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Five different views on building the Arthur

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Day 15 - May 7, 2005

WE ARE FINISHED! Although I still do need to go back and touch up the paint where we smacked it or knicked it with something. It did take 15 days to finish, but we can only work on it an hour or two a night, so it takes us a few more days than some others. According to Jimmy, it was a very good house to build and would be an excellent house for a beginner to build, because it does not have a lot of trim or architectural detail as some of the larger houses do. Jimmy says that people

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The Arthur Dollhouse Kit Construction Blog

The Arthur Dollhouse Kit remains one of Greenleaf's most popular kits. You will find this blog useful for tips a decorating ideas as build your Arthur Dollhouse. The Best way to navigate this blog is to select a members name from the category are to the left. That will sort all the blog entries so that you will be looking at one persons progress as the move through their construction of the Arthur Dollhouse. Please Keep in mind that blogs are in reverse chronological

Team Arthur

Team Arthur

Arthur Dollhouse Kit finishing touches

Arthur Dollhouse Kit originally posted 6/1/05 I spent the morning making bathroom fixtures out of seashells, I'm thinking of crocheting a shell-stitch curtain for the rectangular window. The bathtub is a large half a bivalve shell with barnacle "feet" and a 3-pointed clear beadfor a water tap, with a tiny amber seedbead for the tap top. The lavatory is pure whimsy, I had a really neat cluster of barnacles with all sorts of holes & angles, I sanded the bottom smooth to glue

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weekends over

well I tried to get some things done on the Arthur but RW just wouldnt allow much.but I did make some progress.the first photo is of the window trim...I stained all of it. this house has started a picture and now I have to see if I can finish it.can we say Gingerbread house?my shingles and shutters will also be stained.very glad that the rooms are square...will make for some easy wallpapering now that I have a picture in my head.2nd photo is the new porch and foundation.somehow the walls just do

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Day Three

Building the Arthur-Day Three Nothing much exciting happened today. Jimmy wood puttied the walls to give a smooth edge for painting. Jimmy said that after he puts the wood putty in the walls, he dips his finger in water and then rubs it on the wood putty to smooth it down better. Here are pictures. Complements of LPCullen

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it continues

Well I had to take a day off and regroup....I have to do that often when doing projects...another reason I take so long in getting things done.I was not going to decorate so I had nothing but all of a sudden the house is screaming at me. so I took a trip to Hobby Lobby and got some wonderful fabrics,trims, and scrapbooking papers...photo#1I have the porch shingled but had to stop and will have to move house to the rolling cart hubby made me. the house is to high to reach the roof shingles.photo#

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How does your garden grow

Here is the finished pictures of my house with Base. I'm thinking about adding some vines but I have not in over a week so this is how the Arthur is looking as of this morning. I use handmade clay flowers and the ferns are plastic but very thin plastic and look very realistic. The rose vine is actually 2 vines combined because one was not enough for the look I wanted.   Here are the rest of the pictures:

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prep work and paint

On Tuesday night I managed to get the rest of the siding off. The last stubborn bits came up after I doused them with a vinegar / water mixture. I don't know if the vinegar helped at all to loosen the glue or if it was just the water, but in any case, I was able to loosen the last bits of trim and rip them off. The downside is, the house smelled like vinegar. The wood also turned an awful black color where the vinegar and water touched, but no worries, since that will be covered up.The after

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finished

I finished the construction of the Arthur yesterday.I had loads of company so I didnt get a chance to blogso here goes.I finished the shingles and put on the parts of fussy trim I liked.I have the last 2 windows ready to put in I just wont do it till after I finish the decorating in the bathroom and the kitchen.this is what I liked about the kit.....at first I had my nose stuck in the air because it was a "small" house but as I worked on it I developed a stong liking of its charm. it has great l

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Day Seven

Time for me to do a little work again! Yippee! Didn't get too much done though. Some of the siding didn't get glued down real well, or it pulled away. So I took some glue and ran it up under the edges, and then weighted it down again so that it would stay put. Then I "primed" the siding by using one coat of semi-gloss white paint on it. Other than that, I again ... painted trim.Complements of LPCullen

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Nothing is as simple as it seems

I hopped out of bed this morning all ready to start shingling the front of the house, upstairs, and took a really good look at the pictures in the instructions. Hmm, the porch roof comes above the "seam" between downstairs & upstairs & I am slap out of spackle, AND I'm going to have to install the porch to see how far up the upper front wall I need to go before shingling. Of course, I'll have to spackle some more and then "wash" the "stucco" with the yellow/ yellow ochre mixture. So I

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un-siding

I just did an impetuous thing.I spent about an hour tonight applying a few strips of siding, waiting for them to dry a bit, and then applying a few more. As I was waiting for the glue to dry I got to thinking how much time applying this siding was adding to the building process, and how I'm sort of on a deadline because we're all supposed to be building this Arthur at the same time, and how many hours this was going to add to my project -- hours that could be spent in other ways. The more I th

