Crowning Glory

***This is not a joke.  I repeat, this is NOT a joke!  I know it's April 1, but I really did work on the dollhouse***

I bought a new toy!  I'm so weird.  I'm way excited about this.  I bought a miter box!  I was fully challenged trying to miter corners for the trim.  I can miter corners in fabric free-handed when I'm putting the border on a quilt.  I couldn't miter wood free-handed to save my life.

Have you ever said a word so many times that it starts to seem like a made-up word?  Miter miter miter miter miter.

Moving on!

Here's my shiny new toy

(Also, my attempt at making fingernails that look like an outer space nebula.  It shows up better if you click on the picture for a larger image.  Not bad for a first try.  It's starting to chip though, maybe time for another shot)

And now I have crown molding cut to perfect angles. 

Yeah I have a couple little gaps here and there, but once I finish decorating the place you won't notice anymore.  And if you do, you need to quit being so picky! 

Third floor isn't getting any crown molding (seriously, all those angled ceilings) second floor is done, first floor is half done.  Aaaaaaaaaaaaand I ran out of wood.  Figures. 

Next up: well, umm, yeah go get more crown and finish that.  But I mean after that... gotta get that flooring in so I can do the baseboards and doorway trim.  Keep using my new miter box!

I've Been Climbing The Walls

Full Scale: I've been climbing the walls with cabin fever lately... winter in St Louis is a bit overrated.

Small Scale: I've been climbing all over the dollhouse walls, and the wallpapering is DONE!

A reminder - as always, clicking on any picture should bring up a larger version if you'd like to see details... or see just what a shabby job I did in a few places...

First of all, I had to do a little construction

Remember that little closet under the stairs on the first floor?  (if you don't remember, the door to it can be seen in a few of the living room photos in this post) Well I had the brilliant idea a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time ago to turn it into a half bathroom.  Seriously, if you're kicking back on the couch in the first floor, then you're not going to want to go clear up to the third floor every time you need to use the facilities!  So I had to cut a wall, and thank my lucky stars Dan had already bought a Dremel for the model train... saved me buying a new tool for this project.  Then glue it in and paper it

A toilet under the stairs and a little corner sink at the edge, and it'll be a bathroom!  And yes I saved the door from the closet, and will be putting it on the new wall.  I am not, however, putting doors on all the other rooms.  Just use your imagination.

And now for the rest of the wallpaper photos:

Yes I did cut out all the little holes for those window-like things between rooms.  Badly.  With a dull X-acto knife.  I'm planning to put some trim over the shaggy edges.  Don't judge me until it's done!

No I did not do the same for this room.  I couldn't handle the parents having windows from the staircase into their bedroom.  And while I did briefly consider making "frosted windows" I decided that was way too much work and would probably look crappy so I just papered over the holes.

This paper may be a bit... much... but for some reason as soon as I saw it in the store, I felt compelled to put it in the house.  And I figured the hallway was the only room that wouldn't get furniture, and therefore could handle some... umm... busy?... wallpaper.

And now I need to "re-upholster" the dining room chairs.  They're red.  Red-red.  This wallpaper, while in the red family, is most definitely NOT red-red.  It should be an easy fix though.

(sorry about the glare, that's the only shiny wallpaper)

And with this picture, I begin the preview of what's-yet-to-come.  If you look very closely where the walls and floor meet up (and don't get vertigo from the stripes, I promise it's not that bad in real life) you'll see the beginnings of some trim work.  The third floor, which has odd ceilings and short walls, is getting quarter-round to finish it all off.  Those pieces aren't glued down yet, they're just there for show. 

The first and second floors, with normal ceilings and walls and whatnot, are getting the full treatment though:

Gravity and my right hand are holding those in place right now.  The door casing is a bit hard to see because I haven't stained it yet... or cut it to size, for that matter.  Technically the next step is to put down the rest of the flooring because there's no point in adding baseboards if you don't have a floor!  But you've already seen flooring from the boy's room and the library, so that would make a pretty boring preview.

And now for a bit of randomness.  As I was papering, I got to a point where I had to stop working and clean up my space.  I couldn't find things that I needed and knew I had... 

