The Pyramid

Sometime over the weekend, I reached the conclusion that before starting work on my large Inn, I should collect all the DIY bits I need to make it - ready made dollshouse porch posts, brackets, maybe windows and some furniture (so I can make the house to fit the furniture) as well as more generic things like plain wood and balsa wood. Shopping for these things may take a couple of weeks because I'll try to get as much of what I want from one store, which means trying to find one store with everything I want, something I've never actually managed. After I place an order, I'll have to wait at least two more weeks for the order to arrive because it will have to come from Europe or the US. This also gives me time to consider the plans for the Inn more carefully before I start work, thus lessening the chances of my overlooking something important like enclosing a room in the middle of the house without adding an opening panel for access.

With the Inn pushed back to second on the list of things to do, I had to figure out what to do first. I was playing around with the bits and pieces I already had to see if I could do idea one more easily or if perhaps it would be better if I did idea two instead when I came to consider how to construct the idea of a pyramid. In my mind it was fairly easy, cut four triangles and stick them on a square base. I even had a 12" square piece of MDF just the right size for the base. So starting with the base at 12" sqaure, I figured the bottom of the pyramid itself should be 10" sqaure to allow one inch of external space either side and two inches at the front. Then it was a matter of figuring out what angle the sides should be at to create the right height and enough internal space. Once I had a basic triangle, I wondered if I could cut four of them from a single piece of foamboard (sometimes called posterboard) so I pulled out a piece of board and drew four identical triangles, managing to fit them all on the one board. Then I figured while I had gone as far as marking out the triangles, I might as well cut them out and see if they would indeed go together as I expected. Once cut out and with the inside edges bevelled, the pyramid almost fell together with remarkable ease.

This is how I ended up with an assembled pyramid ready to be decorated without ever actually making the decision to make a pyramid. Typically, of all the things I bought at the Miniatures Fair for all the projects I had in mind, I started the one that I bought nothing for! The pyramid itself is not anywhere near to scale, it is essenitally just an eccentricaly shaped roombox rather than a model pyramid. Inside will be a tomb, ancient Egyptian in style. There are three possiblities: first has the priests attending the tomb with offerings, perhaps even finalising the burial of whoever owns the tomb. Secondly, the burial could be long since complete and the tomb in the process of being looted by tomb robbers. Thirdly, the tomb could be in the process of being excavated by archeologists.

In any event, the main feature of the tomb will be the sarcophogus and the decorations on the walls. As the inside space is rather small, there won't be the room to add much more in the way of "grave goods", although I hope to be able to add some canopic jars (these hold the organs removed from the mummy), some offering jars and if I can figure out how to make it even a disassembled chariot for the deceased to use in the next world. Right now I am more concerned with figuring out the outside of the tomb. I spent and hour cutting up egg carton lids and glueing them to the floor and although they would make superb blocks for the exterior walls, the floor used almost all my saved egg cartons and it will be a long time before I go through enough eggs to cover the entire pyramid. At the moment I'm thinking I can make faux stone blocks from polyfilla or clay or use a stencil to paint the blocks. In any event, going around the corners and keeping everything straight is going to be tricky. I now realise I should have drawn some guidelines on the sides before I assembled them. There is also evidence that real pyramids were brightly painted when they were built, so do I make the outside stone coloured, or do I get more creative and give it a more imaginative paint job?