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Hey everyone - I was fortunate to be selected to share my love of Mini's with our local magazine! They featured my Duracraft San Franciscan 555 on the cover! I hope it brings more to this amazing hobby and past time! Here's a link to the Magazine. Enjoy! https://view.publitas.com/now-magazines/north-ellis-county-now-april-2022/page/1

Finally-- I buckled down this weekend and polished off the San Fran; I posted the pics in an album, but it wouldn't let me choose which pic to be the album title pic. It should've been this first one. This is, of course, made after the style of Robin Carey's San Fran, which photos I studied carefully to get the colors right, even down to the front gable shingles and the porch spindles. The base treatment is actually an embossed "stone"-look scrapbook paper which was originally black, then I painted it gray and dry-brushed with white for accent. I made the flower boxes from matboard, and the fence railing is from Heritage Laser Works and is the same type that Robin Carey used: And the lights still work, even after almost a year of sitting! Here is that difficult very-top-of-the-attic space which I shortened considerably: And the attic, with the matboard channel which covers the mass of wires going out from the battery box. The furniture is from Kris' tutorials. The draperies are my own inventions. This house is ready to be boxed and shipped.

Hello Everyone, I'm new to these forums but not new to the love of minis. I'm from Southern California and I live in Rancho Cucamonga - that's on the way to Palm Springs in one direction and Las Vegas in another. My first build was a Dura-Craft Farmhouse. ...not sure what I was thinking, or not thinking. But now I have time to revise this first love and I have a Dura craft San Franciscan 555 to build, a Greenleaf Glencroft and a Willowcrest kit waiting for me to assemble. I am however on the hunt for a 1:12 Hacienda Style plans. I'm looking forward to seeing everyones homes and learning from all of you.

Well here I am, another month gone by; little bits of progress here and there. Made a bed frame out of Al tubing and matboard; stuffed wire into each tube to try to keep it from buckling when I bent it around a form (made of brads, sort of like how Kris did her kitchen chairs) with mixed results. (Well, my brads weren't nailed into the board firmly enough, for one thing.) I need to get a mini tube bender if I'm going to try this again. Anyway, used Kris' mattress tutorial with some modifications (resized), and a few coats of spray-paint later: And here it is with the quilt and some pillows using Amber's method for nice pointy corners: Here it is in place in the country house; I know that the pillow fabric makes everything a bit busy, but I really like that fabric. Had a nice run at Michael's and Joanne's last weekend; love that red print fabric: Have been getting a few things done on the San Fran; got that wire mess covered up in the attic (built matboard forms to cover them), and staircases installed. Also got the base board painted and bordered (with 1/4" square rod), and glued the house onto it. Found some "stone" look embossed paper at Joanne's (actually it's black glossy "alligator skin") and glued that onto the San Fran base; painted it with grey, and will probably do some dry-brush touchups. You can see that I have started painting the front fencing, which is from Heritage Laserworks and the same kind that Robin Carey used for her San Fran. I cut up 1/2" square rod for the posts, and found some wooden thingies at Joanne's that look alot like the ones Robin used (I used matboard for the square piece). Now I am trimming inside, and thinking about painting the roof. This house is going to be ready to ship soon.

