which I varnished and black leading

making the fireplace for the bathroom – using rocks from my back garden, glue and cement

I added wall wooden beams – I cut them to size and wittled them down a bit at the sides to look more aged then varnished them.

inside coming together a bit more

the outside!  Thankyou very much to my friend Andi who got me some foam to build the outside structure.  You would not believe how difficult that stuff is to get hold of.  I have a ‘making wargames scenery’ book by Games Workshop and in it it tells you to make structures out of this ‘high density foam’ and cover in polyfiller.  Well I called every games workshop in the area and only one shop told me where to get it – B&Q.  I called them and asked for ‘high density foam’ the line went quiet and they hand’t got a clue what I was talking about.  if you google it, the closest match I could find was ‘blue or pink foam’ and NOWHERE sells large quantities of it.  If anyone knows where to get it, please let me know for my next project!  I found one company that supplied it for the insides of childrens soft play areas but it cost £200 for a small amount – er no.  I resorted to wire, modroc and filler for the large areas

starting to lay grass and paving

front door before flowers etc.  I used different shades of grass and graduated them to create the ‘scorched’ grass effect around the stepping stones

I fitted all the wiring for the lights at this stage – many thanks to the lovely people at Matlock Miniatures who advised me what sort to buy and how many transformers etc I needed!

I built the steps with stones from my garden

some mini bread I made out of Fimo – hard to tell how big they are from this pic but the round ones are about the size of my thumbnail (penny size)

a table of food that I made

I made some fimo pumpkins for halloween – complete with mini light.  The idea for this came from a guy called Dean Miskelly hubby of Amy who uses the same twins club as I do (http://www.twinsclub.co.uk) I was calling them to try and sort a pc problem for them (which by the way I didn’t manage to do!) but I did get the great idea of pumpkin with light in it so not a complete waste of a phone call lol

the process of making trees and flowers – I took the wire on the left, bent it into the shape in the middle and added the foliage on the right! oh and made some tiny flowers out of tiny petals cut out with a heart shaped punch and glued to strands of wire

Click the link below to see the finished house or my general blog with next project:

https://madshobbithole.wordpress.com/                    http://maddsrocks.wordpress.com