Entertainment of the day: Red Dwarf (this was before Netflix took it back of the Watch Instantly list.  Grr)

These pictures were actually taken after I had already started to pick up a little.  It was bad.  Ooohh and I should point out, in the first one... that table closest to the camera?  Yep, Dan built that for me so the dollhouse doesn't have to sit on an ancient crappy rickety card table anymore!  Eventually.  Whenever we get around to moving it.  Once I clear a space so we can actually get in there. 

And while I was cleaning, I started finding things that had NO business being in with the dollhouse stuff.

The tally: an unfinished patchwork sampler, random dog leash (my dog hates leashes and on the rare occasions he must be on one, we always use a retractable.  I honestly didn't even remember that I had a red regular leash), a corkscrew (I swear I have no idea why that is there) a pair of pliers that I am not using on the dollhouse, two bottles of bug spray, some chlorine test strips for my pool, a USB cord, and some thread that does not go with the quilt sampler.  Not shown: a Christmas gift bag, and 3 bags of dog treats. 

Actually the dog treats kind of have a reason for being there.  Tyler has a habit of coming downstairs with me, and then whining at me when I pay more attention to the dollhouse than to him.  Luckily the dollhouse is in the room with the walkout, so I've gotten in the habit of leaving that door cracked open so he can come and go as he pleases.  Works out wondefully, he'll go out and run and explore to his little heart's content.  Sometimes for hours at a time (and anyone who knows my dog will understand that "hours" is a miracle for him) which of course leads to worn out puppy:

That's a new level in tired... needing to lay down before he drinks his water! 

And on that note, I should probably give the full-scale house some attention!  It's been neglected while I've been working on miniature house.

Three Day Post

I've been working on this post for three days now.  Want proof? 

See, today is Thursday and there on my laptop is Tuesday's spacewalk.  I always wanted to be an astronaut.  (Okay, I'll wait for the "her head's already in outer space" jokes.  Are you done now?)  But the last shuttle mission took off without me, so I had to sit in my house and work on the very highest level of my dollhouse instead.  Trust me, some of the ceiling work would be a lot easier if I was in microgravity!  It's hard to stand on your head and paint up in a corner.  Don't forget, clicking pictures should give you a closer view.

Let's get back on topic... there's also a new light

The little midget outlet is adorable as all get out, but kind of a pain in the rumpus.  Well, it's not the outlet's fault.  I had to wire the itty bitty plug on the lamp's cord and I don't know if it's operator error or design flaw (no comments from the peanut gallery!) but I'm having fits getting it to keep working.  It'll work once, then I unplug it and plug it back in, and it doesn't work.  *sigh*  Yeah yeah, I know, quit unplugging it!  But I haven't decided where that lamp is going to live yet.  And if I can't unplug and replug, then what's the point in the outlets?  It's really no more difficult to hard-wire lamps in place.  But I'm off-topic.  Look!  Wallpaper!

Yes I ripped off the banister around the staircase hole.  It was bothering me.  Over the years it had gotten warped and at first I didn't care, but the longer I stared at it the more it annoyed me.  So I yanked it out and am squishing it flat.  Technically, didn't "yank".  I stole Dan's hair dryer and melted out the hot glue.  I hope I didn't get any glue on his dryer, or he may have a new way to make his flat-top stand up tomorrow morning!  And then I will be in trouble. 

More wallpaper!

The wall between the two rooms and the bedroom ceiling/attic floor piece are obviously not glued into place yet.  But I had to show the justification for the wallpaper spontaneously stopping 3/4 of the way up the wall!  I didn't just get lazy.  I promise.  Yes the angle thing at the right side is supposed to be white.  I put ceiling paper on that.  And the wallpaper-stopping-height in the library was, well, mostly because I wasn't going to be able to go all the way to the top without patching paper, one sheet wasn't tall enough, so I just changed paper entirely. 

There isn't a whole lot of rhyme or reason to which parts I designated "ceiling" and which parts I designated "wall", but it all makes sense in my head anyway.

That was Tuesday.  This is Wednesday.  One more room up on the third floor.  Well, the bathroom is also not finished, but I still don't know what I'm doing in there, so the girl's room is the last one I can work on up there for now. 

