And... Yeah. I Got Nothin'

Well nothing particularly witty.  I could tell you how to say some more stuff in Mandarin.  Or in keeping with the time of year that gato is cat in Spanish.

But I'm still the sicky.  And I want to be lazy and watch The Princess Bride.  But that isn't happening yet.  Lots more to do.  So lets get on with it shall we?

We ended in the second floor hallway last time, and you could see the doors to the study/library and the bathroom. 

Let's appreciate the marvel that is Victorian plumbing shall we?  Hey did you know that they weren't normally on the second floor at all?  That's a modern thing.  In Victorian times the bathroom was generally off of the kitchen at the back of the house.  Sort of added on to the house as people got more money and more modern plumbing.  And when people began to build new they started to figure out how to put them upstairs.

See?  I warned you that I was a font of useless information yesterday.  Did you listen?  Apparently not because here you are.

So on to the dollhouse bathroom, however inaccurately located.

You can sort of see the tile design in this one.  It's a bit dim but the flash shine shows it off a bit.  Can you tell its octagon?

So the idea was I didn't want an all white room and I wanted it to be nice looking.  So I used scrap book paper in a smoke blue with a woven texture to it along with the tile for the floors and below the mahogany border.  Then I added the baseboards and the trim along the ceiling. 

It's funny, but its one of my favorite rooms in the house.  It just came out so nicely.  So here we are with furniture.

Plastic floors go on with hot glue and sometimes it gets a little wonky.  Burnt fingers anyone?  But the tub and toilet look good.  We've even got soap, a sponge and toilet paper

I got the towels on ebay and the accessories are all Reutter Porcelain again.  I love the little shelf with the bottles on it and the soap dish on the sink.

Of course the mirror has my thumbprints on it.  Mr. & Mrs. Doll won't be pleased. 

And as I put it all together I couldn't figure out why the room looked a little bare.  I really had to think and then I remembered.  Duh.

First I'd forgotten the stove.  It'd be very cold without it.  And second...the Siamese cat to roll around on the floor.  Mine does this.  A LOT!

All I need is a couple of little rugs and a few more touches and it'll be done.  So...a little more to do.  But not looking too bad.

And... you can't tell but there was about two hours between me writing the above and me continuing to write the post.  So I did a few more things and got some more pics.  I think the bathroom looks slightly more finished now.  Too cluttered? You tell me.

So some jars with bath salts that I made, a couple of little rugs... I think the cat looks happier don't you?

A couple more pictures with different angles.  So the dark blue jars were charms from the jewelry section of Hobby Lobby, just removed the little hooks.  And the bath salts are blue topaz and pink quartz shards from my jewelry making supplies.  I purchased the jars empty and filled them up.  The lids are glued down now.

Now Mrs. Doll can have a relaxing bath. Right? 

And a view of the sink and the rug.

I turned on the light. Can you tell?  I love how that wall sconce looks.  So Pretty!!!

So we go down the hall...Towards the library.  Or Study.  Man Cave?  Anyway.  Have to show you the railings...because the Husband was very impressed. 

It took a little time for me to figure out how to do this. But it doesn't look bad. 

 But, to the library we go.  Mr. Doll's last resort to get some time to himself. You know.  Have some cognac, smoke a cigar.  Read Edgar Allen Poe...

Pretend he's going to take a trip around the world by spinning the globe.

The above was one of my in progress pics.  But it shows the globe and his big chair very nicely.  Here's a slightly different perspective.  I had fun filling up the bookshelves.

The shelf under the Malachite rock is Edgar Allen Poe.

I thought it would be cool to have shells and exotic geological specimens on the shelves.  And some of the little shells I've had since I was a kid suited the library just fine. 

By the way, to make all these stick and not fall I used zots, like for scrapbooking?  They worked great.

Here's a shot of three shelves across.  It took a while to get all the books arranged so they looked nice.  I'm sure Mr. Doll will want to reorganize though.  Men.

And here's the man himself.  At his desk.  Working.  At least that's what he tells the Missus. 

He's working very hard with his cigar and cognac.

His desk is actually pretty cool.  The rolltop works and everything.  You don't get a good view of the book case behind him in the above picture so here's a slightly different angle.

With the stove and a huge chunk of Tigers Eye behind him.  Would you believe the shells are an inch long at the most?

So the last room on the second floor is the master bedroom.  And we all know who's run amuck with ruffles and lace in there.  Mrs. Doll.  No wonder Mr. Doll is hiding out in the library.



