JK Roth Miniatures

by Pam North

Makes primarily 1:12 scale furniture, room boxes, and dollhouses. Full-time career now, retired remodeling contractors Jimene, designer – Kem, carpenter.
Family reaction: Those who “get it” think it’s fantastic; those who don’t think it very nice.
Easy to combine home life and miniatures.
Inspiration: History mostly, but also literature, pop culture, for many fantasy-themed pieces.
Made anything couldn’t part with? Not yet but it could happen.
Workplace: We work from our home; workplace has pretty much taken over many of the rooms of the house.
Sell product: eBay, Etsy, and occasional shows (Dallas this fall).
Live in very rural area where everything is far away.
Any special items made: Several pieces for museums; room box for an international brand of gin (for marketing); replicas from a Batman movie for a former actor.
Love most about miniatures: Heavy lifting! There is no limit to what can be created. There are not enough years in a lifetime to make everything we would like to make.
Formal training: Jimene was an interior and furniture designer, ans Ken was a carpenter and all-around skilled craftsman.
Most valuable tool: Miniatures require almost as many tools as life-size pieces, so we have 5,000, many of which we could not live without.
Biggest difficulty working with miniatures: Finding appropriately-scaled tools for the task. Many full-size tools won’t provide the delicacy or detail required.
What’s next: We have so many things we want to make! We will just continue making them until we are no longer able.

“JK Roth Miniatures is comprised of the husband and wife team of Ken and Jimene Roth. We have always worked as a team, even before we were married. We had our own remodeling company, and specialized in in interior finished and custom cabinetry and furniture. We each have our own strengths and areas of expertise that compliment the other really well. It was truly the secret to our success. Jimene is the designer, carver, faux painter, and all-around dreamer. Ken in everything woodworking: milling and cutting lumber, assembly and finishing, and how to make Jimene’s dreams work in reality. We started our miniature journey on a bit of a whim. We were close to retiring from construction but wanted a winter project to keep busy. Ken always has loved model trains but we didn’t have the space needed for a good layout. Jimene suggested a kit dollhouse, so we purchased a Greenleaf Orchid kit. It has a very Tudor flavor to it, so that was how we decided to finish it. We built our own windows and doors, and altered the layout to fit what we wanted to do. When it was completed, we decided to sell it on eBay, but we felt it needed some furniture for the photos. We sold the house and then the furniture. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to build more, and started getting so many ideas for new pieces/ We started receiving requests for custom pieces, and suddenly we found ourselves with a new career! We launched out Etsy store the following fall, and by mid-October we were swamped with orders. We make quite a number of custom pieces for our clients. We generally specialize in what would be called pseudo-medieval (a term coined by one of our museum curators, Lori Kagan Moore of the Great American Dollhouse Museum in Danville, KY.

It encompasses everything from Medieval to Tudor/Renaissance, but allows for some artistic license with inclusion of some modern fantasy and fairy tale themes that are grounded in a medieval, gothic, or other historic era (think Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc.). It allows for a more personalized miniature world to be created by not being bound to an absolute historical accuracy. I think it’s an era that fascinates many people, in part because so many popular culture stories and fairy tales are set in those scenes. It also was a time of great artistic awakening. I also think many people want the freedom to create a miniature world that is more a reflection of their own personality, with the ability to incorporate elements from a variety of eras and themes. The ideas for new furniture, room boxes, dioramas, and dollhouses come in a never-ending stream. We never will have enough time to create everything we would like to create. We have, for us, found the  most perfect job in the world. It was time for us to retire from construction, but the world of miniatures has allowed us to continue doing what we  love – working together to build beautiful spaces and furnishings, now in a much smaller scale.

Contact Information:
Name: Jimene Roth and Ken Roth
Email: rthtile@aol.com
Address: 1940 NW CR 4196 – Frost, TX 76641
Telephone: (970) 692-1823