Restoring an August Herrmann Room Box - Part One

I treated myself to a German room box in November last year. I knew nothing about it, but I have long had a hankering for one, and it was very reasonably priced.

It has clearly had a bit of a makeover at some point in its life. The interior papers are replacements, and the curtains are relatively modern.

Thankfully the paintwork is all original, including the lovely 'marble' pillars.

The rear of the box reveals that a second window in the larger room has been filled in — probably to provide more wall space for furniture placement inside. The window has been papered over on the inside, removing any doubt (if there were any) that the wallpaper in that room is not original.

A closer look at the doorway between the two rooms reveals that the wallpaper in the smaller room is pasted on top of the replacement paper in the larger room, so it must also be a replacement.

There are no identifying marks on the room box, so of course I scoured my reference books to see if I could come up with the name of the maker.

I was thrilled to find the same model in the Lexikon Der Puppenstuben und Puppenhäuser by Marianne Cieslik/Swantje Köhler (now out of print), where it was featured on a 1904 catalogue page from the German maker Aug. Herrmann Nachf. (catalogue no. 189/5), a wooden toy manufacturer based in Olbernhau/Erzgebirge.

According to the Lexikon, the company was founded in 1891 by Johann Gottfried August Herrmann. The 'Nachf.' part of the company's name is an abbreviation of 'Nachfolger', or successors.

I also found a lovely example of the room box here. 

I think the papers used in the box's makeover were well chosen, and I particularly like those in the smaller room. For that reason, I am hesitant about removing them in case there isn't much left of the originals underneath. However, I just wouldn't be me if I didn't have a little explore to see what I could find!

The floor papers had a couple of loose edges which I carefully lifted — they could easily be stuck down again — and I found that there were several layers of floor paper underneath. I've highlighted what appears to be the original bottom layer in both rooms, in red in the photo above.

The pattern isn't one that I'm familiar with, and I can already see from these explorations that it's not intact, so I will leave well alone. At least for now. 😉

My first job was to reinstate the missing window. This was easily done by carefully slicing through the wallpaper around the aperture with a sharp blade and giving the piece of wood filling it a good tap in the centre to remove it.

When I removed the modern curtains, I discovered that one of the original wooden pelmets was still in place (left above). It was disappointing that the others were missing, but at least I had one to make some copies from.

Then I realised that the moulding above the doorway into the other room was identical. This led me to believe that they had originally featured above each of the three windows and above the internal door on both sides.

I then realised that the windowsill in the larger room was also made from one of the original pelmets. I forgot to take a photo before I removed it, but since it was just wedged into the bottom of the window aperture and not glued, it came off without any damage to the wallpaper.

Sadly, it had been adapted to fit into the window.

Nevertheless, this left me with three original pelmets. Another good look at the August Herrmann catalogue page confirmed that this was actually how many the room box had originally — one above each of the three windows and none above the internal door.

Great, I could work with that!

First I removed the pelmet from above the internal door — I did my best to keep damage to the wallpaper to a minimum, but I'll still have to disguise the mark it left at some point. Then it was a fairly simple job to cut, glue and shape some blocks of balsa wood to fill the missing parts of the mutilated pelmet.

I sanded both pelmets down and stained them to match the original oak colour of the untouched one in the larger room. I then reinstated the complete pelmet above the other window in that room and the repaired one in the smaller room, where I think the repair is less obvious. At this point I should have taken a photo of my progress, but I clean forgot. 🙃

I also removed the plain modern mouldings which had been used above the internal door and as a windowsill in the small room, again, limiting damage to the wallpaper as far as possible.

Unfortunately, throughout all of these alterations, I found no traces of any original wallpapers under the replacement ones in either room.

The internal door of the room box illustrated in the August Herrmann catalogue isn't visible, but from what I can see from those that are, I don't think mine is original. Certainly the door handles aren't.

I will leave it for now but at some point I will probably look to remove the handles and think about how to improve it.

Next, with the pelmets refurbished and reinstated, I was able to get to work making some curtains.

I had this lovely old cotton fabric in my stash. It came to me from a friend and fellow dolls' house collector in Germany. I think it works a treat with the wallpaper in this room.

I was struggling to find just the right colour and fabric type for the larger room until I stumbled across the most hideous pair of cotton velvet trousers in a charity shop. Trust me, hideous isn't an exaggeration — they ballooned out, and the ankles had cuffs with buttons for goodness' sake! They look much better as curtains.

So there we have it, progress so far. There is still much to do — namely restoring the window frames and glazing, adding windowsills, and disguising the damage to the wallpaper above the internal door.

Once all that's done, I can start on the fun part of adding furniture and accessories. There was an odd little assortment of furniture with the room box when I bought it, both older and more recent pieces. Certainly some of the older pieces will be reused. Watch this space...

Until next time,

Zoe