Chim Chiminey, Chim Chiminey, Chim Chim Chiree!

I finally finished the chimney and put it back on the house. 

Hello there!  Oh how I love the Doctor.  *drool*

Sorry, I seem to have gotten a bit sidetracked there.  Also, I'm totally writing this in a British accent.  You just can't hear it. 

Anyway, wanna know how I did the bricks on the chimney?  I think I had a moment of brilliance.  The last thing I wanted to do was to measure off a bunch of tiny rectangles and paint them with a little brush.  That sounds like work, and I'm lazy.  No, wait.  Not lazy, "resourceful".  Yep that's it!

I took one of my foam brushes, cut out a piece of it that was the size I wanted the bricks to be, cut a slit in one end, and glued it to a skinny stick.  Instant bricks!  Dab in the paint, dab on the chimney.  I'm feeling brilliant, momentarily.

Okay that's enough with the conceited attitude.

I've also been making progress on the wiring.  No, really!  I swear, I have!  It's just taking forever.  I want to do this so it'll last, because I'm going to wallpaper over top of the wiring and I don't want to ever have to rip out the wallpaper to get at the wiring to fix something.  So, I'm taking my sweet time and doing it as well as I possibly know how.  It helps that technology has improved a lot in the last 30 years.  I read that tapewire was invented in 1976 which means it was still pretty new when Grandpa went into the house building business.  Lots of changes since then. 

I actually have all the tapewire in all over the house except for the girl's bedroom and a couple little extra pieces if I decide to put switches in.  I did learn how to wire switches, so I can turn rooms on and off.  But I'm having an inner debate on whether or not to actually do it.  Anyway, here are a few pics of the wiring work:

That's an in-progress picture.  Also, Chick-fil-A Diet Lemonade on the top floor, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 on the laptop.  The lemonade's in the styrofoam cup, I may love Chick-fil-A Diet Lemonade but not enough to put it in a wine glass.  The wine glass is there because it's holding all the little brass nails.  This was fairly early in the wiring process.. I ran a line all around the base so I can put in outlets for Christmas lights, and ran the main line up through the middle of the house.  And I've started in on the main floor in the previous and following pictures. 

I had to prop a Mag-Lite up on the loveseat so the light would shine on my work.  Wiring is tedious and dull, and even worse in the dark.  (sorry about the upskirt shot on Doll Mom, I had her out to measure how high to place things and she's taking a nap right now) I possibly put in more wiring than I'll actually need, but you can always have extra wiring sitting around doing nothing, and like I said before it's just about impossible to add any more wiring after the wallpaper goes in.

Hey look I finally got the outside light wired in!  (poke the picture to make it larger and see the extremely fine wires I have to work with.  it's a bit crazy)  (on second thought, you can't see the wires... maybe next time I'll take an even closer picture)  Oh, speaking of wires, I forgot to mention this earlier:

Did you know if you have hot glue on something and you want to get rid of it, you can just hit it with a hair dryer and it'll soften up?  I got all the old wiring out from under the house.  Yep, that's the underside of the dollhouse. 

And here it is, the moment of glory.  I put in the tapewire, I push in all the little 1/8" brass nails to make the connections, I turn on the power cord... and I hold my breath while poking the wire with the electric tester.  And look, it lights up!  Whew!

Moving on to the second floor:

I sure now how to use a lot of tapewire, don't I?!  I actually ran out before I finished.  My kit had 45 ft... FORTY-FIVE FEET... of tapewire.  And I ran out halfway through the third floor.  Seriously.  I worked until I had to quit.  I put in a few extra little pieces to places I might someday want a light, so that took extra tape.  And the double line in the above picture is because the one on the left is the main that goes through all three floors, and the one on the right is just for the kitchen lights.  I had to do it that way so I could put a switch in if I want to.  I already own one switch, and I think I'll definitely use it in the kitchen here.  I have most of the other rooms set up to put switches in too if I want to, but I'm not sure I'm going to.  Maybe.  We'll see.  I did take the time to put all the extra tape in, I might as well put it to good use.  But I need to buy more switches.  And do the extra work.  So, yeah.  We'll see.  But first, I need about 5 feet more tape, and some hanging light adapters so I can make them plug-in instead of hard-wire.  Easier replacing in the future. 

