Dollhouse Novice

I spent Sunday working on some wallpapering. I took the 5 tower pieces off my Harrison, ripped off the window frames, re-sanded, added some wood putty to the scars left from my ripping things off, and re-painted the outside a darker green. I am in the process of wallpapering the inside walls of the tower. I have done the downstairs portion. I am waiting for some crown moulding to arrive before I paper the upper room. The wallpaper has a top border so I want to measure the crown moulding on the wall before deciding where to start the paper. I have tried to post some pictures but I could only post one of the Orchid door under a different forum on this site. I am uploading pics from my phone and when I try to drag them over I get the message 'upload failed.' I may be uploading them wrong to my computer. Will have to work on that this weekend!! I have done some nice things I would like to share...I also have some "opportunities for learning" (unexpected happenings, challenges, mistakes, bloopers, oops, etc.).

I am really getting into the Headmistress idea. I have started writing down some ideas. Her name will by Rosalyn Weston-Smythe and she is the daughter of a Dean from an English University (Oxford or Cambridge?) and her father is the fourth son of a Duke. She is in a 30 or 40 something who allows some of her girls to visit on Sunday afternoons so her house will have a few visitors of different ages.There will be tea and food and tea cups everywhere as girls spread out to read books, write letters, chat by the fire, etc.. But first, I have an Orchid to finish, and a Harrison to do some work on...

I had tied my embroidery floss to a ring that I attached to a kitchen chair so I could sit on another chair and braid the floss, however, someone had told me that I needed to use 4 yards of floss and needless to say as it got longer I got more confused...

You guys are getting me hooked on looking at the forum every day! I am learning a lot about building, getting creative and suspending reality and also tons about social media. I now know how to post to different forums, add a picture, like things, and follow others!! When will I have time to build? I'll have to retire to have enough time to spend on the forums and build my houses, but then I will have no money for furnishings!! LOL What's a Dollhouse Novice to do???

Thank you so much for the rug ideas. I have been trying to braid a rag rug using embroidery floss and the floss keeps getting turned around. I do know how to crochet so I am going to try that! I have a friend who will knit me some really cute blankets and such! I love infecting others with the miniature craze...

Thank you so much for all the wonderful ideas. I think what I am going to do is make the Sugarplum the residence of the headmistress of a private girls' school. I will only have a sitting room downstairs and bedroom upstairs as this lady takes most of her meals with the girls. I have my eye on the Magnolia Kit for my original English lady! Can anyone have too many dollhouses, projects, or dreams in the planning stage? We may deal in miniature but our imaginations are gargantuan. Thank you again to everyone who responded! I loved the ideas you gave me and have given me new ways to look at things!!

I have a Sugarplum kit that I was thinking of making into a little English cottage for a nice little Grandma. I wanted to have a nice little kitchen with an aga stove and a parlour with a fireplace and a cosy area for afternoon tea, maybe a loveseat, two chairs, and a place by the door for an umbrella stand etc. While looking over the pieces in the kit, I realized the dimensions are really too little for what I want to do. So, I want to try something else; a shop, small school or very small inn, maybe a guest house...I don't really know. Can I get some ideas from others? My interests include teaching, quilting, flowers, reading, photography, traveling and staying in quaint hotels, but I am open to ideas outside of this scope.

Thanks Kathie and Sable, good advice that I will use...

I am plugging along on my granddaughter's Orchid. I am at the point where I am putting together the front porch. I have found this to be a long process as I decided the front door need to work! This turned out to be a very ambitious plan. I had no idea how long this would take me. I got the hinges, after a lot of research, and a great doorknob that had to be just the right width because of the framing on the front of the door. I realised the door would not swing because the outside frame was too tight. So I sanded and trimmed, and sanded, and sanded some more. Then I re-painted and sanded again both the frame and the door. I got ready to add the hinges and realized the nails for the hinges were miniscule!! I used a very small tweezer and a lighted magnifying glass and dropped the nails about 10 times. So then, I am crawling on the floor (Thank God it is tile instead of carpet!) and sweeping my hands across the floor because I can't see those itty, bitty nails. I am, also grateful I bought 2 packages of hinges so I could afford to lose some of the nails. I finally got the two hinges on (one a little crooked) and I felt like I had accomplished building the Taj Mahal. I put the doorknob on with no trouble because I had so much practice with the nails in the hinges. So, now my door is attached to the outside frame and it swings!! That part took me about 10 hours to accomplish. I took pictures and showed everyone at work and they were impressed. How could they not be? The door is tiny but looks real! So, then the door spends some time on the table because of other things in my life and when I come back to it I realize my granddaughter has played with the door and the doorknob has fallen off! And I am so glad it happened because now I realize that a door that is going to be opened and closed over and over by a 7-year-old probably needs to be glued on as well as nailed on! So I glue the knob on and nail it back in place and I am ready to put it on the house. Then I tried to attach it to the house-guess what? The inside frame is too little and it stops the door from swinging in, however, the door is the thickness of both frames so the door doesn't sit flush and the hinges don't fit properly. So, instead of spending 7 hours sanding the inside door frame which is attached to the house, I decide to use my Dremel. Luckily, I knew a little bit about using it and chose the correct sanding bit and work really slowly to avoid round gou ges in the wood. Then I used my handy, dandy X-Acto knife to trim the corners and after a lot of exacting work, the door fits!!

