Mini Earthquake at the Ryokan Inn

May 29th 2019

Well, anyone who has been following this blog knows or can surmise that the ryokan is installed in my attic room.  The attic room is where I do crafty things and where my son games on the PS - especially since the end of 2017 more or less since we haven't had any visitors to use the upstairs room.  I should put it up on Air BnB.  Anyway, my sister became a grandmother and since my Mom died back in 2015, I use my August vacations to visit stateside and see my Dad - now 81 - who lives alone.  He is happy that way but cannot come visit us here anymore due to his age. Anyhow, me traveling down to visit family means no one really comes here to Italy to visit us. So the attic room has become a mess.  And today I took a day off from work to neaten up the room and do my taxes and - fix the ryokan.

During the winter months, Florence can get quite windy.  Upstairs we have two eaves that allow access (and storage space) to our hot water heater.  So instead of installing a door, we just have an insulated panel and a very tall heavy bookcase that blocks it from opening - usually....

Now empty bookcase(you can see the panel behind it) on left, dollhouse on right on its table.

One very blustery weekend, we had a massive wind storm.  The constant vibration on the panel caused the hook on the bookcase to unhook and - WHAM--- CRASH BANG!!!!

My son was upstairs gaming and I was downstairs and as soon as I heard the crash and bang I knew what had happened. "Did it hit the dollhouse!???"

"Yup."

I sat there stunned for a few minutes really too scared to find out the damage.  So my husband ran upstairs - also to check on the door panel and the heater etc., - and shouted down that damage was minimal and it could be worse.

When I checked it out, the dynamics of the hit were strange.  The bookcase slammed into the front edge of the board and table the dollhouse is screwed to and caused the whole house to rock backwards and then forwards.  The house happened to be closed at the time so all the contents did not come spilling out. But inside each room was a massive mess - not to mention the outside back garden and pergola storage area - completely scrambled.

You can see the indent into the wood where the book case slammed into it. The fact the house was closed saved damaging the porches.

Also here, you can see the indent where the book case hit the left side. Amazing really it didn't wreck the whole thing.

The fire pit room was minimal as I had used quite a bit of the sticky wax to keep my ceramic vases attached to the shelving. The kitchen was a total mess !!

Yeah, this was a magnitude 7.5

Actually the right side kitchen wing was open but not all the way, hence the wok on the pavement.

I realized the toughest thing after all this time (truly years since I have played with the dollhouse - positioning or moving things about) was trying to get everything back into place.  Pulled out my tweezers and sticky wax and just put everything back as best as I could remember.  Thing is, I only finished doing it today.  After months since it happened.  Not sure why. Just couldn't face the clean up I guess.  Could also be that now that I am working so much and have no creative energy, the idea of fixing up the house made me sad knowing that I haven't done squat for my hobby in so long.

But, I do feel the bug.  I think I just may finish cleaning the room this weekend so I can actually start mini-ing again.  I have so much material and so many ideas for the Orangery. Maybe finally I can motivate myself.

Kitchen back in business !!!!