Mrs. Doll is very...pink.  I really need to do something about that.

But she's pleased with her bed, and its frilly covers and pillows.  At least I hope she is. I imagine she talks Mr. Doll's ear off but she's very reticent with me.

I think the rug complements the pale blue nicely.  And the end tables with their lamps are some of my favorites.  The bedspread and pillows turned out pretty well too.

And Mrs. Doll wouldn't be a proper lady without a dresser full of toiletries and perfumes. 

The glass bottles have removable stoppers.  So I'm glad they're zotted down.  Same with the tray with the brushes and combs.  But I love the filigree work around the mirror.  Just the right touch of ornate.

Here's a slightly different view so you can see all of the mirror.  Told you it was gorgeous.

Pretty dresser is pretty.

Here's a quick pic of the stove. I was so tickled to find one that had blue on it to match.



I love how the little gold door matches the base of the lamps.  I'm weird like that.

And of course Mr. Doll has to have a place to keep his things.  We don't run to his and hers dressing rooms around here.  But he does get an armoire.

Oh...I just noticed how nicely this shows off the rug.  But you can also see Mr. Doll's shoes and holders along with his bowler and watch.

Here's a slightly better view.  I think.  Yes? No?

Yes. You can just make out the face of his watch.  Of course his gloves are in their box and he has a little set of tools for his nails and mustache.  Must keep well groomed you know.

The chair you can see next to his armoire matches the ivory of the bed canopy perfectly but I didn't buy them together.  Just a happy coincidence. 

But that's it for the second floor.  Let's mount the stairs and head to the third floor shall we?

An older pic but no one is going to fall down these stairs if I can help it.  Not tired maids or rushing children.

And on that cheerful note I'm going to leave you folks. 

Look for another post in a day or so.  I'm going to go and write it right now.  Then I'll just need to edit it and post.  So no long wait. Right?

Well that's the hope anyway.

Just in case you were worried that the dolls missed Halloween.  Nope!

Long Time No See

Which is Hǎojiǔ bújiàn! in Mandarin.  Yes. I'm a nerd.  I know weird things.  I am a font of random useless facts and odd poetry quotes.

I think we all know that by now so lets move on. 

So a lot has been accomplished with the dollhouse and I've just been lazy and haven't blogged about it.  So what we'll have here is a lot of pictures.  I hope you like pictures because I don't have a lot of anything else for you.

Sorry, I'm allergy/sick and tired and I'm feeling snippy. 

On the plus side you all benefit from my lack of creativity because I normally would spend this time writing.  After this post I intend to do some cleaning and get my brain working again.  I'll show you why tomorrow. I think.  We'll see.

So last time I was showing you the dining room and the hallway/entryway.  Still feeling pretty pleased with those.

I think this time we'll look at the parlor/living room.  Did they call it a parlor in Victorian times?  Oh, and I mentioned last time that there were no curtains yet?  That's through out the house folks.  These dolls are remaining fully clothed at all times.  Don't want to alarm the neighbors. (Or my strange calico who remains fascinated by dollhouse doings.)

We're all set up for coffee and cake.

Here's a few more from different angles to show off different things.

Don't be fooled.  Those cakes aren't edible.  And those pictures?  They like to leap off the wall.  That's right folks.  I have the only dollhouse in the world with its own poltergeist.

And yet another angle.

So the upright piano/organ is a music box from my grandmother.  It still works.  The lamp is battery operated.  Looks pretty when its dark.

Here's a shot of the other corner, I figured they'd need a little mini bar for when the men are around.  Or the women get fed up with the men and want something stronger in their coffee.



The little leaves will actually flip up and stay that way to make it larger.  And I fell in love with the little bric a brac holder in the corner.  And look! I figured out how to fill in the door space with the marble floors!

Here's an angle from above.  I love the drink set. It's this fancy Reutter Porcelain set like a lot of the stuff I got for the house and its just gorgeous.  The liquid in the bottles is real! 

And You can see my knick knacks and the pretty ship picture that was one of the first things I bought for the house.  Still love how it looks.

And the last part of the first floor is the Kitchen.  I spent a lot of time on it and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

So I think my favorite is the flagstone floors.  Table, chairs, sink(w/pump) and icebox are from my Grandmother.

The one thing I loved that made it look more like a kitchen were the little shelves that hang on the walls. 