I am working on wallpapering individual pieces of a tower (Harrison) and am trying to figure out how much paper I need for the entire room. Math class was a really long time ago...I know I knew this at one time. Can anyone help? I do not need to know how to measure the tower walls because I know I have enough wallpaper to do them; as they are laid out side-by-side on a table in my family room. However, I do not know if I have enough wallpaper for the other walls and if I do not, then I need to know how much of another pattern to buy. My other situation: I want to have a crown molding on my walls in my Harrison and in the Orchid I am making. How do I determine the amount of molding, chair railing etc. if I am using a miter to create the corners? Does the angle of the corner determine how much extra I need beyond the length of the wall. My Orchid just has square walls so the angle will be mitered at 45 degrees? Right? So if I am cutting crown molding for my Harrison tower which is 5 pieces the angle for the corners will be different and does that make the length of the molding different? I am hoping that someone can understand my ramblings and possible run-on sentences!! Thanks for your patience.

Kathie, Thank you so much! You gave me so much helpful information! I went to your blog and it is amazing. I bookmarked it and it will be one of my new favorite places to visit!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I will be posting my most pressing question on the General Mini Talk Forum as you suggested. I feel so much better, now! Cheryl

Ok, I have been plugging along as best as I can, making mistakes (ur..challenging situations) and for the most part figuring them out through trial and error. However, I have questions and am not sure where to post them. I have some building questions that are not specific to one house. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Do I go to a specific area (another spot on this blog site) or can I post them here? If I post them here how do people see them and respond? Do I need to check in (in a specific spot) on a regular basis. I am not so good with browsing on social sites and would really like some advice. Should I just keep posting on the newbie site? I am a rule follower and really hesitate to do something if it is not done the "correct" way. Can I show my ignorance and state that I don't really understand how a blog works? Any help would be greatly appreciated? Just sign me on as, Eagerly wanting to participate but not sure what to do

I have been working on the electrical tape and I discovered a big boo-boo. I read somewhere that you should put enough tape wire in the house so you can add extra lights or sockets in the future, so I put in a lot! Well...no one ever said "Make sure the tape is not on both sides of the wall in the same spot!" Why? Because, when you put in the eyelets on one side of the wall you break the connection on the other side of the wall! Luckily I only did this on one wall where my addition is attached and I ran tape on the inside of the house and the outside of the house to reach the addition wall which is not flush with the back of the dollhouse. Then I had to order more tape and wait for it to arrive. Now, I am working on fixing my mistake. Luckily, it is not hard to remove the eyelets. I have found it is easy to make holes for the eyelets using the bit from Cir-Kit in my Dremel to drill holes. Im areas that are just a wee bit too small for my Dremel I have been able to angle the Dremel slightly, the eyelets still go in fairly easy and the test lights let's me know the connection is good. I have crossed the fingers on both hands and toes on both feet in the hope that all works when I am done!

Holly, Thank you so much for the great advice to Alexis about how you approach building. Your comments were enlightening. It is hard for me to break tradition and not follow the directions, however, you comments are so sensible. I put the windows on the Orchid and then had to take off the interior ones as I wanted to try wallpapering the upper floors before putting the shell together. On my Harrison I am wallpapering after putting in the electrical tape wire and I wanted to try a different method with the Orchid. I love that I am putting 2 houses together as it lets me try different methods to see what works for me. Also, I can make more mistakes on the Orchid because it will be a play house and my Granddaughter is enchanted with everything we do. More later on my electrical project.

Ooops! The Orchid dollhouse kit I bought is a Corona. I am so sorry!!! The addition I bought to add on to the Harrison is from Real Good Toys. I know it seems overly ambitious to put an addition on my first attempt at building a dollhouse but I wanted more rooms and I wanted to keep the large Harrison rooms as they are for their size. So, I have added a 2 story addition to the right side (when looking from the back) so that I can have an really, really large kitchen and a library next to my dining room. I am in the process of planning the electrical tape. I was having real problems drawing what I want to do on paper so I am taking pictures instead. I was also having problems with the pencil marks so I have started using cotton thread (the kind you use to make doilies) as it stretches less than yarn. I cut lengths of the thread and taped it to the bare walls. I am using a green thread and it shows up nicely. So far, it is working and it allows me to make plans, think on them for a day or two and then change as I need to.