Three for the Price of One

I hinted at the end my last post that I did a reckless thing. I jokingly told my daughters that Dad shouldn't leave me alone two days in a row. On Monday, without fail, he drives to the bigger city to have coffee with his friends at a small neighborhood coffee shop. Things didn't end well for him that day. He was parked at the pet store later, sitting in his big F-350 Bronze beauty of a pickup truck when some old guy backed into it, leaving an ugly dent. While he was running down the guy who drove off without even knowing that he had hit something, I was getting my nails done.




When the manicure was finished, I walked across the street to the town hall to pay my water bill and decided to cross back to take a little walk and peer into the windows of the three antique stores to see what was new. Jen's Antique store is the largest of the three, and for antiquers, it is a gem. I didn't think to take out my phone at the moment to take photos of the window display and I couldn't go in because the antique stores are closed on Mondays.

Tuesday I was left alone again while G went back to town to get estimates on fixing his bronze chariot. The store opened at 10 AM, so I drove down, anxious to make sure that my little finds were still there. I didn't have my phone with me the first time I visited, so I took this photo later. The other dollhouse had already been removed from its perch in the window.


There had been two dollhouses in the window. I was breathless. Jen had a tale to tell--of course, that is her job--to tell a good story to make a sale. Apparently she has had these two little houses for some time and decided to put them in the store windows to attract attention. They were created by a little old lady whose daughters are making her get rid of her houses so that they can send her to assisted living and she doesn't want to sell them. Jen encouraged me to make an but make offer because the greedy, mean daughters (my interpretation of Jen's description) would take almost anything. "Oh, by the way, you did see the toy store?" she asked. "And she has 11 more houses in her basement," Jen said as we headed to another room in the store.

She took me to the back of the store and brought another dollhouse down from a tall shelf where she had placed  it to keep children's hand off of it. And I was done.

I made an offer.

And hurried home to get boxes to pack up the contents.

At first, jen could not find the woman's card in her rolodex so that she see if she would accept my offer. Then she found it, and I had to wait for the lady to call her back. She had to check with her daughter to see if she would accept my offer. I was firm and wouldn't pay more--I hoped. . .

She accepted my offer at was half what the three houses were individually priced.

I have finally identified each house by doing a general search for dollhouses, finally finding all three.

The Fairfield, a Greenleaf half scale dollhouse: 1:24.

I do find the layout, especially the top floor is awkward. The fire places on the main and second floor limit the placement of furniture and restrict room design. Were I to build from from scratch, I think that I'd not do 4 fire places.

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At the same time, part of the charm of this little house is that two sides are open for better access.

The Fairfield is really cute house, but because it is half scale, I probably won't build one because I would have to establish a whole new stash of accessories. That's a lot of work-- and $$$

Westville by Greenleaf

This one was hard to track down because all of the ones that I found on Pinterest had a different roof line with a window where the front of the roof comes down to the balcony. There are two windows hiding behind the roof that are easily seen room-side. I suppose the house was redesigned to fix the oddly hidden windows. Still, it is charming little cottage. 

See the hidden windows in the bedroom on the left?

The Storybook by Greenleaf 

This house is a treasure: It's a toy store, filled with all sorts of vintage toys. Like Minnie, Pinochico, and Micky, barely an inch tall, and made of metal. I have searched eBay and Etsy to see if there are any more in the collection, and I didn't find any other little Disney figurines like these three. All of the lights work in this house, making it even more charming.

The little house is stuffed full of wonderful vintage toys, originals, one-of-a-kind, and some that are still in the online catalogs. 

I can only image the fun that the builder had collecting the inventory for the toy store.

The lady had a love for bears. I've been playing with the toy store and looking up toys. Some are still available in the online catalogs.

I have found that I cannot resit playing with the toy story, moving furniture, rearranging toys. It's just fun.

I sorted through the bears that came with the house and dug through my stash to come up with this furniture  and the hobby horse to add to the upstairs, trying to make it look more like a story display.

And who do we have here? Seems that word has spread that there is a toy story in the collection. Miss Strawberry Short Cake must have her eye on something.

And the little Pullip doll must have followed Strawberry upstairs.