I went ahead and installed the 3rd floor partition and the little attic floor; I didn't want that long narrow space at the very top, but I didn't want to close it off entirely, so I made a little triangular wall out of foamboard, cut a hole in it, mounted one of the lights behind it, and framed it with a jewelry finding (with a bit of "glazed" translucent scrapbook paper that lets the light out but prevents seeing the nuts and bolts behind it). I also installed the two remaining lights beneath the attic ceiling. The decorative posts (that hide the vertical partition wall edges) aren't glued in it, just dry-fit until I get all the flooring in. Figured it was time to get on to the flooring, so I tried something different (I think I saw it on miniature madness blog)-- wood veneer cardstock, that I got from Amazon. I cut it (exacto) into strips, then glued them onto a cardstock template. It is pretty good-- have to be careful with it because it is a very thin wood layer over card, but it isn't too fragile. I haven't tried sanding it yet-- will have to proceed with that carefully. After installing the flooring (upholstery "carpet" in the 2nd floor bedroom), installed the staircases; had to get creative with bracing the partition wall from the other side so as to get a good bond on the staircase side: Oh-- finally finished shingling the front gable! All those pastel-colored shingles remind me of those round tart candies. Glued on the decorative edge trim. Now, about those corbels that you can see on Robin Carey's San Fran at the tops of the window trim sides, that are painted yellow and purple-- I didn't know where to begin looking for them, so I decided to make my own out of matboard and foamboard. I used my dremel to round off the edges of the matboard, and my exacto to bevel the sides of the little foamboard squares. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out-- Now I'm working on the front railing. If one looks carefully at Robin's house, one can see that the 2nd floor spindles have a slightly different color pattern than the ground floor spindles. I also put the large trim pieces on the tower; I am planning to make the tower roof removable so it won't be so unwieldy to ship. Need to start thinking about the roof shingles.

Well it has been almost two months since I posted anything; I have been busy with work, travel, and this little guy: Not-so-little, actually, but only about a year old, so a big baby. A baby who bounces off the walls, likes to chew anything, and harasses my older dog to distraction. Despite Eddie's best efforts to "help", I did finish an idea I've had for a few years now for a Mother's day card, with embroidery "doodles" (looked on Mary Corbet's needle-n-thread site for instruction): Edit: the "o" is a bit of tiny English Paper Piecing, even smaller than my previous effort; it's about time to try a quilt in this size! Mom liked it! Got the table finished, from Kris' tutorial (also got the kitchen floored, with a scrapbook paper): Some behind-the-scenes looks at my drapery-making, using a cardboard form to start: Found a good way to prop them in place while glue is setting: Views of the other draperies (click to enlarge): Need some paint touchups. Finally finished the shingles!

I've been pretty quiet lately because I've been working on furniture for the San Fran, from Kris' tuts, of course; parson's chairs (time-consuming, but I really like how the red piping pops on this fabric): Upholstered chairs for the parlor: The toile is a thicker fabric that I found the other year whilst fabric-shop-hopping with my mother; the thickness presented some challenges, but I think it pulled together (I used a thinner fabric for the very front where I needed to negotiate some tight curves). The print is large, but I love toile and I think it works here. I'll use it for the draperies too-- with a blue-toned fabric to help the black refer back to the wallpaper. And just finished a bed, ready for gessoing and painting: I plan to make the round table and a couple end tables, and a piece or two for the kitchen, and that ought to do it. Then the draperies-- I have some fancy ideas to try out for those; we'll see if I can pull it off.

The dowels provided in the kit for the 1st-floor porch fretwork were too big to string beads on, so I hunted around and found some thick wire and beads that would fit on it, and braced up the back of the porch decoration piece with square rod; drilled holes in the rod to support the wire, and braced the wires on the top with matboard. Painted the beads and wire; everything needs a couple coats of semi-gloss now to seal. The gussets needed some extra prep care-- the sides were very rough so I smoothed spackle over them and painted a couple times. Need to get back inside and finish out the room trimming (inbetween shingle layers).

I am so tickled with how my little Tiffany lampshades from Dejoux are turning out that I just had to post some pics. I laid out the ceiling paper (embossed scrapbook papers) on cardstock so that there would be something to support the lighting fixture, with a bit of overhang for that center connector board, then strung the light through the template assembly and through a "medallion" (actually one end of one of those little plastic Christmas drums) and then through a hole in the top of the shade (which I drilled gently if the bulb didn't want to slide right in). I then attached the chain to the shade and hooked an end into the medallion. Here the house is turned on its side; I am finishing up the connection to the shade: Here are the two first-floor rooms (working up the house to organize the wiring, since the battery box is up in the attic), before and after gluing in the ceiling assembly. House is still turned on its side-- much easier to work on the ceilings that way. Now the 2nd-floor room ceilings have been installed-- And the lights work! (House right-side-up now.) My favorite is the pink-highlighted one in the upper right.

