It takes a big talent to be a miniaturist, and Gordon Rovelstad modestly gives all the credit in the creativity department to his late wife, Barbara.

“She was an amazingly versatile artist” who could easily switch between different mediums, painting in oil and watercolor, as well as doing needlepoint and interior design, he said. But it was the idea of creating a series of miniature rooms that really captured her attention and she pulled Gordon, now 86, into the finely detailed work when the couple married in 1946.

Over the course of their marriage, which lasted just six months’ shy of 60 years, they traveled extensively and Barbara painted many scenes from their travels to such countries as England, Switzerland and Denmark. They also collected miniatures.

“The design and style of the rooms were all Barbara’s ideas – I just tried to figure out ways to accomplish what she envisioned,” said the retired pediatric dentist. The set of eight individual rooms, done on a scale of 1 foot equals 1 inch, are not set up as a house, he continued, although there are doors and stairways connecting some of the them.

“We started with the living room, back in the late 1940s,” said Gordon. He pointed out many of the details that are modeled after some of their actual furniture and carpeting, which has been re-arranged in the Vantage House apartment he moved into in 2005 after his wife died.

A visitor might think the actual Isphan rug from Iran had been shrunk and placed in the scene if the full-size one weren’t covering the living area floor. The miniature replica of a wingback chair with crewel upholstery is a perfect imitation of the real one. There are other needlepoint rugs embroidered on a very small grid as well as many miniature paintings that Barbara painstakingly created with brushes of only 2 or 3 camel hairs. There is even a re-creation of the famous portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart.

All miniature rooms are wired for electricity and several have wainscoting. Gordon carefully crafted flat squares and rectangular prisms of wood for Barbara, who then hand-painted them to look exactly like marble tiles and bricks. Some of the furniture comes from kits, but Gordon adapted many of them to fit his wife’s vision for each room.

The entire display of eight miniature rooms sits right inside the door in the hallway of Gordon’s apartment. “I am just the guardian of all this now,” he said. “We did it together as a team and we certainly had a lot of fun.”