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| Here's the progress so far! |
First of all, I married a good man.
On a scale of 1 to 10, his excitement over the girls' dollhouse was a 0, when it first arrived.
Because he's a great guy, he started helping me construct it in the evenings, just so that we could see each other. He understands that I have a bit of a time crunch because I want to finish it by Christmas. I can't find any other people out there in the big wide world who constructed the Beacon Hill, as their first dollhouse, in under 2 months. I stopped looking after a while because it made me depressed.
Because I
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| Living room flooring made from skinny sticks |
See what I did there?
I've primed and papered all of the first and second floors and have installed most of the flooring.
For the living room, I really wanted a hardwood floor but disliked the peel and stick fake wood, so I made a (removable) wood floor out of skinny sticks. This was luckily a great decision for a couple of reasons.
First, it's removable and pretty flexible, so I can switch it out in the future. I should be able to slide it in and out even with the trim in place. The second reason I like this flooring is that I was able to do this during the day, right under their adorable noses, so that saved some time.
Without context, the flat skinny sticks glued to a funny shaped piece of paper looks nothing like a dollhouse floor. My girls are very accustomed to seeing mommy work on strange craft projects so there were very few questions asked. They even helped a little. Muahahaha!
I made the floor by cutting out a sturdy piece of paper to fit the floor exactly. AND I MEAN EXACTLY. I used watercolor paper because that's what I had on hand. (Afterwards, I realized that a flattened cereal box would have been cheaper to use.)
I then glued the sticks, in the desired direction, to the paper with wood glue. I chose to place the sticks with the boards running the same way as the longest wall-if this makes sense. See pictures. I did this for no other reason than the flooring installer for our real house said that was pretty standard.
I made sure to stagger the sticks like they would with real boards in a real house. It sounds time-consuming but the laying and gluing process really only took about a half hour. Use sharp pruning shears or a utility snips tool (I think that's what its called.) to cut the sticks if you're doing this yourself.
Without context, the flat skinny sticks glued to a funny shaped piece of paper looks nothing like a dollhouse floor. My girls are very accustomed to seeing mommy work on strange craft projects so there were very few questions asked. They even helped a little. Muahahaha!
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| The kitchen flooring still needs to be glued down. |
I made the floor by cutting out a sturdy piece of paper to fit the floor exactly. AND I MEAN EXACTLY. I used watercolor paper because that's what I had on hand. (Afterwards, I realized that a flattened cereal box would have been cheaper to use.)
I then glued the sticks, in the desired direction, to the paper with wood glue. I chose to place the sticks with the boards running the same way as the longest wall-if this makes sense. See pictures. I did this for no other reason than the flooring installer for our real house said that was pretty standard.
I made sure to stagger the sticks like they would with real boards in a real house. It sounds time-consuming but the laying and gluing process really only took about a half hour. Use sharp pruning shears or a utility snips tool (I think that's what its called.) to cut the sticks if you're doing this yourself.
After the glue dried, I applied wood putty over the entire thing and scraped off the excess. After the putty had dried, I took my power sander to it until my arm was tingling from the elbow down.
Then I stained it and placed it in the house. It isn't glued in at the moment. I'm trying to decide if I should stain it again before varnishing. Um, thoughts? Indecision is the only thing slowing me down, as usual.
Additionally, here are some great blogs I found with more details on building the Beacon Hill.
I plan on putting wood flooring in the entry/dining room and maybe the second-floor hallway. Who am I kidding? The second-floor hallway is getting carpet. It's waaaaay easier. I already installed the stairs.
The bathroom wainscotting was accomplished using the same skinny-stick on paper method. I applied skinny sticks horizontally for the chair rail and the trim. I primed and painted them without using wood filler.
One area where I ran into a bit of a hiccup was the stairs. The treads and risers are different sizes on different floors. It says specifically in the instructions not to mix them up. Guess what I did?
It took a lot of time to re-separate them out by dry fitting and trial and error. I still ended up with one short stair tread on the top of the second-story staircase.
Also, if you're making this house, don't forget to stain the underside of the treads if you're going the staining route.
Up next: I need to glue the third floor and decorate it.
I'm doing it! I'm really doing it!
Here's a link to previous posts on the Beacon Hill projects:
Beacon Hill box has arrived!
Beacon Hill Construction DAY ONE post
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| Bathroom wainscoting made from skinny sticks |
It took a lot of time to re-separate them out by dry fitting and trial and error. I still ended up with one short stair tread on the top of the second-story staircase.
Also, if you're making this house, don't forget to stain the underside of the treads if you're going the staining route.
Up next: I need to glue the third floor and decorate it.
I'm doing it! I'm really doing it!
Here's a link to previous posts on the Beacon Hill projects:
Beacon Hill box has arrived!
Beacon Hill Construction DAY ONE post
Additionally, here are some great blogs I found with more details on building the Beacon Hill.
And of course, I can't leave out the Greenleaf site, http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/
The forum has been very helpful!
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