Not What You Expect

If you've followed me for any amount of time, this blog begins with my restoration of my daughter's childhood dollhouse that I sort of built sometime in the '80s. You read about how the house sat in the barn for decades and was desitined for the landfill when Heather asked for her 35th birthday to fix up her dollhouse--which I did and here I am nearly a decade later with a village in my basement, but before that project I had my first bout of "miniature mania." 

We were living in our other house when I became enthralled with those tin dollhouses. I never had a dollhouse as a kid and late in life, I went on a binge. My first tin house was a wreck that my other daughter found along the side of the road, one of those mid century modern things bent beyond repair and then two more found their way into my hands--I don't even remember now how I came buy them but back then in antique stores their prices ranged in the $45-50. prices, so I picked up else where.

With the empty houses, I went on a search for furnishings and began investing in Renwal dollhouse furnishes. I spent hours on eBay and a lot of $$$ on tiny plastic furniture. At one point, I looked at my collection and realized that my spending was out of control and quit. 

In 2009 we moved across town from our  home on a city lot to a ranch style home on 5 acres. It was a smaller house that did not feel like home after living 18 years in the two story. I had less wall space, so a lot my things stay boxed up. The metal dollhouse went on a shelf in the garage and have been there all these years. 

Last week we cleaned the garage and rearranged to accommodate a spare refrigerator and had move the shelving unit where the houses were stored.  Here is the first one, still dust covered, missing a door and two windows, but still in solid shape with a few dings, dents and missing screws just like when I bought it.  The chimney is also missing.

 

 

The second one is a bit worse for the wear. The roof is not just bent, but has a crack and worse, it's gotten wet and has rust in the far right corner and missing the chimney.

An eBay search shows both of these house at double what I might have paid for them years ago. There are only a couple on Etsy and seem to have the same flaws as mine, which don't seem to affect the value. While the houses have increased in the value--from $45- 50, they now range from $85 to over a $100 on both eBay and Etsy. Some furnished. Some not. Most missing their chimneys. The Renwal furnishings once really pricy have come down in price, with multiple pieces priced for what 1 piece cost 20 years ago. 

And a barn! This is my husband's childhood barn still in great shape for which I have all the animal and farm accessories stored someplace. 

 

The missing doors and window were partly the reason why I lost interest in the houses. I could accept the dents and scratches and even the rust, all demonstrating use, but the missing doors and windows frustrated me. Once I got the houses cleaned up, I searched Etsy for replacement parts thinking that someone might have salvaged the windows and doors from badly wrecked houses; instead, I stumbled upon something better: a vendor who 3-D prints the missing plastic pieces!

While the replacement pieces are pristine white and the originals are cream colored and aged, I will have to paint them. I'll paint all of them the same so that they match. 

The house, I do believe, came unassembled, so I can image Santa assembling them as he delivered them to the Christmas Tree. The windows and door frame simple pop in and out and the door is separate and is hinged.

 

Now what to do with these great houses? I am trying to figure that out now. I have to dig out the Renwal furniture, but more importantly I need to find a place to display these relics from a 1950s childhood--not mine, but maybe yours. Visit this Etsy vendor for your replacements: Dollhouse3DParts.

I'd like to donate one the our little local museum, but it is quite limited in space, My husband and I served on the committee that runs the museum, so maybe I can find a spot for one. Still. I do love my little tin houses--even more. 

Next week: the Renwal furniture. 

The Newbury Begins

 While I still have a few odds and ends to tidy up on the Manchester, I've begun work on the Newbury from Real Good Toys. Let me introduce you the two story cottage with a French mansard roof.

As the box indicates, Real Good Toys introduced Batrie's  Newbury Dollhouse kit into its line, along a Batrie's other kits.When the company went out of business, Real Good Toys bought this company's houses and according to a post on the Greenleaf Dollhouse Forum, the entry suggested that Real Good Toys discontinued this house along with a couple of others from Batrie in 2016. If you like this house, you will find it still in box kits on eBay and other online venders, but shop carefully so that you don't pay too much. It would be a great first house project.

And if you decide to build it and, as I do, look on Pinterest to see how other's built it or search for bloggers who have chronicled their project, you won't find any. You will probably find 4 examples of this sweet little cottage, including the best example, by Robin Cary, one of our favorite builders. She named her's the Francais Chalet Champagne en Pierre. How romantic is that!

Not really planning on building another large house, I couldn't resist when I found this on FaceBook Market Place only a few miles away for $40. When I asked the young mother why she was selling the kit, she answered that she others in box and didn't have time to build this one. What a sweet deal

Still struggling to finish the Manchester, I vowed to set this house aside and wait on opening it up until the Manchester was finished--then I bought the garage.