The original builder must have been a Denver Broncos Fan.

As I was taking photos of the exterior, I discovered something very odd in the upstairs window.

Halloween Sales will soon start.

Three of the OOAK bears. So cute, but what evil lurks in the shadows?

Looks to be John Snow and Gray Worm. 

 And the really good news, all of these little houses are still available on the Green Leaf website. My guess is that these houses are at least twenty years old. My first house that I purchased from Jen, was made by the same lady. Here's the link to the Dura Craft Franklin Farmhouse. Only the lamp in the front window works. The nice thing is that carpeting in not glued down so perhaps I could find where the break in the electrical is.

 I have left the Franklin as it was when I bought it, admiring the builder's skill. It looks vintage, but these three houses after looking at others on Pinterest look old and tired. The carpeting has faded is and full of dust. I think I will replace the flooring in the toy store, and I'd like to brighten up the wall paper, but I have to think on that. I am thinking, too, that I might add some climbing vine to the exterior to give it some life and color. I really like this little house.

 In the other two houses, the furniture is dusty and the wallpaper faded. I am not sure just what I will do with them. I may even try selling the Fairfield on eBay.Or I may just add them to the village. My oldest daughter enjoys the houses and may even talk me out of one. That would be fine.

 I thought that I'd really enjoy the smaller half size, but after seeing newer ones with brighter paint and more creative design, I may either spruce up this one or sell it and build my own. Or not. I have plenty on my plate:  three unfinished house--the Bellingham needs the attic finished and the roof shingled and the Painted Lady has a ways to go and there is a second San Franciscan to build, plus Lily's house to start and finish. And I know for sure that my next new build will be log cabin.

Now, I need go rescue Grey Worm.

A Not So Painted Lady

I am up early this morning--my favorite time of day. I hear the wind blowing, signifying an approaching cold front that will cool things down and maybe bring some wind. We've had record heat in in Northern Colorado for September, not really unusual for it to be so hot this time year, but summer certainly is winding down and we can feel it this second day of Fall and we are glad.

I have a garden full of ripening tomatoes that I will turn into homemade spaghetti sauce. I've never made spaghetti sauce, but I am going to give it a try. My daughter and I made lots of salsa the last two weeks. I had planned on picking tomatoes today, but it may be too windy. We'll see.

Then there is the San Franciscan Lady. What a mess. The Lady has not gone together as neatly and perfectly as she should have. As it turns out, this is a very difficult build for a couple of reasons. First the kit has already been--what's the correct word--compromised by the previous owner. She measured correctly, but glued some pieces together wrong, so I have had to order new pieces. I think I wrote in the last post that I found the pieces of lumber on eBay and have ordered them twice, but the vendor also has a store, Manchester Woodworks. The eBay ordered coming from Minnesota, arrived in record time, so I have gone to the web store now and ordered the interior window casing that does not come with kit.

So, I am taking a break from the Lady. I have some decisions to make.

 Flooring

The kit comes with flooring, very, very thin uniform strips. The instruction booklet says that there is enough for one floor, but as I laid out the flooring, I was able to cover all three floors and there will be enough the the half fourth floor. The instructions say to lay it out vertically across the floor before the the walls are installed, cutting it sections and using a round tipped object of pound in indents to represent nails. Modern flooring is tongue and groove and skips the nails. So will I. The flooring will go down nicely until I get to the bay windows, so I tried another pattern.

 Horizontally, the bay windows seem less fussy, but there are still tiny spaces that will need to be dealt with.




I am thinking that this pattern will be less fussy and I can add the walls without putting them on top of the flooring.

The nice thing about this flooring is that it can be cut with scissors. I will make a paper template, I think, of the bay windows to figure how to cut the strips. Next I have to decide how to glue them down. The instructions say not to use a water based glue because it will cause the thin wood to curl, instead to use rubber cement. Good thing that I'm working in the garage where it is well ventilated.

The final decision: how to finish the floor. I may leave it unfinished so that Jen can distress it however she wants. I wish this flooring material were more universal and available. It looks to be a lot less work intensive than craft sticks or even the sheets of flooring that I buy from Hobby Lobby.

