Pocket-sizeMcMansion

Great idea! Thank you Holly for the idea of hinging a wall. I think it might be possible as the hinge side/pivot point could be in a dark-ish hallway and hidden and I've planned for very little furniture or accessories along that wall.

My thoughts on windows and doors. My vision for the windows on the left side of the house is for the 3 levels to have full length windows in the living room, master bedroom and artist's attic studio. I knew there wouldn't be a commercial option for that plus I want a more modern window with clean lines than the dollhouse sash types. So I'll be learning to make windows/doors. I'm leaning toward a very plain window-possibly without trim or very plain trim. They will have deep sills, especially in the kitchen where I want to use some thin plexi to make glass shelves for the kitchen herbs. The next major decision that nags and can't really be answered until I mock up the new walls is if door to the the new 1/2 bath downstairs will be able to be opened via the front door of the house or if I will need a working window to provide access. And is having 1 working window in the whole house stupid looking??? I'm designing my house so that not all of the house's secrets are revealed by your first look through the back of the house. Some parts of the house will only be able to be viewed by looking in the windows or through the doors. For the downstairs bathroom, I have some wiggle room in the placement of the door along the vestible wall so I'm hoping the angle will allow me to open and close the 1/2 bath's door with a pencil or small dowel. I need to plan the angle of the mirror over the vanity sink in that bath so the commode can be seen in the reflection. On the second level, I want to use a 3/4 wall to separate the master suite from the en suite. You'll know something is there but in order to see the master bathroom, you'll need to look through the side and front windows. You'll see 1 vanity/wash basin through a partially open door at the front (furthest from you) part of the dollhouse. The increase in ceiling height is also letting me have taller windows/dormers on the front of the house. I've found inspiration for a great stone shower that can inset into the center dormer BUT it will be a very limited view for quite a bit of work. I need to audition some furniture in the space to see what the view will be. I'm worried that very little of the shower will be visible. I might think of something else or may be something that I do just because I'll know it's there. The landing for the stairs going to the third floor creates a short hall/alcove that leads to the master bedroom. The only view of this landing will also be a mirror. These stairs were the old servant's stairs so they are dark and narrow anyway with a simple overhead light bulb hanging down to light them. Just past the landing is where the master bedroom door will be located. I'd like a working door but realistically, I may have to settle for an illusion of a door here. That's a cross that bridge later problem lol That's my mutterings for this evening............

Had a bit of a set-back with the 3 story side......um, and I cut both of the longest sides crooked and had to make 2 more today. Fixed a slot that was a bit munged up in the original kit - waiting on the glue to dry now. I'll be back soon with pics when I get the newly cut walls fit together and then y'all can follow my progress from the beginning of the actual build. I've had it partially put together a few times as I planned the lay-out but the dream is getting real now as I start making decisions and modifications that will not be easy to change. *quivering with excitement!*

Back story: Working on my 1st build and have jumped in with both feet - it's only wood and glue after all. I started by planning a simple bay window add on but the more I thought about my house, I started getting a clear picture of what I wanted each room to look like....fast forward. I wanted the end of the house to have 2 skinny windows that run up along the sides of the chimney for all three stories. After drawing the windows on the walls in dry-fit, I realized that the room was too closed up when I wanted "soaring" plus I was dealing with my choice of kitchen flooring being 5/8 thick -taking additional height away from the room. After asking here, I found that is possible to raise the ceilings in a dollhouse-Off I sprinted to my hobby room to make more marks on the walls. Well, that idea was brilliant while it lasted but making the 1st floor taller-unbalanced the house....(Front 1st floor windows, then a big gap, then 2nd floor windows and a smaller gap - it just looked wrong). In the end, I decided not to try to cut the original walls but to use them as templates to cut new taller walls. I ended up adding 7 inches! WOW! The addition solved a few problems I was dealing with: 1) the flooring on the first floor is thick but now won't take away height in that level. 2) The living room has high soaring ceilings and full length windows on that end of the house. 3) I'm be able to add a dowel within a false floor across the long span of my living room without worrying about the floor sagging. The dowel support will be screwed into place across the long span. 4) The kitchen windows will now be above the kitchen counter top without adjustment. The original cut-outs were only 1 7/8 above the floor, so a 2 inch high cabinet was going to block part of the window or I would have had to have short-not to scale kitchen cabinets. I also wanted space above my kitchen cabinets. 5) The 3rd floor attic (artist's studio) will now have 8 foot ceilings and the easel won't look out of place. So that's my progress report. Tomorrow is cutting and auditioning the final height of the levels and placement of the walls I'm adding to the kit to create the nook, the 1/2 bath and the audio/visual area of the living room (flickering light behind tv screen to simulate a live broadcast. So I've been making progress but if yo'all are still with me-I have another (2 part) question.............Is it really noticeable if the angle of the stairs going up is too steep/not to scale or can I get away with having steeper than normal stairs? My dilemma: I am wanting to tuck a nook in under the stairs. The nook/alcove opens to the kitchen. I need to take the stairs up at about a 55 degree angle to get enough head room clearance so the nook area is believable. The second thing I want to do is to have an upper landing in order to turn the stairs and change how a person would arrive(?) in the upstairs area. Doing this moves the top of the stairs enough to allow for a separate entrance to the bath from the guest room (instead of guests traipsing through the Master bedroom in the middle of the night. ;) I tried a diagram....hope it makes sense. Blue represents the opening below for the stairs..right now it is along the wall. The idea I'm mulling over is to change the direction of the opening and narrow it just a bit so I can squeeze in a (slightly narrower than scale) door that would open into the upstairs bathroom and have a pretty railing too without devoting a lot of real estate to stairs. After I get this sorted, I'll begin fretting about to break up the "high rise apartment look" that adding 7 inches caused. lol Right now considering changing the front "stoop" to be an entrance atrium rather than an overhang over a slab as originally designed before I started bashing away.

