I started painting and staining the floor today. I gave up on the idea of stucco since Fairies probably don't want to be bothered with it either. I painted the outside and the ceiling of the first floor. Starting to get ideas already.
I was bored so I opened the box and started punching out the pieces. I did a lot of sanding and even dry fitted the main walls and floors.
I had to see how small it really was.........so cute!!!
I realize that I haven't posted in over a week now. I have been working on pieces of shabby chic furniture and yesterday I made a couch for the living room. I am not sure how it really looks but it will have to do. I haven't posted any photos because I am being cagey and I don't want to show anyone how the house looks until its done now
I have been doing more working on the house and less typing!
I can't believe it!!! I have completed the building of the outside of the Orchid this afternoon. I have to get rid of all the hot glue strings and do touch up but I put all the trim on and I think it looks pretty good considering I had no clue what I was doing. I want to build flower boxes and maybe do landscaping but for now I can move inside and play with the furniture!!!!!!!
Ahhhhh my poor sore hands!!!!!! I finished the trim and butted the top row of shingles against the roof trim to hold it up. Its a tad crooked but it was the best I could do with the crooked roof! I have to do some corner trim along the edges of the house and figure out what to do with the upper tab holes. I did a brick foundation around the bottom of the house which gave it some color and covered the tabs on the bottom. More smoke and mirrors needed all over the place!
I got so busy shingling that I forgot to write in my blog! I decided to use the wood octagon shaped shingles. It was difficult shingling around the dormers and I still have an "issue" with one section near the top of the house. I guess I will have to cover the problem with moss or something.
I am nearly out of shingles. I am barely going to make it if I don't make mistakes. I am off for the weekend and then I need to work on trim and covering up the tab holes.
I got so busy shingling that I forgot to write in my blog! I decided to use the wood octagon shaped shingles. It was difficult shingling around the dormers and I still have an "issue" with one section near the top of the house. I guess I will have to cover the problem with moss or something.
I am nearly out of shingles. I am barely going to make it if I don't make mistakes. I am off for the weekend and then I need to work on trim and covering up the tab holes.
Well I managed to get the Bay Window put in but through no help from the instructions provided as usual. I had to do some patching with strip wood to close gaps but it doesn't look too bad. Even the roof instructions were so goofy I just did it my way as usual.
I could have built this entire house without any instructions because I barely looked at them for most of the build and when I did look at them they were of no use to me anyway. Now I have a lot of molding and covering to
Well its a shocker when you look around and MOST of the zillion little parts you had laying around are ON the house!! I pretty much have it all together including windows now EXCEPT the confounded Bay Window! I can't understand those convoluted instructions no matter how many times I look at them!
I put it all away for today and next week I will try again.
I did have fun opening a couple of my boxes of dollhouse furniture. I have been waiting to get into them for 2 year
The word of the day is sabotage!!! I keep doing it to myself! I glued on the two smaller gables and noticed later that they were about as crooked as they could be. So I pried them off, sanded and reglued them. They look better!
Then I noticed that I messed up the kitchen floor while working on something else yesterday so that has to be redone.......of course!!!
I think this house is trying to tell me something........I just don't know what!
It was a battle but I got the porch and the middle gable on the house!!! The porch posts are sooooooooo fragile!!!
I will have to stop up all the holes with strip wood I can see that. I never saw a house with so many holes in my life!!!
I got so busy with the building that I completely forgot I had a pot of rice on the stove and only remembered when I smelled something burning!!!!!!
I have been down with the flu but I couldn't let the holes in the front walls stay where there were another minute. I re-papered the front living room wall. MUCH BETTER! I put a chair rail with a companion paper in the kitchen....I like it! The kitchen wanted to be blue and green for some reason. I don't like green usually but I kind of like the way it came out now!
I haven't even attempted the gables yet. They have to wait until I can concentrate better!
I see
I haven't posted in a few days because all I have been doing is painting pieces of the porch and trim. I haven't attempted to assemble the porch or the gables yet. I glued the dormer windows on today. I figured it might be hard to get my fingers in there once the dormers are on the house.
That's about it. I am freezing, I have a headache and I am going to huddle under my blanket and drink hot tea!
Well, I couldn't leave it alone for the 3 day weekend so I glued the dang house together. Not without a struggle with only two hands, piles of books and blue tape! Yikes I worked up a sweat! Its a wee bit warpy but what can I do? I think it might be the nature of the wood.
I did the best I can. Here is a picture of the Mouse Family standing proudly in their new home!
So, I started assembling Orchid. I glued the front panel to the first floor. It seems a bit wobbly but it needs more walls for support.
For the life of me I can't get the 2nd floor FLAT!!! So it is what it is! I am doing the next step a little different. I glued the first floor partition in before the second floor so when I do the 2nd floor it will have some support....does that make sense? I figure its easier to position that partition that way also. We will see.
I added
I decided to just stain the wood floors and call it a day! I way over think things for sure! By the time I get the rugs and furniture in the rooms you won't notice the floors! I used some scrapbook paper on the kitchen floor, I think it will look nice. I need to seal the floors but I want to make sure that they are thoroughly dry first. My impatience gets me in trouble!
I did manage to get brown stain on the ceiling below so I had to rip off the ceiling paper, sand it and when I a
I finished the wallpaper this afternoon. I wasn't happy with the seams but when you use scrapbook paper you are going to have to deal with the seams! I will have to cleverly disguise the seams and cracks with furniture and accessories. I do like the colors.
The floors are confounding me at the moment. I can't decide what to do. I don't think that I have the patience to cut a zillion skinny sticks to make flooring and I am not that happy with the paper I bought for the floor.
Well, did I say I was going slowly on the Orchid? I have the 2nd floor walls wallpapered to the best of my ability. The paper I used was kind of thin so I had some stretching issues but at least none of it ripped! I am trying to wallpaper before I assemble because its so hard for me to work in the small spaces. I have small hands but I can't move them that well anymore. I decided to paint the roof parts of the gables on the inside instead of papering. I went ahead and papered the 2nd
I made templates for the walls yesterday. Today I cut out the paper for the upstairs using the templates. So far so good. I only guesstimated how much paper I needed when I was in Hobby Lobby and I had just barely enough so no I left no allowance for error!
I will have to paint the gable roof pieces inside I don't have enough paper for those sections. I thought I should wallpaper those gables before assembling because getting even my small hands in there might be hard.
It occurred to me today that I have been messing around with the Orchid for a couple of weeks now and I haven't started to actually build the dang thing yet! Today I sort of got the door the way I like it or at least it going to be that way I am tired of that activity!.
I started making some patterns for the wallpaper. I always have so much trouble getting it cut and up correctly that I thought I would try making patterns with arrows and labels that might help me get it there with
Finished up painting window frames and started on the front door. Ugh! The outside looks ok but why didn't they include some kind of trim for the inside door? Its plain with the casing around it. I guess I have to invent something to make the door look better.
I didn't get anything done over the weekend but I made up for it today. I sanded down the trim that I had already painted and did a second coat. I got bored with the white trim paint so I started on the accent color periwinkle blue....I just love the name of that color!
I fiddled around assembling the stairs just to see if I wanted them.....last chance. I don't!
More trim painting tomorrow most likely. One day I will have something worth photographing!