Then one weak moment, seeing that sealed box sitting there, I caved and opened the box. All pieces were nicely packaged according to parts of the house, like all the window pieces were sorted by size in their own package, the porch pieces all in a package, and so on.

The instructions look pretty intimidating--don't they all though. 

Windows and walls for first floor. I shuddered at these slide-in wall supports. I struggled with  them so badly with that old San Franciscan that I finally gave up. These will be assembled to form on solid ground floor exterior wall that will be glued to the floor--well you will see. 

The walls are covered with lap siding--if that what it's called. Now an advanced builder might do faux stone work or egg crate bricks or some odd concoction to create a stucco exterior. I am not that brave or patient, so I'll paint the siding.

This kit provides pieces to build the front door, but I will upgrade it. I haven't quite decided on which door I'll chose for the front door--a nice one. 

Directions say to dry fit. Now that is the challenge because the first floor wall connected with slide-in joints is not very stable on its own. And that mansard roof with the sloping side exterior walls on the second floor is hard to hold in place, too. 

  So far all it's holding together. 

Lots of masking tape. 

It's not large house and the sloped wall reduce floor space, but still, I'm loving this house.

Of course we have to dig through our stash to test a kitchen floor plan.

It will a challenge to glue this baby together. I always relied on carpenter's clamps, but they won't work with this project.

I've laid all the pieces and tested the siding fit and played around with assembling a window, done some sanding, and used a box-cutter blade to square the rounded corners of the windows.

You can see here how the walls will slide into the post groves.

 

Instructions say to insert windows before walls are assembled.

I've glued the windows together, leaving the top frame piece  unglued so that I can paint the windows frames then slide in the glass then add the top frame.

I didn't have enough clamps to clap the window frames, so I secured them with masking tape while the glue cured. The instructions say to use rubber bands, but they were  too cumbersome to use.

To smooth out the glue joints, I used am emery board to sand things smooth and tested the window in place. 

  

Next day, I worked on the siding. I used a brush to smear the siding with Gorilla wood glue.

As you assemble the wood siding, look to see that first the groves all point the same direction--down with the narrow strip at the bottom that will over lap the wall. Not sure why yet. I am guessing that I will have to trim it off,  and as this photo shows, you can see that one piece will fit nicely into the one above. 

NOTE: the instructions say to start from the bottom and work up, making the bottom edge of siding flush, but I started at the top. Really does not seem to matter. The excess still needs to be trimmed away.

With the siding in place, I used a lot of little pincher clamps to hold the siding in place and to keep ti from curling and lifting. When I ran out of clamps, I use masking and blue painter's tape to secure the pieces in place.

The siding pieces don't exactly fit the window cutouts on the walls, so they will have to sanded or trimmed away a bit, yet the window casing will cover up the edges, so they won't show. 

So here is two day's worth of work. You will note that on the two main outside walls without windows I had to secure the siding pieces across the center to keep the edges from lifting. All the pieces need extensive clamping to keep the thin siding pieces from lifting. When I ran out of the little pinch clamps, I used painter's tape to secure a tight seal. The exterior side walls have 3 sections of siding, so I used tape the hold down the joints.

All the pieces will need a second coating. I'm using regular latex exterior interior house paint.

First I painted each piece with Kilz primer for smooth base paint foundation.

I purchased Ace Hardware's Clark and Kennington, a rich, creamy paint that goes on smoothly and cleans up nicely with water.

While I don't think a second coat is necessary, but I will sand lightly and give it a second coat. 

I am loving this blue

More to Come.

Thanks for joining me.

Ann

Outside Upstairs

I began the Dura-Craft Manchester Country Home in January 2021; now, today I can declare it finished--with a few minor things to tidy up. Here she and her garage sit with the final pieces of trim curing. 

Roofing the garage finished the project. I ordered a pack of Greenleaf speed shingles that come in strips, 15 to a package,  since they go on easily and quickly. I create a foundation template using Cricut's light colored veneer which is very thin, but holds up well and allows for easy, accurate placement of shingle strips. The hot glue sets quickly, reducing the margin of error. Once the glue sets, the shingles can be trimmed away from the back of the template with scissors, creating a nice, neat roof. I work row by row taping each row in place, lifting the shingles and run a bead of hot glue, press down and remove the tape.  Once the template is finished, I glue it in place on the roof. 

