Easy Little Projects

While I work to get the downstairs family room in order for the carpet cleaning, I am taking a break from working on the farmhouse. I don't think that I will ever have it completely finished, yet there are some final touches that I want to add. Waiting in the garage is the Bellingham farmhouse that I will begin to glue together soon. I hope to have a good plan for the theme, the decor, and accessories when I begin.

I am a big fan of HGTV's Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gaines. I love their modern farmhouse look that they create, so I thinking of doing a modern home, updated with mostly a white pallet, clean, and simple with Texas on my mind. (I have family and friends who live in Texas, so I think I can create a really cute house).

In the meantime, idle hands are troubled hands, so I have been building furniture. Inspirited by potting benches/hall trees that appear on Pinterest and Caroline's hall tree that she created over at Cinderella Moments, I set to work.  I built two, designing my own pattern, using things that I had on hand. The hall trees are an easy build. Watch:

The first hall tree came from a door that I replaced in the Blue Farmhouse. There were two narrow doors on the 3rd floor that were damaged when a previous owner and the I tried to remove them. They were tightly glued in, making removal very difficult.

The doors had been nicely finished with a glossy urethane. Even after sanding the door, I had to use 5 coats of craft acrylic paint to cover the surface. Love this little table, but as the photo shows I cut the table a bit wide, so it laps over the sides. Actually, the table top fits perfectly, but I forgot to measure in the sides that we pop sickle sticks that added that extra width on each side.  The legs are stair balusters that I had on hand.

The tricky part of this little project is making sure that the legs glue on straight. I use Aileen's tacky glue for a quick, tight bond.

For the second the hall tree, I used a faux door that I had ordered by mistake. This door arrived without the door jamb, making it impossible to hang. A door frame could be created. Instead I decided to use it for another hall tree. I have found that craft (pop sickle sticks) sticks really don't work the best because some are not straight, some are warped, have knots; nor do they cut nicely. So from Hobby Lobby I purchased a 1/16 inch x 1/2 inch x 24 inches. It cuts nicely and is straight. I had the other basswood from which I cut the table top and bottom shelf. 

Once again careful as I was, the top is still just a teensy wide. I'll do better next time. This hall tree remains unpainted so that I can decide what I'll do with it later. It will go in the Texas farmhouse. 

Here are the finished hall trees. On the left is the one made with the reclaimed door. The one on the left is the unpainted new door. I decided not to paint it until I decide where I use it. I've posed them on the upper porches of the Farmhouse, not their permanent home.

I also finished the rose trellis. I hot glued the trellis in the tiny clay pot. I had this one hand, but I did find them at Joann's Fabrics. It is not 1:12 scale, but works nicely for potted rose trellis.

On my recent visit to Norm's Dollhouse shop, I purchased these potted hydrangeas for the front porch  along with he gardening tools.

I also purchased two hanging baskets of pansies for the front porch. At the miniature show, I found this pot of sunflowers. They are hand made from a kit. The vendor makes these tiny flower from kits which she also had sale. I'd rather buy the flowers already made for the pieces are just too tiny for me work with.

A New House: The Dura Craft Bellingham Farmhouse 

I began in earnest the work on the Bellingham. The last time I worked on it, I painted the first two floors interior walls with primer. Saturday I painted over the interior paint with latex water based paint, applying it with a small, smooth sponge roller. The roller givers a smooth, clean surface with very easy, fast application.

With the paint dried (while it dries quickly, I let give it 24 hours to completely dry), I started to glue the pieces together; thus, my first error. Trying to follow the instructions to the word, I got it wrong. While the glue had set up nicely, I was able to pound window wall on top apart. I quickly discovered that the instructions left out a step, so I am deviating from how the directions say to assemble the house, placing pieces in the order that works for me. Deviating from the directions is allowed! So stay tuned. I'll be updating as I go. It may get ugly--already has. Uglier. 

New Furniture

What sort of bits and bobs (as my English friends call this-and-thats) do you have in your stash? What do you think you could create?

My dollhouse stash includes a variety vintage House of Miniatures furniture kits that my daughter and I have collected. These are still available on eBay.com and Easy and range in price. These upholstered pieces are tricky and not for the faint of heart. I am torn between making these pieces from the kits which will turn out looking home made and the really pretty made in China pieces or my favorite pieces made in the '60s and '70s by Shackley, which are rare.

I have several kits that are upholstered furniture. I decided to make a sofa for the Farmhouse's upstairs family room. I wanted to practice first, so assembled this wing backed chair.

I did some research first to see if I could tutorials on the best way to assemble these pieces. I found two great blogs: Paper Doll Miniatures  that led me to Magpie Shines. Unfortunately both of these blogs haven't had any activity for a long time; none the less, they offer great instructions.

They both take a unique approach to attaching the fabric to wood pieces by fusing iron-on fusible interfacing to the fabric then applying it to the wood using a Clover craft iron. It works. Gluing is just so messy and takes long to dry, especially on fabric.

I use a seamstress pen with disappearing ink to trace the shape of the pattern piece after I have ironed on the fusible interacting to piece of fabric--muslin here.

I cut out the pieces as the instructions show, apply the fusible interfacing, and iron the piece in place.

Paper Doll Miniatures added an extra step: using fusible fleece that a quilter might use. While I did this on the chair, I skipped it on the sofa. You might want more body or fluff underneath your upholstery, especially if you want the chair to looks over stuffed and comfy.

 

I needed some examples to look at, so pulled out the kit made wing backs from my vintage house to see how they were made. They aren't perfect, which bolstered my courage.  I made the third chair with the pink ribbon trim myself, pattern pieces copied from the kit. It's quaint, to say the least, looking a rescue from the thrift store. 

Here is the finished chair. I'd give it a B-. I am going to add some crochet string to cover the seams as cording to cover the raw edges and to give it a more finished look. This chair may be bound to the Bellingham.

While the chair assembled nicely, the back was especially hard to get in place; thus the cording.

Next project: the sofa.

 

I chose this nice faux suede in a olive green The color is hard to see here on the ironing board. I applied the fusible interfacing on a large enough area for all of the pieces.

These upholstered kits come with card stock pieces that are supposed to be upholstered then glued onto the wooden pieces. You can skip this step if you use the craft iron to adhere your fabric.

The craft iron gets really, really hot, keep your fingers out of its way, make sure you place it on the stand not on the ironing board or table because it will leave an ugly burn mark; most importantly test the iron on a scrap to avoid ruining a pieces, as the photo demonstrates. With the iron set on high, this synthetic fabric melted instead of adhering. On the right side, you do get a nice finish, but why mess with the templates when you adhere the fabric directly to the wood piece. The template is supposed to be a way to eliminate raw edges.

Yes. It works.

Now I begin stop struggle to glue the sofa together. The glue doesn't set up quickly, the back doesn't fit right. Instead of walking away, i got out the hot glue gun. I have a mess seam in the on the  back sides now. But from the from the little sofa looks great.

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I'll cover up the bad side with a afghan.

With the sofa made, this room is ready to finish by  moving in the furniture. Now that the carpet in the family room has been cleaned, I am setting up the dollhouses, so soon I'll have photos of the finished Farmhouse and progress on the Bellingham. 

See you soon. Thanks for stopping by.