You have to be careful with the little hooks but I loved using them.  The pot roast, potatoes and carrots are made out of air drying clay and enamel paint when I was about sixteen(?).  Got the teapot at the same time.  Stove was purchased from Miniatures.com

 

So the pie you can see in the lower right hand corner?  I made that with a bottlecap and more air drying clay.  I went through a whole 'make food' phase.  It was a well stocked kitchen.  I confess to purchasing the butter and milk at the hobby store though.

Here you can sort of see my colander in the sink along with the little cups on the hooks and pretty silver canisters.  I was worried they'd be too heavy but it's held up nicely.



 The vegetable basket, salad and sack of potatoes have been with me since my grandmother's dollhouse.  As well as all the canned goods you can sort of see on the shelves.

See?  It looks so bare without those shelves on the walls.  I'm unreasonably happy with the placement of the cookie jar though.  It has cookies in it and it has to be high enough to stay out of reach.  There's a child in the house after all!

And...moving on upstairs.  Mind your feet and hang onto the railing, its there for a reason folks.  We have the upstairs hallway. 

The rug is one of the first things I bought for the dollhouse. 

The bureau is a handmedown from my boss (Thanks Denise!) and the book/magazine on top of it is the Sears & Roebuck catalog.  It's readable too, provided you have a magnifying glass.  The lamps work on batteries and the doors you can see lead to the bathroom and the library/study respectively.

Soo... There we have it.  I'm going to check this, post it and then...get started on the next post.  That way I won't throw too much at you all at once. 

Hopefully another post tomorrow if all goes well.  Hugs, kisses, good night and good luck.

Oh, and one last picture, of the aforementioned crazy calico. 

Mommy, this porch isn't big enough for me.  Start over.

A Few Things Finished

So in the weeks since you've heard from me I've been ill, begun cross training at work and have started to finish a few rooms of the dollhouse.  Guess which of those was the desert and which are the vegetables.  Go on, guess. I dare you.

Yeah, I'm pretty stoked that some things are getting all those gorgeous finishing touches.

I had to do a few time consuming things first...like staining all the trim I'd bought for the second floor windows.  I haven't measured them out yet.  That's still to come.  But they're all stained. See?

See?  Nice dark red brown.  Pretty.

And I began to really work on completing the front hall.  See, first I had to get the crown molding up.  And...you know.  The wall.  The one that makes it a hallway.

And I needed to put the stairs in.  So I did a bunch of stuff at once.  And I forgot to take pictures.  So remember way back when I took pictures of how I wanted the rooms to look?  We're going to do before and after.

Not exactly high class or even livable...

Notice the lack of front door.  The completely bare floor.  The lack of stairs, baseboards, crown molding or wallpaper?  Notice also how big the space seems?

Yeah, it doesn't look like that anymore.  See?

Okay I lied.  No crown moldings or stairs here. Not yet.

Please ignore the boxes you are able to view through the living room opening.  But what a change right?

Let's try that same view with stairs, and crown moldings, shall we?

See? Same view...totally different.

To me the stairs really make it more of a vertical space, if that makes any sense.  But this is without any furniture.  You had an idea from the 'before' picture what furniture I was going to use.  Check this out.

You can see the grandfather clock and the coat rack.

I really need to look at the space from the front more, get a sense of what a doll would see before I finalize anything.  But we have another angle.  I like this one a lot.

I was so excited to get the mirror on the wall!

Planning on a few things to do on the lower level of the demi-lune table, flowers or a vase, something.  But for now the silver basket works pretty well.  And its perfect near the foot of the stairs.

We've also made great strides in the dining room.  Remember the dining room?  It looked like this?

Again, very bare, nothing but furniture.

So I think this is better.  Floors, wallpaper, baseboards, window trim...

Step one, floors and walls.  Cover 'em up!

See? This isn't hard... okay I'm lying.  This was pretty hard.  But I like how the wallpaper looks.  It gives me more options than just red.  I could go with gold or brown, green even... more red.  Not bad.

Of course everything is better with trim.  See?

See?  Trim makes everything better.  Finished looking.

And a view of the windows with trim... So glad these darn things stayed together.  They were not cooperative at all.

See? Pretty.  Like.

At that point I had no choice but to add the back wall.  Let me tell you, adding floor and plaster to the ceiling will take away crucial millimeters that you need to get your walls in without issue.  But I managed. 

And here we are with furniture and a chandelier.

Sorry its a little blurry.

This one is a little better?  Or is the wish father to the thought?

Yeah, definitely clearer. 