Random subject change: I'd been having an inner debate about the kitchen set.  (second time I used "inner debate" in this post.  allow me to translate... inner debate = talking to oneself.  don't ask)  Part of me wanted to replace it because it doesn't really go with the rest of the house.  It's all plastic and... plastic.  And 1970s.  But there's another part of me that's wanting to keep as much of the original stuff as possible, and is also a tightwad.  And I didn't want to spend the money on a new kitchen set... especially since the one I really like is $70.  Yeah.  So I studied the old set, and started thinking about how I might be able to make it less 70s, and disguise the fact that it's all plastic.  And I actually was getting things figured out.  Right up until I realized that:

Even with her not-yet-repaired busted skull, Doll Mom is WAY taller than the cabinets.  It's like a kid's playset for a doll.  A decision was made for me!  New furniture it is.  Now if only I can find something I like that isn't $70. *sigh* 

Well this post has been a random hodgepodge of unrelated things.  So I guess the only thing left to do is to sign off with a non-dollhouse picture.  Dan and I made ground goop for the train layout last weekend.  We're building up the hillside where the elevated track goes.  I think the train layout is going to have to stay with the house forever, there seems to be some goop on the walls.  Funny thing is this is kind of dollhouse related because ground goop was the inspiration for dollhouse stucco.  Different color, different scale, same idea. 

On that note, I should go be productive in my real house.

Help, I'm Stuck... Oh!

No, wait.  Stucco.  Yeah that.  Not stuck at all, in fact I've made a lot of progress. 

Dollhouse got a makeover!  Check out this beauty:

Okay picture quality may not be the best.  And don't zoom in too much, I still have a ton of touch-ups to do.  And I still need to do some landscaping and put flowers in the window boxes.  But... well.... look at it! 

It all started with an attempt at homemade stucco:

See, there's a funny story.  I could buy dollhouse stucco.  It would have cost me about $40 to buy enough for my entire house.  Or, I could buy $6 worth of white paint, $1.99 in fine decorator sand, and use the Celluclay we already had for the train layout.  Look at me being all economical!  In fact I could have used paint I had around the house too, but my only white paint was semi-gloss and I wanted flat.  Anyway, it only took about 300 attempts to get something that actually resembled stucco (instead of resembling random bits of sand stuck to a plain flat wall) Thankfully I had the brains to test on a spare scrap of wood instead of the house itself.  In any case, once I was happy with the spare wood, I tested again on the doghouse.  (the white on the dollhouse in the background of the above pic is just a base coat of plain white paint) 

Once I got all the walls stuccoed, then I painted the timbers brown.  Here are a few more pics:

*Still haven't done anything about the chimney issue.  I've had a change of heart from the original plan.  Wait, did I already say this?  Crud, I can't remember anything.  Well, the plan now is to stick the original chimney back on there where it was, and put either a wood stove in the music room or a small fireplace in the parents' bedroom or both.  And then build a new chimney for the other side of the house to go with the fireplace I put in the living room.  Well, I will be putting it in the living room.  The house is completely gutted right now. 

Now that I'm done with painting, I hope Dan will have time in the near future to build a new table for the house.  It's been sitting on that crappy ancient card table forever, and the table's getting a little swaybacked.  Which means the turntable doesn't always spin so well.  The turntable is fine, but the edges of the card table get in the way.  And Dan's really good at making sturdy tables, he made a bunch for our train and for my dad's.  I think he comes by the woodworking naturally, his dad is really good at it too!  Dan's is a bit more industrial, his dad makes furniture and decoration and stuff.  Check out the new nightstands he just made me! (warning: non-dollhouse picture)

I'm such a spoiled daughter-in-law!

But I digress.  Coming soon to a dollhouse website near you:

No, not quite.  Close, but still missing something.

That's it!  There's a welcoming light on the front porch!  Before anyone gets too excited though...

Yep, that's me all hunched up behind the dollhouse making a rather redneck connection... the light is wired through the walls, but the tapewire isn't in the house yet.  I'm holding the cables from the transformer up against the lamp's dangling wires on the backside of the wall. 

But I did successfully install the wiring for that lamp!  I know how to create light.  Next up: actually putting the tapewire in the house.

Put a hat on it! And a light coat

Hey check it out!

I stained and varnished all the shingles.  (not shown: the swing and doghouse, also with stained and varnished shingles)  If you're wondering why the change of background scenery, I put some wood conditioner on under the stain (28 year old untreated wood likes to be conditioned) and that stuff STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN!  I started doing it in the basement and I couldn't stand it, had to move out to the garage.  Luckily my lawn mower was in the shop getting a tune-up so we put the dollhouse right inside my lawn mower's garage door.  Yes, my mower has its own garage door.  My mower is special.  That has nothing to do with the dollhouse though. 

Anyway, thankfully after also staining and varnishing, the thing doesn't smell nearly as bad anymore.  It gets to come back inside tonight. 

The walls/trim/etc (inside and out) also got a good coating of wood sealer.  Nearly three decades of being exposed to the elements (you know, the extreme weather conditions of... a basement... umm, yeah) left the wood a little dry and splintery, it needed some tender loving care.  Or at least a coat of sealer. 

It's happy wood now. 

Preview of the next post: since I'm on a roll with the outside, and still haven't figured out exactly where I want all the wiring to go on the inside, I'm going to go ahead and finish giving it a facelift.  My dollhouse is so vain!