Here's a lovely before-and-after, all in one shot:

I'm going to have to make new bedding, I don't think the baby pink will work anymore. 

It's a good thing I didn't do this room first, I probably would have just given up on the whole thing!  I had to cut 10 different oddly-shaped pieces of paper (4 purple and 6 white) to do this room, and I still fudged a little.  You see that small cross-section support up at the top?  Yep, just painted that.  And did a terrible job of cutting around it on the paper.  Don't have any pictures of that.  Do have a finished picture of the room.  Don't mind the weird "dent" where white and purple come together at the bottom of the angle-ceiling.  I'll hide that behind furniture or something. 

Technically, not a "finished" picture.  The wall you can't see at all because it's facing the same direction as the camera is not finished.  I have all the white pieces cut out, just need to cut one rectangle of purple and then paste them all in.  But it was my bedtime last night and I was tired of pasting my fingers together. 

And that's how this has become a 3-day post. 

One last thing.  Look at what my FedEx guy brought me!

So many lights!  And yet still not all of them.  I have one more order on its way.  This place is going to glow like the sun when I get it all wired.  Well, except just when I got that lamp plug and outlet working again, the hanging lamp over the pool table quit working.  So maybe I need this many lamps just so I can have a few that will actually light up.  *sigh* 

Also, I just realized that I accidentally ordered two sets of bedside lamps for the parents' room.  Oops!  Gotta go see which ones were cheaper and which company has a better return policy.  Bye for now!

Stop And Smell The Roses

Except don't really smell them.  You'll be sorely disappointed!

I just realized there's still a sheet of plywood laying on top of the dollhouse.  I'd forgotten it was there until I saw this picture.  Hmm.  Anyway, is it too difficult to see in this picture?  If you click on the pic, it should load a larger view. 

Or better yet, I'll zoom in!

I'm so proud of my little flowers.  I don't actually know if they're roses or not.  I made them using the technique for creating roses out of fondant for cake decorating, but I only got about a third of the way through the process per flower before they were the right size and I had to stop or I'd have ended up with goofy too-big-for-scale flowers.  They're almost a rose/tulip hybrid.  Or something.  I don't know.  Wanna see one close-up?

Yep, I made that all by myself!

I filled the boxes using some stuff from the model train room.  I cut pink foam insulation to fill the inner space of the boxes:

That wire thingy just melts right through the foam.  Also, the entertainment of the day on the laptop is Futurama.  If nothing else, this blog has shown me just what a complete and total nerd I am!  Anyway, I ended up with little rectangles, which I then topped with some plant-life-colored ground cover model train stuff:

Because seriously, I definitely didn't want any Pepto-Bismol-pink showing through! 

Then it was just a case of gluing on the flowers and leaves. 

Here's a couple shots of my new gear box, mostly full of clay but also the tiny knitting is towards the back:

It's oven-bake clay, so all those blocks of unformed clay stay soft, but the flowers and leaves are rock-hard.  Yay!  I thought I'd made enough for all 5 window boxes, but I just barely got 3 done before I ran out of both flowers and leaves.  One day soon I'll have to make more. 

Okay that was probably way more than anyone ever wanted to know about making polymer clay flowers, but I'm tired and a bit delirious so you all get bored silly. 

The other exciting update is that I got a new kitchen set!  Here it is, in my real kitchen:

The egg carton is waiting to go to the basement too.  It, with about a dozen of its brothers, are soon eventually going to become a new stone chimney for the fireplace.  More on that later.  Much later.  And yes, the kitchen came with two pieces already broken off, but it was an easy glue-job.  All better!  Pictures of the set inside the dollhouse will come later.  I still haven't decided exactly how to arrange the room.  I'd come up with an idea before the stuff got here, but it doesn't quite fit right in the space... so I'm back to the drawing board.  I have options though!

Haven't done much lately in the way of papering the walls.  I need to place an order for more lights first.  I did finally get the last of the wallpaper though!  Well, technically still don't know what I'm doing on two walls of the bathroom.  But I got everything else.  Just haven't gotten much work done, I had a busy week of actually being out and having a social life!  I know, shocking.  But today is gray and rainy and I can either do real-house housework or I can work on the dollhouse.  Tough call!  Only not really.

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.