Eventually I'll fill up the cabinet with china.  And you'll notice that I don't have any curtains.  Yeah I'm pretty certain the dolls will not be doing any nude entertaining.  Clothes all the way until the curtains go in. 

I also noticed a little problem.  I was running out of crown molding.  Yeah.  That kind of problem.  So I'm ordering more.  Not a lot but enough to keep me going with the attic hall and finish the library.

We're not completely done with the upstairs but the kitchen is on the menu for next week.  I hope you enjoy.

Moving To the Second Floor and Downwards.

 

So a few days turned into a week or so.  Busy busy busy.  Run around in circles 'til I'm very very dizzy. 

Well, I'm not Cinderella but I have been busy.  And I've even accomplished a few things.  So let's see what I've gotten done huh?  We've got the second floor and the main floor down stairs to see today...even if we don't have stairs in the dollhouse, lets pretend, all right?

Second floor... This floor will also have wooden floors.  I think they'll work out very nicely.  A medium walnut wood tone.  Like so.



See?  Nice and pretty. 

I also put up some wallpaper in the hallway.  This is more scrapbook paper but I liked the blue tones, and it had an interesting pattern while still being to scale for the dollhouse.

Here's another picture from a slightly different angle, give you a better idea of how the pattern will look down the hallway.



A little easier to see the pattern right?

I was really pleased with it.  Of course I still had to do the library/study and the bathroom as well as the master bedroom.

So first up... The Library/Study.  More stripes in the dark tones...but that looks good right?  Very masculine. Which is pretty good considering the bedroom is in blue and white.



This is the view from the front bay window area. 

I took another from a different angle, it gives you a slightly better look at the pattern.   See?  I think it looks really good with the doors and door frames. And a nice contrast with the floor too.  Not all matchy matchy.



It's mostly dark green with some dark gold and mahogany red.

And next on the list is the master bedroom.  I don't have a lot up here except the wallpaper and floors.  The ceiling is up but its just more plaster paper.  It has a nice textured look but see how pretty the wallpaper is with the light coming in the windows?



It really reminds me of my bedroom growing up.

I think this picture might show the walls and ceiling a bit better.  What do you think?



Still needs baseboards and crown moldings.  I'm working on it I swear.

Next is something I'm really proud of.  I think this room turned out the best so far.  Maybe because it's actually looking semi-finished? 



Ta Da!  The bathroom.

It's not easy to see, but its a linen textured scrapbook paper on the upper walls.  The floor and lower walls are in a white octagon tile.  And I stained the chair rail to match the door and door frame.  It'll fit the bathroom set in nicely I think.  Can't wait to see how it looks when its all finished. 

Here's a slightly different angle. 



Not too bad right? 

If I was smart I would have figured out a way to make the entire second floor in blue tones.  But the library didn't want to cooperate.

However, in the picture above you get a little sneak peak of the main floor.  Which I will fill you on now. 

I mentioned the marble paper?  Right?  Well you would not believe how long it took me to get it measured and pasted down with the borders around the rooms.  Especially in the dining room.  For-Ev-Er. Seriously.


The front hall and part of the dining room.

Seriously.  I really was going crazy with those borders.  And making sure I had enough room for the walls to slide in between the floors.  See?  That bay window area?  I really was going nuts.  Ask my husband. He'll vouch for me.



It looks decent I think but OMG that took time!

Here's the parlor/living room.  Slightly easier than the goofy shaped dining room.



See? Square.  Not nearly as hard to deal with.

And I did managed to get a few other things done.  But I'm going to save those for next week. 

Right now I'm feeling seriously impressed with these floors.  They're nicer than the ones in my own house.  My husband is always very impressed when ever he looks at the house.  He's nice like that.

But, next week, wallpaper for the living room, and hallway.  And trim!  And hopefully wallpaper in the dining room.

But I got some preemptive staining done and door frames cut and stained for my dining room and parlor doorways. 

Here they are unstained: 




See?  They fit pretty nicely around the doorway don't they?

So I stained those and also got all the trim for the upstairs windows stained as well.  No pictures of those though.  But they're the same color as the doors so use your imaginations folks.

I need to measure out my cuts and get those sawed down so I can trim the upstairs windows inside. 

By the way? Any ideas for what I can use as curtain rods?  I'm figuring O-rings that screw into the walls to hang them up but for the rods themselves?  I've got nothing. 

See you next week.  Hope you liked all the progress I made this time around.

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.