Well I had to go get more paper to finish the attic-- three sheets of Recollections "Blue Wallpaper" wasn't enough! Finished gluing the attic subassembly, and went to glue it onto the main house structure. Well the tabs in front help align to the front, but there is nothing to help align those long sides that glue onto the angled trim on the 3rd floor. I suppose if I were clever, I would've glued a bracing piece onto the roof to interface to the angled trim. I had to clamp as best I could to try to get a seal, and will trim inside to strengthen that joint. Also what is going on here is the (completion of) dry-fitting of the tower; one dry-assembles the tower in place, then marks where the roof wall intersects, then removes the tower pieces and cuts them, then assembles the tower and glues into place. It looks as though I had already cut the tower pieces in these pics. Decided that it was time to get to the staircases; used a bit of stiff foam to keep the sides at the right distance while the risers were drying, and clamped the structures into place in the house for the glue to dry, so as to minimize issues with square-ness later. Dry-fitting the wallpapered staircases in the house, and a look at how the railing will look (kit railing, which isn't in bad shape): Laying out the wiring, which is a battery pack operated set of lights on long wires that I found on Amazon, similar to this I had found a very nice patterned length of wired ribbon at Joann's, I believe, and had thought that it might make nice window shades for the country house, but I think it had too much gold in it and I didn't end up using it anyway. (There is enough left if I change my mind. ) It was great coloring and width to use for stair runners in the San Fran, however: An exterior shot with the roof on: An interior shot, with the front part of the ceilings papered (dry-fit, as I have not glued them on yet). Each ceiling on the 1st and 2nd floor is divided by the brace piece that holds the two parts of the ceiling piece together. I am waiting on little Tiffany lampshades from Dejoux before I can finish out the main part of the ceilings (I thought that it would be cute to do out the whole house with Tiffany lampshades), but I wanted to get that fitting done inside the bays. I finished all the floor and ceiling templates (on cardstock), and due to some things not being quite square, as well as the nature of this house, there was a fair amount of fitting to do! Trim will take care of the rest of it. Didn't have fishscale shingles for the front gables, and didn't like the prospect of cutting the thick shingles that came with the kit, so dug out a bunch of thin shingles (that I didn't use for the Laurel, actually) and cut their ends round, and started painting their rainbow colors a la Robin Carey: I am going so far as to actually place the colors in the same order that she did! (Why mess with a great design!)

It has been a busy month; I have made progress with the San Fran, getting up to the attic pieces and doing some wallpapering: Installed the front doors, which is a pin-hinge system using brads: Dry-fitting attic pieces: Meanwhile, the country house got its porch roof installed, finally! Making a porch swing from a dollar-store patio furniture kit that my mother found for me years ago (I have gotten alot of porch swings out of it!): And making progress with a fireplace surround, a bit inspired by the one in this blog: Needed some kitchen cabinetry, a la Kris' matboard tutorial, but with my own spin on it by adding soffits. Actually this made the install alot easier as I could handle the cabinetry as a whole unit. Dry-fitting the pieces (I modified the dimensions from Kris' tut to fit the space): A coat of gesso helps even out the finish: At first I tried to mix up something in dusty rose, but it kept turning more and more of a ghastly pink, so I gave everything a couple coats in barn red and I am alot happier with that. It compliments the (faded) barn-red in the wallpaper, I think. I will glue in place the sink unit when I'm done with it (needs faucet, and maybe some counter-top stove burners) but first I have to figure out my kitchen flooring.