Your thoughts?

Window Trim: Finishing the Interior Walls

I've ordered 1/2 inch wide casing for the windows. I hope it works. There are fifteen windows and two doors to trim. Won't that be fun! I will not do mitered corners and I may prime them so that Jen has a good surface to work with. 

The Tower

The iconic Painted Ladies of San Francisco attract attention and garner admiration, I think, first for their colorful painted exteriors and then their architecture. The bay windows and the tower are the main attractions, I am sure. Assembling the tower is so tricky, especially if you follow the instructions and that may be where the first builder made her big mistake and gave up when she glued  the posts together wrong. As a result, I had to order posts more from Manchester and glued the two inner posts the way the instructions showed, except I made a mistake, too. So I cut more wood and instead of gluing the two posts center left, I slid the siding in one post and taped then side the shortest piece of siding onto the other post and taped them together to get the correct angle--finally--so that the posts would fit.

Thus I ran short of the post lumber and the two center pieces are short, so I'll not glue anything in place until it is time to assemble the tower. Typically the rest of the posts in the construction if cut according to directions were cut too long, so maybe these will fit. I may be ordering another #5-76 piece for the posts. This piece will fit at the back of the tower behind the top row of windows and will be installed once the roof is in place. It also has to be trimmed to fit in place. That will be an interesting cut.

The Tower Roof

The directions say to tape the eight triangles together then place in a coffee can to glue????

Looks like a tower.

But what do I do with this piece? 

So here is my vintage coffee can that I have kept for years. Before the major coffee makers such as Floger's went to plastic, coffee came in these great decorative tin cans. Today they can be found only in junk stores. I keep my parakeets' seed in this one.

I looked at the drawing in the instructions and couldn't figure what size of can was needed, especially since the instructions weren't specific as to size of coffee can.

Now I know how the pieces go together

I think the Tupperware® will do quite nicely when I begin gluing pieces together.

So here she stands, waiting for me to take the next step. Flooring perhaps. I'll cut a paper template for the bay windows and go from there.

The roof will be a major install, but I will do the flooring and window casings first.

The Cranberry Cove

This is six year old Lily's house that she picked out herself. She asked me the other day if I had started her house house and I had to say no, but that I had it out of the box. So last night I taped the first floor together. It is going to be so easy to assemble compared The Lady. The plywood is lighter, and thinner than the MFD that the Bellingham is made from and much smoother than the stamped plywood for the San Franciscan that is brittle, dry, and splintery. 

On an ending note, I went downtown to get my nails done and pay the waterfall and decided t walk Main Street--two blocks long😂.  The second block on the south side has 3 antique stores, one new clothing store, a bar, and a cafe. The second block has the beauty shop, the automotive store, another antique store, an art studio, and a church--in the old grocery store. 

Anyway.

The one antique store, Jen's Antiques, has two adorable dollhouses in the window. I know she put there there to lure me in. She is closed today, but you can bet that I'll be there tomorrow. My daughter has already told me that I can't buy anymore houses, but I told her I can if I want. Depends on how much and how cute. One is 1:24. I'd be tempted to buy that one. And they are furnished. I assume they are from the same place. I'll let you know, later.

Thanks so much spending time with me. I love that you visit. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment. I am an ad free blog and I don't share any information with anyone. 

Have a great week. 

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

It seems that I have been going in circles with the San Franciscan. I have placed pieces and parts and taped and re taped to make sure that I understand how things will fit together, but I kept running into problems. Actually, I think I was getting ahead of myself. Let's look at the photos.

I was trying to see how to install the 3rd floor--a bit ahead of things, but I wanted to see how the house would go together.

I noticed this gap at the top where the floor rested on top of on the corner post.

And there was a gap at the bottom of the wall, too. I was wondering how that had happened. 

A closer look showed that I had missed my mark, so the only thing I could was to unglue the wall from the post in order to position it correctly.

There's more than one way to unglue mistakes. I've heard that you can put the item to be unglue in the microwave and heat on low, but the wall was too big to put in my microwave.

or

Real Good Toys must realize that builders make mistakes so in the company's  building tips they suggest placing the item in the oven at 170 degrees F. 