Outside Upstairs

I wanted the garage loft to reflect a "man cave," but it is a very small space so not all of the pieces that I had selected to give it a rough, rustic character would not fit, like the old white, soiled sofa in my stash  that would have been perfect, a small bar with stools, a big screen TV, and a little wood burning stove--what character it would have added, but as it is the is barely space enough the shoot pool.

The pool table and light came from  Factory Direct Crafts. I like this online store because of its flat rate shipping and extensive inventory, but I prefer to shop with individual artists. The deer came from a favorite local vender in Golden, CO who do does not have any social media but who is always at the Denver doll and toy museum fall show and sale with a wonderful collection of hunting, fishing, sport, and vintage miniature toys. The little blue garden chairs: Hobby Lobby. The wallpaper ordered from Itsy Bitsy Minis. Com and the flooring came from my scrapbooking card stock stash--only one sheet-- as did the light gray wall.

I grew up with a loft over an outside building where my folks ran their egg and poultry business. The loft served as an office and a place where the family could sleep on hot summer nights. The loft had a large window that opened out on to the flat roof where dad would take us out at to star gaze, teaching us about the constellations--thus the telescope. We called it "outside upstairs."At the other end of the spectrum of the Outside Upstairs loft, my brother has a swank room above his open garage car parking where he has the big screen TV with recliner seating, and the pool table.

I wrote in earlier post about the She Country Mustang, reflecting my own '67 coupe that stays hidden in our barn. What a fun drive it is--or was--and hopefully will be again. Anyway--do you personalize your miniature projects? Are inspired by your childhood or real life or your fantasy life when you create a miniature project? 

This project will be finished when the roofs are painted, which I will do once the summer humidity dissipates. You can see how some of the shingles on the house have swelled from the moisture in the basement, a distinct disadvantage to the thin speed shingles.

I am now researching how to build a garden around the yard. That should keep me busy! 

Mini Project

I needed a board on which to properly mount the deer trophy. My friend had cut some on his laser cutter, but I didn't have one for the deer, so I searched for a shield in Cricut Design Space and cut it out from 1.5 mm cardboard to make a stable base for the wood veneer using Cricut walnut veneer scrap in my stash. 

It turned out perfect. On the left is the one my friend made for and on the right is mine.

Not all went well with this house--in fact I had a lot of problems, like not getting the apex angles cut right. As I ran out of wood, I just had to go with the mistake, so I had to find away to conceal the goof--which I am getting pretty good at. 

I considered my options. 

Neither fit the character of the house. So I made a little birdhouse. There will be more birdhouses for this project to come.

When I installed the porch lights, I literally forgot to install the second story right side light, which has bugged me all this time.

So I purchased a battery operated light for $20 from Miniature Crush on Etsy. It is a little larger and the LED is brighter, but I thought what the heck. The lights won't be on that much, but it certainly is out of place and the stick-um backing won't hold the magnet in place.  So I probably will save this cute little carriage lantern for another project. 

The attic sewing room was the last room to finish. I had become so frustrated with the wiring in this house that I have chronicled over the last year, that I decided to raid my stash once again for the various battery LEDs wall lamps that I've collected over the years. While their lighting, as I said earlier, isn't the same as the 12 volt lamps and the difference is noticeable, the lights won't be on that much. They look nice and install easily, but do cost more. 

I unpackaged these lights so long ago that I think I lost the magnets that are adhered to the wall, making these little lights easy to remove, so I had to come up with replacement magnets. Somehow I ended up with a bag of various magnets that my SIL left with me and I found the perfect replacement.

Now the attic sewing/craft room is complete. 

A mother's work is never done. I imagine the lady of the house is fixing school lunches to send with the kids as they begin their school year tomorrow. Have great year, kiddos. 

I've already posted the grand tour of the kitchen in the previous, so the next posts I'll tour each room. I am now researching how to build a yard for this house and the Texas Farmhouse. The garden will require a lot of flower making, but I have collection of kits. I also have the Newbury pieces on the table waiting to be assembled. Really, I don't know why I am starting another big house! 

AND as if that isn't enough, I have the Fairfield Renovation to complete. The posts for that work began June 29, 2020 in case you are renovating this house, but trust me, it is not a project for the faint of heart because it is half scale, making much of it hard to access once it is built. 

The Fairfield by GreenLeaf is an adorable house with so many possibilities, so if you love this little 1:24 scale house, buy the kit, readily available on many online stores instead of tacking a reno project. I am working with a house that was probably built in the '80s, so it some very tough and rough spots. I'll complete the reno, but I'll never be satisfied with it. If you are looking for a reno project, do a 1:12 house that offers large open rooms that are easily accessible. 

So glad that you stopped by. Leave me note if you visit just to say hi. Have a great week.

Ann