Well it has been about a month since I posted last, because of the upgrade; I think I have figu(red out how to post photos (had to put them in an album first), so here goes: Some exterior paint, finally: Looking more and more house-y! Screen door and staircase railing: Meanwhile, assembling the walls of the San Fran; each wall piece has a little groove that the piece below it slides into. The whole wall assembly turns out to be a bit bendy and flimsy; hopefully it will end up being supported by something. I coated all the glued pieces with sanding sealer per the directions. Here I am gluing on the 1/4" square rod that will support the floors from the sides: Here is the foundation: And here I am splicing the 2nd and 3rd floors together (each floor, like the 1st floor above, consists of two pieces that get butt-spliced together with a thin backer at the seam) and gluing angle-rod to the 3rd floor to support the roof: Back to the country house: here I am trying to figure out what chair to make for the parlor. Kris' chair at 1inchminisbykris has a footprint that is too big for the parlor, so I went back to my old wing chair design (how I made the wing chair) and fiddled with the design a bit. I found this pic of an old armchair online and I liked the skirt on it (besides I am not good at making furniture legs) so I changed the design to have a solid base so that it could be skirted. I also raised the arms and seat, and changed the back profile a bit. I used matboard for this prototype, and quickly decided that it wasn't thick enough, so I used a 3/16" foamboard for the pair that I made next: Then I agonized over the print-- too busy? Too much? Did it go with the wallpaper and flooring? Auuugh! Thinking about other fabrics; at least half of these are too light to work with the carpet however! So I emailed Mom and asked her what she thought; she said she loved it and it wasn't too much, so I decided to finish them out! As you can see, I also made another piano from Dada's dollhouse tutorial.

I've been working on a few different things lately; the folks got an old family piano restored, so I used dadas dollhouse piano tutorial as a base to make my version of it. Here is the original: My version, staged in the parlor of the country house (Laurel bash): A comparison of the one built straight from the tutorial, and the bashed model. I used dowel and foamboard, with cardstock overlay, to make the inset end-pieces. It took me a couple weekends to make, all told. I didn't quite get the color right, but close. The country house finally got its porch planks installed: To make a quilt for the country house, I spent a weekend trying something I've been meaning to try for years now-- English Paper Piecing (EPP), with 1/2"-sided hexagons. I mean to try smaller hexies next time; this one was just practice! Here's what the back-side looks like, with all the papers still in. Here I have removed all the papers. I backed it with some very thin muslin that my mother had sent me. I didn't quilt it; I'll quilt the tinier one when I make it. It is very time-consuming, not to say back-breaking, eye-twisting, and finger-stiffening! The San Fran is coming along; I primed the inside: The pieced-together walls are not flat and smooth on the inside, and so wallpaper won't lie nicely on them (instead you'll see every line). So I need to make cardboard templates to glue the wallpaper onto. Clamping the third floor on (somehow something always get out of square!): Here I am separating out the trims that will go over and under the exterior windows; must cut 30 of em!

Well it is a bit unwieldy having to upload pics to an album first (instead of directly into the blog post) but it is nice to be able to drag and drop photo files into the gallery now. Wish there were some way to miniaturize the photos, as they display full-sized on the screen... This makes the blog post a bit unwieldy to view! Here I am cutting the trim pieces and gluing certain ones together, with my Gorilla wood glue: Here I am setting up the main braces into which the wall components will slide: The future owner wants the house to look like Robin Carey's San Fran at http://robincarey.blogspot.com/2008/11/san-franciscan.html, so I went shopping for colors and wallpapers; the leftover yellow from my recent Willowcrest build will do fine for the main house color. Here's one of the time-consuming parts, prepping the window pieces. The green that I had gotten is a bit too green, so I am using it as the base coat with a more spring-green layer over it. Finally all the window pieces are prepped, so I am building up the bays now: The next step is to glue in the 2nd floor, but I think I had better start priming on the first floor or I won't be able to reach in there. You can see the different between the spring-green on the window sashes and the green-green on the sills (which haven't gotten their second paint coat yet) in this last pic. The window sashes do move up and down, but I am going to glue the upper frames up in place when I get a little further along.

Hi, I just purchased the San Franciscan 555 house and was wondering what materials should I buy to build the house. This will be my first attempt to build something of this magnitude. Looking forward to it and hopefully my daughters will love it once it is completed. Advice on what works best before i dive into this project. Thanks.