I was lucky enough a couple of years ago to purchase a Van Buren kit. Even more lucky that the kit was unopened and apparently had been stored real well. Everything is there, the instructions, the schematics and all the pieces. The wood is in great shape. My oldest Granddaughter, Lindsey, picked this house to be hers. Her original idea was to have a Taikwondo studio on the bottom level and living quarters in the 2nd and 3rd floors. Being a good grandmother, I said sure, it is doable.
Over the past month, some progress has been made. We decided to make bay windows for the first floor. These will show the bakery section and the kitchen. Riley first make a cardboard mock up of the bays in order to make sure that he could make them and also to get an accurate size to cut the new window openings.
After the mock up, he then made the frames from scrap pieces from various dollhouse kits. The windows panes are made from plastic that protect some mini furniture. They are not g
I feel so bad, real life slowed me way down and then I forgot to post the final finishing pictures.
Its a real shame too, cause I'm especially proud of this house. Just about everything in it was made by DH or me.
The living room, kitchen, and bathroom furnishing were built using the Corona Concepts furniture kits.
The bunkbeds for the dwarves were made from scratch using kit scraps.
The tree was made by me using air drying clay, paper towel
Boy, I didn't realize how far behind I've gotten on blogging this. Ok the roof, I finally decided to try something totally different than I've tried before. I brought out my handy dandy pasta maker and run my clay through it real thin My original intention was to try and duplicate bark. So I would layer the thin rolled out clay not worrying to much about the shape, bark comes in different shapes and thickness. then with a brush, I stipled it to give it a rough texture and then with a mixture o
Since we had no other plans for this long weekend, I've worked real steady on this house. I was bound and determine to get it finished. So here are the final construction phases and the end product. I've played around with several ideas for the roof covering, one to use a vine, leaves or bark, or should I go with a cloth, cotton or some other type fabric, still not sure, but a trip to a hobby store or Walmart in the near future may help be decide. Since this is the first Orchid I put together, I
I worked pretty steady today. Was able to get the door hinged (using Holly's method) and glued in with all the door trim on. Have I mentioned that although I'm painting trim on the exterior, I've decided not to paint the interior. The inside will get it color from the curtains and furniture, less headache than trying to be so ultra careful with the glue and paint interacting. The small dormer windows are in, but they really gave me a fit. This glue either sticks immediately and you can't move i
Tonight, I was able to get the windows in and the frames on. Although the punching out and fitting of parts to this type of kit seems to be easier, I think in the future I will stick with wood. Wood seems much more forgiving of mistakes. The glue I'm using doesn't allow much room for maneuvering so you have to be quick and sure. Also the glue wants to interact with the few painted pieces I have and if not real careful will smear it. I've had problems with some paint being on the back and in tryi
The dry fit went fairly quickly. Only had to trim a couple of tabs. But it has sat here for a week, waiting for me to decide whether I want to leave it completely white or not. Frustration hit when I made a special trip to Hobby Lobby to get the glue recommended by Andrew and couldn't find any. DH and I discussed it and decided to try glue made for pvc pipe. The type I'm going with after trying it on sample pieces is Oatey, All Purpose Cement for PVC, ABS, CPVC. I did try some Goop, that MiniM
I couldn't stand the silent screams coming from the plain brown box that contained the White Orchid any longer. So tonight I opened the box and sorted the sheets and punched out and labelled the pieces and placed in bags.
I've also started a bag for the scrap pieces. Has anyone else noticed that some of these pieces especially from the Gable windows look like they would make great ceiling medallions? Or is that just me. The punch outs from the porch railings also look like they wou
I'm really bad, I forgot to post finished pictures. This kit is a dream to put together, especially since I'm leaving the most of it as it came. It really should have taken me only 2 weekends from start to finish, but with DH tests and then surgery, I let real life get me down and just worked in spurts. The worse part of the build was trying to get the railings to stayed glued while standing straight up. Not a reflection on the kit, but a reflection of my inexperience. Some railing will probably
I didn't realize that I had been neglecting this house so badly until I looked and saw that I started this blog in July and here it is October. The house should have been through long ago. But with real life getting in the way and my natural (or unnatural) lazy streak--it has sat for weeks with very little done.
Since I last posted, I've finished the porch railings, put on both the porch and top roofs, made an chrysbon ice box, and worked and reworked and reworked on my stone chimne
I finally had a weekend without gks a couple of weeks ago and got my fireplace painted. It's not quite as good as I would like but for a first attempt, I'll live with it. I've managed to get my door put together and thanks to Holly's tutorials on using chamious for hinges, it even opens and closes. I've attached the porch and used leftover siding pieces from the Lily to make planks. I started by squirting glue on the porch and using an credit card offer to smear it on the just placed the sidin
I've not taken pictures yet, but I played with paperclay to put around my fireplace and I actually made bricks with magic clay. I using the bricks inside the chimney. So another couple of firsts for me. I say first to the paper clay because the fireplace is the one that came with the kit and not free standing like we did in the class. But thanks to Tracy's wonderful instructions, I was still able to do it. I still need to paint both before they are through. Dancing the happy dance though, cause
Shortly after I purchased the Lily, DH and I made a shopping trip to Hobby Lobby for supplies and as we walked down the mini aisle he saw a log cabin on the shelf and said that would be our next house to do. So after looking at several, I order the Creekside Cabin. I (or we) have had the kit waiting patiently in the box for over a year and this past weekend, no Gk's to babysit, the real house was fairly clean so I thought I start it.
I tried while building the Coventry a method of t
