Finally Getting Somewhere

So today I have about two weeks worth of work to show you.  There was the fun of getting the floors in and putting up some wallpaper.  I also stained all my doors I'd bought.  I've got six of them.  They turned out pretty nicely.  See?

See?  Nice stain they call Black Cherry.  That sounds yummy to me.

I also glued on the doorknobs I'd bought.  They had some at the miniature site I like.  They reminded me of the house I grew up in with glass door knobs.



I had to use the glue gun to put them on.  It doesn't look great but its not awful.

The first room I decided to work on was what I'm calling the servant's quarters.  You don't usually invest a lot in a nice room for the people who work for you, or at least I don't think you did during the Victorian age so no wallpaper here.

I used the same paint that I did for the outer walls of the house, that pretty pale blue and then got some watered down white paint to put over it.  It gives it a semi whitewashed appearance and a little color at the same time.

I painted the ceiling white and put the floor down, some pretty red oak before adding the door.  The oak flooring was really cool stuff you can cut with scissors but its actual wood.  A really thin veneer.

Then I got the furniture I picked out and filled up the room.  It doesn't look too bad does it?  They've even got a hurricane lamp on the hand me down dresser.

Its not very easy to see the color on the walls.  Everything sort of looks the same doesn't it.

I need to make them some proper bedding, I bought some small print fabric and I'll make some mattresses like I've seen for sale on Ebay.  But I figured semi beat up old brass beds, a straight back rocker and a broken vanity were about right.

Next was the little girls room.  She was a bit more complex, flooring, wallpaper and a plaster ceiling.  But she is the daughter of the house after all.

So I used the same red oak flooring, and then cut out the wallpaper... I have new respect for what my mom went through when she put wallpaper up in my room.  OMG so not easy to do.

See? It should be pretty nice once its done.

The plaster ceiling came in a roll of paper and it wasn't easy to get measured with a ceiling that was a smaller area than the floor, thanks to the slanted walls.

You can see my hi-tech method for getting the edges to stick.  Binder clips are my friends.

The wrinkles in the wallpaper go away after the glue dries apparently, though no system is perfect.

Finally I got the door in and set her up with furniture.  No windows so she has a lamp too, nice even light.

The bedding will get added to eventually, I've got some really lovely fabric in pink that will be nice.

I need to cover the vanity stool with some cloth to change it from red velvet but here's another shot with the door.  I did also notice that the rug seems to catch on the floor a bit.  I bought some finish and I might use that on the floors to make them slick and shiny.  After I figure out what else I need to do.

The next step was the attic hallway.  I didn't have wallpaper picked out for it.  But I got the ceiling painted white and then looked through my scrapbook paper for some paper that would look nice next to a room with green wallpaper.  The flooring was the same, red oak.  Easy to put down too, use rubber cement and you're all set.  I liked that a lot.

The trick with the hallway was the walls were all fixed, and I didn't have any spare walls to use as a measurement.  So there was a lot of cutting and cursing and cutting again.  But it all worked out.  I don't even really see the seams along the long walls.

See?  I did this before I glued the doors.  Obviously. 
 

I'll show you all the pretty things I did with the second floor in a couple of days.

Hope you are all having a great week.

Finally Making Progress

Wow...I'm ashamed of myself.  Really.  Between work and writing fiction I hadn't done anything on the dollhouse but buy it things.  The last three weeks though I've actually gotten back into the swing of it and made some real progress.

You'll recall, so very long ago, that I was still putting shingles on the roof.  That's part of why I haven't posed in a while.  Oh my God!!! The room was huge. Shingles are a pain when you have multiple angles on the roof.  Lots of sanding and gluing and standing.  It took a while to get the entire roof done.

But done it is. Yay! 

The next step was to put the railings up on the roof.  They're called Widow's Walks apparently and they actually went fairly well.  I was originally going to use wood glue to stick them on but after I'd painted the rooftops black I decided the glue gun was the better option.

So here's how it looked once all the shingles were on and the railings glued up.



Not bad looking right?

My favorite is all the boxes you can see through the windows.  Classy right?

Remember way back when I was cutting the holes in the side walls for the doorways?  I had to drill through and then use the saw to cut the squares and the doorways ended up with rounded corners? (Yeah I know that sounds dumb but that's what actually happened.)

Apparently that is the same method the manufacturers use to make the holes for the windows.  So before I could put the windows in I had to square the corners.  That was a little time consuming but I got it done.



See...its a little blurry but the windows are squared.

Now for the fun part.  More painting.  I went with white for the wooden panes and blue for the trim.  It looks pretty sharp if I do say so myself.  That was part of why I took some time to get this done.  White and blue... yeah those can be pretty unforgiving it you're trying to work in a hurry. 

The glue gun came in handy again.  Wood glue would have been messy, drippy and might not have stuck.  But I got the windows and the trim above them all painted and in the dollhouse.

See?

Again, a little blurry... I need my hands to stop shaking...more caffeine? Maybe?

I also got the door painted.  And its doorknobs put on.  The glue gun is such a good friend to me.



Nice shiny doorknob.

I also decided the black foundation was really not as nice as I'd.  So I did some work on it after I got all the windows and door in.

I bought some textured paper, patterned with nice dark brick.  See? Pretty.
 



























It worked out fairly well.  A little Elmer's glue and some scissors to cut it into strips and I have a brick foundation rather than a black one.  It looks a lot more realistic and once I was done I added some brick to the stairs as well.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Ah, much better. Not so dark and Look! A clear picture! Shocking right?

 There was one last touch I had to add.  And then the outside of the house was done.  I'm amazed.  The fun and more difficult part is yet to come.  I'm really a little nervous about wallpapering.  But I'm game to try it.

Here's our final picture and the finishing touch. 

The light works too!  Battery operated so I don't have to deal with wires. Yay!

I've started work on the walls inside and painted the stairs white.  I need to get all my walls figured out to divide out the rooms before I can do any wallpapering.  But that's for next time.

Sorry I haven't written before this.  I have a ton of really good excuses but they'll wait for a time when I really feel like depressing or annoying all of you guys.