Ann's Dollhouse Dreams

 We certainly live in uncertain times. Saturday, we had a small family get-together--just the two daughters and their 5 children. It had been a while since we had been together. One daughter lives an hour and half away on a light traffic day, though there isn't such a thing anymore. She brought to the two boys and left the youngest, Nathan, 11. So this week I am the distance learning monitor. I certainly have mixed emotions about this role, though we love having the little guy here and he is much happier than being at home alone all day. I do hope some learning is taking place. As a retired teacher, I certainly do have my own thoughts about the plight of educators and their students today. Still, I know that many are doing the best they can, given these unusual circumstances. 

It seems, too, that we be going back into hiding--or social distancing. Colorado counties' virus cases are surging and once again we are waiting out a quarantine. While Nathan has been distance learning since last spring, the granddaughters have gone back to their school part time. So, two weeks ago we were waiting on a COVID test for 8-year-old which came back negative and this week the 12-year-old sister is in quarantine since the girl she sits next to in school tested positive over the weekend. And we were all together over the weekend. 

I'm not too concerned that we will all get sick, but we can't be too careful.

Good thing for hobbies! Before I begin here is the link to Bindles Ornaments--a site that I love for making lamps and chandeliers. <https://www.bindelsornaments.nl> Keep in mind that it is located in The Netherlands, so it takes a while to reach the USA. Which brings me the Fairfield, which I moved in from the garage. I hate moving. It took a bit of time reorganize, find everything, and get reestablished in the rhythm of working. I began with the dining room flooring, trying something new.

These are my options for the Fairfield floors: One builder suggested paper floors, so I ordered this paper floor from Itsy Bitys Minis. I like it, but it just does not have definition or depth that a floor should have. I had created a craft stick kitchen floor but felt that the coffee stir sticks were too thick for the half scale and the stain that I used really didn't penetrate the wood or add enough interesting color. I may have gone back to the craft stacks then by chance I found a package of Cricut wood veneer at Michael's, so here is the project. 

Using Cricut Design Space I create 1/4 x7 inch boards. After measuring the floor to get the correct length, I created on board then used the Duplicate to create the rest of them. I knew that my floor was six inches wide, so I created enough that would fill a six-inch-wide space--though it doesn't look like that here and my measurement is set to centimeters. 

Your layout in Design Space doesn't have to be perfect because the program will lineup the cuts to fit for the efficient use of space; however, you can move the pieces around, especially when cutting on wood and you want pieces to cut with the wood grain such as floor boards. 

I use this very thin walnut veneer, (two sheets to package), the deep cut blade (not the knife blade), taped it to a hard grip purple mat, and let the machine do the work.

While the wood does tend to splinter a bit, I did get nice, clean cuts that are so much more accurate and faster than trying to hand cut it all by hand. I'm left with an interesting scrap, wondering how I could put it to good use.

I've never used clear varnish on my flooring, but have always been frustrated because my floors don't have a pretty shine. Somewhere either in the blogs that I follow or the Facebook groups that I belong to I read to use clear varnish. Wow. The varnish took my wood from a pretty dull looking surface to putting a nice sheen on the wood, after I sanded it, of course, to get rid of the splintering.

I'm getting ahead of myself here, but one of my main considerations that once I adhered the flooring to the template, I needed to make sure that it slide into place. I could have been in a lot of trouble if I had glued down my floor on the replace and it would slide in. 

I made a removable floor because of the electrical line that runs along the front of the room. I just didn't want to glue floor boards on top of the electrical tape. I am also using printer bricks. I love the brick paper that I ordered from HBS (miniatures.com) because it is textured, heavy, easy to use, and looks realistic. 

I also use double sticky tape instead of glue because I just was not sure of how the floor would look. Seems to be working.

I'm liking it.

The edges will trim nicely with a pair of sharp scissors.

                   

And there you have it. I have to use the clear varnish on the floor, glue the grown molding in place, add the door jamb, and the windows, and the chandelier. Right now I'm working on the living room floor, so I'll be back when I have that floor installed. 

Today I will be working on the living room floor. I've built the fireplace, now I need to figure out the embellishments for the little fireplace. Results in few days.

                   

Thanks for joining me today. I hope you are well. 

PS: Floor finished. Now for the clear varnish.