New Project

Work on the Blue Farmhouse has been temporarily put on hold. I am quite anxious to get the interior finished; however, I have had a bit of a set back. I ordered a box of 12 pieces of channel molding to cover the rough outside edge of the walsl. It arrived today, but when I opened the container, the wrong wood had been sent. Instead of the 1/4 inch channel casing, the company sent a box of crown molding. It was a simple mistake; someone simply grabbed the wrong box of wood. Easy to do. I won't mention the company, but I will praise them for their cooperation and willingness to correct their mistake. In addition, they didn't require me to return the crown molding. Now if I can just figure out how to cut perfect mitered corners, I will put crown molding in the old farmhouse.

In the meantime, I am beginning two new projects, both vintage Dura Craft kits purchased on craigslist.org. My granddaughters and I will be building the San Franciscan, a Painted Lady Row house so famous in in San Francisco. We took the main pieces out of the box Wednesday and assigned rooms to the girls. Here at home, I will be building the Bellingham Farmhouse, circa 1999.

I took all of the pieces out of the the box months ago and began labeling them with sticky notes.

Before I could return to the project, the garage needed a lot of cleaning. I had four stacks: donate (located in the back of my SUV), haul to the barn stuff, keep pile, and throw away. The idea was for the last category to catch the most, which I think it did. Anyway, mission accomplished; with help of my husband we cleared the second half of the garage so that we could set up a second work table where I can paint and clue.

The dollhouse box has a great photograph of the house. It will be helpful in deciding how to assemble all of the fancy trim.  I am trying to decide the color. 

This is only part of the mess that I faced today. I forgot to photograph the entire pile before I began trying to assemble main walls of the house. I had used sticky notes to label all of the pieces, but the garage is a dusty place, so the sticky notes didn't stick.

Looking at what will be the inside of the house, I now have a better idea as to how the house will fit together. I will have to follow the instructions carefully to avoid mistakes. I made a main mistake on the Ballet Studio because I didn't pay close enough attention to the instructions.

The base had already been assembled by the previous owner, accurately, thankfully.

I now have a good sense as to how the house will fit together. I am hoping to do some of the interior work before assembling the walls. I think doing so will be a lot easier than all of the rebuilding that I have had had to do with the Blue Farmhouse. 

It will be a good sized house.

Taping the house was only temporary and the tape didn't hold. I fussed with it too much causing it to collapse. 

These two pages represent the parts list. The first page lists the pieces for the house, and the second lit lists the pieces that will need to be assembled such as the windows, doors, and fireplace. There is a third page that details the world trim pieces.

And here they are. I spent the evening sorting these pieces of trim and labeling each once type. Now I need to figure out where they all go.

All sorted and labeled, next these pieces will be painted.

The Bellingham has a lot of detail work on the exterior,  much more the old Blue Farmhouse. I sorted all of these pieces, placing them in the little plastic cups. They, too, will all have to be painted. I am, however, considering buying turned railing balusters instead of using these plain round ones for the porch and the stairs.

There are several sheets of the press-out pieces for the two doors and six windows, but I am actually considering buying the pre-assembled windows. I think that they will look much better than these plain round ones. What do you think? Would you cheat and opt for a nicer looking window?

Each of these pieces will have to be sanded and painted. Here you are looking at parts for the fireplace and chimney. I have already decided to use a fireplace that I am building from an Xacto kit. It will look awesome.

I can begin priming the main pieces anytime now since I have paint primer on hand. The firsts step. I'll prime both the interior and exterior surfaces.

And Wednesday I will do this all over again to get the girls' house ready to assemble.

Thanks for taking time to visit. I will return.