Instead of trying either, I located my heat gun and went to work.

 

 A heat gun is used to heat up old paint on furniture to make it easier to remove. It also works well to soften Aileen's Tacky glue enough that glued pieces can be pulled apart. 

Even when I but the outside wall back together and put it back into place, the floor was still uneven. It seemed that the three posts on the right side of the house were all too tall, causing the gap at the top of the wall. I am still not sure if the  3rd floor is supposed to rest on those pieces or not, so I reread the directions to learn that if the posts are too tall they can be trimmed back. Three of them need to cut back almost an inch and now I wondering how the floor will fit. So I decided to go ahead--get brave--and begin gluing in the windows to give the posts stability.

I began to dry fit again and pieces just were not fitting, so I took a closer look at post #6 and finally realized that it is crooked, so I had to remove it. This one was glued in at the corner.

                   

As I softened glue to remove post #6, the glue that held the corned to the foundation softened and the corner came off, too. But I got it removed and glued back in.

                   

So I had more gluing to do. I hope that it holds together.

  

                             

So I have one set of windows glued in. 

The inside view looks better than from the outside.

I am working in the garage, which limits the time when I can work because it has been so hot that I can only work in the morning because afternoon sun makes it too hot to stay out there, so at the end of the day as the sun begins to set, I go out and work on the house. 

As the sun sets on another day and the silverly slice of moon continues its own trek across the universe, glue dries.

Now, before I go any further on this side, I have to wait for lumber to arrive. Remember this kit was made 1996 and started by a lady who simply became overwhelmed by the the project, which I easily understand because the instructions are hard to understand, hard to read, hard to follow for a couple of reasons. First the labeling of parts is confusing, the drawings are confusing. For example, there is no drawing of how to install the floors. All of the drawings are of the front elevation or view of the house and there aren't any from the back, so I can see how one would be inclined to throw the pieces in a tub and put it on a garage sale. 

As I tried to dry fit the pieces for the tower, I realized that I didn't have enough wood. I was short the two pieces of lumber glued together to make the posts and I needed more siding. So I set about trying to find the pieces. I searched for Dura Craft parts and found several sources: eBay, Manchesterwoodworks.com. I have pieces coming from both sources, but I needed lap siding because the kit is short those pieces. Not sure why, but I guess it does not matter. I found them on a website that I have visited before: Fingertip Fantasies, A Dollhouse Miniature Shop in Delaware, a long way from my northern Colorado home.

I called to make sure that the store and the correct size lap siding that I needed and I talked to a very nice lady, Alice who was so kind and helpful 

I placed an order with Manchester Woodworks, but I also wanted to talk to them about the lap siding to make sure that I was ordering the correct item. I put the post lumber and the lap siding--wrong size by the way--in my cart, but unsure of the siding, I tried to call the store and got a busy signal after several tries, so I sent them an email and tried to call the next day. Then I emptied my cart.

The next day, my husband showed an email that he received from the company saying that I had received a refund of nearly $3. I am not sure why and the items that I ordered are on their way.

The good thing: I'll need the extra wood, but the lap siding is 3/8 inch and I need 1/2 inch. 

Tomorrow is another day. I'll work on the left side installing the windows. I won't be able to do much more until the pieces that I ordered arrive. 

I think I should apologize for my poor quality photos. I used my iPhone which really does take good photos, but I decreased the size of the photos when I uploaded them so that load more quickly, thus they look bit fuzzy. 

Thanks for stopping by. I enjoy your visits. 

An Addendum 

Today the postal lady delivered a package, my husband texted to say while I was at our daughter's making marmalade. Little Lily had seen the Paddington Bear movie, so I took my Paddington and we drove over to supervise the jelly making process. 

The package came from Manchester Woodworks. I will praise them with great and speedy service, and I am thankful that they processed the order so quickly because I will need the extra posts. The post pieces will replace the crooked post, so I still need the pieces that I ordered on eBay and I received the lap siding, but it is much thinner than the original kit pieces. I'll back the thin ones with bass wood. I'll show you next time. 

And, again thanks for visiting.