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Base is on

I have added the base to the Arthur house and I added paper clay around the base floor and the back foundation wall.Here is a close up of the back wallThis is the sideThis is the front Shot with a brick and stone walkwayNow I have to add flowers and I'll be done!Complements of My Mini Shop

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Day Nine

Today I finished up wallpapering the livingroom and began preparing to wallpaper the second floor. I start with the bathroom. I am looking at this little angle here, and thinking this is gonna be a little tricky. I start with the outside wall first, and then move to the inside wall. I will wallpaper the front wall last. I begin examining the bedroom to be wallpapered. Got to looking at that angle in the bedroom and decided I probably should have w

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Day Eight

Lots of work to do today! I finally got finishing priming the siding and painted it the color it is supposed to be. Then Jimmy had to put the front wall on for me so that I can prime the inside and begin wallpapering. Of course, he put the upper dividing wall in backwards, and had to take it back out, LOL! Once he has the walls installed, he puts a line of caulk into it where the rough edges are to give me a smooth line to wallpaper on. Makes life a whole lot easier and is

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Day Six

The siding finally arrived! In the meantime, I have been painting trim, lots and lots of trim. Don't think I will ever be done with the trim! Jimmy snagged the siding and began playing with it. He says to draw lines 1/2 inch apart on the house for the siding. He used wood glue to attach it to the house. Of course it bowed somewhat, so we had to weight it down until it dried. He attached it where it overhung on the sides. Here are some pictures. Once it

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"stucco's" on

I had to spackle one wall before we left & put on another coat of paint on the trim (WOW).We got home before lunch today so I spackled the front of the first floor. No, I didn't imagine this tub of spackling compound was being difficult to work with, I was using fingers nearly as much as the craft stick, and the credit card wasn't working too well. I turned the house back on the unspackled wall and glued on one of the window trims http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/\html\style_emoti

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almost there

I was on a role today.I got all of the front shingles on and they look mahhhhvolouswithout breaks it probably took about 2 hours to prep shingles draw the lines and glue them on....took about 10 to stain after the glue had dried.all the shutters are on and the step is on.all I have to do is paint all the fussy stuff white and glue them on. a comment on the windows....its not to bad to have to make the winow frames for the outside....but the inside too?? ugggg I have had some arguments with the w

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cracks and siding

So, I glued the gables on. Next step is supposed to be the porch but since I haven't painted yet, that should come first. I decided to use siding on this house so obviously that has to go on before I paint. Of course, as I thought this through I realized I should have done the siding before adding the roof (or at least the gables) to make it easier to fit the siding on the triangular parts of the walls. Oops.It'll be a little harder to get the siding to fit well in the gable with the roof al

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Touch up of roof

Okay, I have done the touch up to the shingles and they look MUCH better!!I think I will jazz up the house and add the base sooner than later. I can't picture my houses without the yard so I will start on that next even though for the most part, I am finished!! Okay....are we ever really finished with a house ;) . Here are some more pictures and there will be more to come since I am going to do the base....TODAY!! ;) Charles is the Real Estate agent trying to sell this guy a house with a bed

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making mistakes...

Again, didn't have any time to work on the house during the week. Now that it's the weekend I'm hoping to get a bunch done. Didn't get off to a good start though. The last work I did was on Tuesday, when I glued the left and right parts of the front roof onto the house. (I deviated from the directions a little... they say to put the second floor partition in first, but since I didn't punch out the hole for the stairs, I didn't have a slot to put the partition into. Gluing the roof pieces on

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What A House

I am mostly finished with this house. I painted the shingles brown and I started off too dark so I had to finish the rest of the roof the same way because I did not want inconsistencies. When it dried, I took sand paper and rubbed some paint off. All I have to do now it go all over the roof with a wash of Dark burnt umber and that will make it more realistic by adding depth.The only other thing left to do is for me to either paint the back foundation wall or to paperclay it. I finally put the ho

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Shingles Are on

I finally decided to use the shingles that came with the kit. I was tempted to use paper clay but decided wood would look better on this house. Another BIG thing that made me want to use the kits shingles is the fact that it comes on sheets. What that means is I don't have to add each shingles on one at a time Yeppie!!This is louisa at the front door. She will not live here but is a new doll I just got and so she needed a place to stay until I find her a stable home.I have to paint or stain the

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interior progress

Between washing & waxing the tandem kayak and intervening to prevent a potential crisis I still had one piece of roof trim & the porch railings to remove from the sheets, which I did before breakfast this morning. Since then I assembled, spackled & painted the interior trim. I've installed the windows (the "stained glass" bathroom window looks neat), and the trim with dry paint; the rest of the interior trim is going on tonight.It has been raining all day, too gloomy to take pictur

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