........I am a little obsessed.....House! - House! House! It has taken over my brain! I'm always thinking, planning, sketching, making little notes and questions to myself. I drive around looking at houses, spend hours looking at home interiors... My house must be dead set on what the kitchen will look like...I can see it in my mind and weeks ago-I found a photo online that is almost exactly what "I" imagined! House wants tall skinny windows running up the sides of the chimney the full height of the house and just recently suggested that a french door would also look nice on the same wall and that it would lead out to the patio and be visible through the windows. The patio area is circular. So is there any cure? Will I need an exorcism? I stopped in tonight to check for pointers on using a peel and stick tile cut into bricks for the foundation that I can work on tonight and tomorrow while I wait for the lumber yard to open on Tuesday. I've fiddled with a couch design/sketch earlier but the design must be the "wrong" one - getting nowhere with it. Tile/bricks it is. .

Amazing work on The Lily Pad Kathie. I'm in awe. I have so many plans for my dh (1st) so I haven't even glued my first pieces together yet. Dry fit, measure, glue pieces back in, mark new windows, dry fit again. Which brings me to an *UPDATE* on my wall raising idea, Tonight I was making my final measurements for raising the 1st floor ceilings and deciding whether to have 10 or 11 foot ceilings and was it going to look out of proportion if the 2nd floor (bedrooms and office) continued to have 8 foot ceilings. It was okay but I liked 10 ft on the 1st floor, 9 ft on the 2nd floor even better. I have always been bothered that my upstairs attic area (the artist's studio) has very little clearance for the easel and other furnishings so I contemplated the attic area and hey! why not add 2 inches there too???? So, I could make 1 cut-add 5 inches, adjust each window/door cutout plus all the floor tabs/slots OR I could make 3 cuts and patches, one on each floor level OR get a sheet of ply and using the walls as templates-cut new walls 5 inches longer......(this option will also leave me with EXTRA walls to use in another bash hehe). But now I'm stuck until Tuesday until I can get the plywood.

Thank you Everyone. It's nice to know that others have successfully raised the ceilings. I have been very worried that since the cut will be on all the walls of the shell, it could weaken the structure and cause failure down the road and I don't want that. Otterine - I hadn't thought about using pins. I think I'll do that just to be on the safe side. I planned that the interior Mi-Tienes "wallppaper" and the planned exterior siding would reinforce my cut and also completely cover and hide them. Rodentraiser/Elsbeth - I didn't even think of moving the tabs! - It won't work for what I'm trying to do with this house as it would take away height on the second or third floor but I'll remember for a future house. I am changing the windows on the both ends of the house so I didn't punch them out and added glue before filling with putty before I sealed the panel and it is strong and near invisible. Then I decided to add a bay window off the kitchen where I had already punched out the door and a window (it's a big bay window), so I glued the pieces back in and filled with putty. (I didn't need to do the window-the bay window is bigger-but hey practice!) but I'll be cutting down the through the door so I did take my time and don't think I'll have a problem. Now I can have soaring ceilings with floor to ceiling windows the height of the house, the green glass tiles I fell in love with even if they are a tad hick and kitchen cabinets with the little overhang like full size ones have instead of sitting right on the floor. *skips off to go fire up the table saw*

I've been having a ball bashing away on my 1st dollhouse and a few days ago, my mind started to contemplate having 10-11 ft ceilings on the 1st floor. Has anyone done this? Any pitfalls I should be aware of before I start cutting? My plan is to cut below the windows and insert a 3 inch section then gluing the cut piece onto the new piece to retain the tabs that fit the floor. I successfully glued two scrap pieces of wood together, clamped and cured over a couple of days and the bond was tight so I think it is possible. This house is an adult's house-children will not be playing with it. I know the front door will be taller but that is easily repaired with shim wood and I'm planning on building a custom door anyway. Thoughts?

Hi All Joined a couple of weeks ago after finding a Westville in my local 2nd hand shop. It appears to be complete and I'll be ordering a copy of the instructions. Since joining, I think I've spent just about every spare minute oggling the dollhouses and miniatures I've found. Building a dollhouse has been on my bucket list for years and I am soooooo excited! I spent many hours planning and looking at the floor plan for the Westville and confidently proclaimed to my DH that I was going to bash the kit by adding six inches to the base floorplan and attach a Primrose to one side. I also wanted to replace the bay windows, make a 2nd story balcony, build a false floor in the top of the Primrose show that 2nd story would have a bookshelf alcove - ya know, easy stuff for a first time builder!! DH suggested that I maybe start smaller, build a different kit. "Nah," I said confidently, "It's only wood and glue". I started collecting little pieces of things to be used in my future building projects. I poured over Pinterest, this forum, I googled dollhouses, read blogs and stalked listings for dollhouse accessories on eBay. I went to the store and purchased a plastic container and a small "whats-it" case to hold my "finds" for my soon to be dollhouse. I have a piece of packaging (soap suds), a rose off of costume jewelry, a few beads. Obviously, I've a new obsession. Wait a minute!!! Back up and read the 1st sentence of the above paragraph again. See it? In my excitement, what DH said about starting with a smaller project did not register until several days later. How could I have missed him suggesting I indulge my new hobby by BUYING ANOTHER dollhouse? .....I've already sketched out my plans for an Orchid. I think I'll order the Primrose while I'm at it. That looks like an easy add on and it makes the Orchid look like houses in the neighborhood I grew up in. I'm so excited, I'm practically vibrating!