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Hi everyone! I've had a long quiet period on here, but I've been steadily working away and going to shows/shops (I was at Good Sam in San Jose and was fortunate to visit Dollhouses, Trains, and More in Novato, CA for their closing sale). I will, finally, post a batch of haul and progress photos in the first week of November, when I get settled back into my home in Eugene. I really am terrible with a camera and it bugs everyone I know! In the meantime, I have a question: Has anyone ever tried adding siding after their build's exterior was complete? Still being a novice, when I finished my first build (the Orchid; the interior is still a work-in-progress) I stepped back and thought 'I think I should have done siding.' Especially with the shingles on, the level of detail on the exterior just varies too much; it's been irritating me for a couple of months now. I'm a bit of a stickler it seems (though I didn't know it at the time)! My window/door casings, dormers, gingerbread, and my custom porch/railings are all already in place. I realize it may be very difficult, but the question is: is it even possible? If so, do you have any tips on how to do this? Any and all possible mini wisdom is welcome! P.S. I have the opportunity to snag a very affordable Laurel kit secondhand so I'm trying to decide where I should just start the next building with siding and call it 'lesson learned' or go back and add to the Orchid (and stash the Laurel until after the New Year, space is a very important consideration here). P.S. P.S.: I'm not a Cher fan, but I took a page out of Elizabeth's book (Studio E miniatures) since I'm always charmed by her ability to make musical jokes in her posts/titles!

I had a lot of people on Instagram ask me how I made the weathered siding for my house so I am posting a tutorial! Feel free to ask me questions on here or on my IG account (dollhousejournal)! This technique super simple and fun to do! Supplies: Cardboard (I used cereal boxes) Scissors Ruler Pencil White School Glue Acrylic Paint (I used brown and cream) Step 1. Measure and cut cereal box into strips. Step 2. Paint strips with base color and let dry completely. Step 3. Apply a thin layer of white school glue. Step 4. When the glue is tacky to the touch, brush on the top coat of paint. I applied it unevenly, leaving bare spots here and there for a more distressed look. Notes: - I used a glossy paint as the base coat and a matte paint for the top coat. I have noticed the matte paint seems to crackle really well! - The strips do warp a bit when they are painted. I used tacky glue to apply them to the house and they straightened out just fine. You could probably flatten them between heavy books as well.

It finally occurred to me that I'm on a Greenleaf forum and I have never shared that Greenleaf has one of my favorite and most used products, but I'll get to that last. First a couple of questions. Is anyone familiar with Greenleaf's vinyl tile flooring? Is it glossy, and if so, can it be dulled? I want a paved stone look throughout the entire first floor of my Creole plantation house. This product: https://shop.greenleafdollhouses.com/miniature-scale-vinyl-floor-tiles-grey/ While I can do the paperclay method, I'm worried that is going to add a great deal of weight to an already very heavy house. It's Lawbre's Rosedawn and it weighs a lot even in its unfinished state. Added weight brings up my other question. Can anyone recommend a good brick sheet? Something textured, embossed, with the appearance of real brick? I've in the past purchased a few printed sheets of brick from England just to see what they were like and, well, I'd use them on a child's dollhouse maybe but not something on which I'm going for realism. They look good but even when not up close they are very obviously just printed paper. I've etched brick into joint compound (a lot of work but looks great!). I've done brick and stone out of egg cartons (also looks great!). The joint compound will make this house far too heavy, and there is no way in heck I am cutting thousands of individual bricks out of egg cartons! I am seriously hoping there's some product out there that would work. Okay, so there are my questions, now allow me to sing Greenleaf's praises for one of their products that is one of my favorites and most used. Their siding: https://shop.greenleafdollhouses.com/miniature-clapboard-siding/ OMG have I bought bags and bags of this stuff over the years. It's admittedly a bit rough and I probably wouldn't use it to side a gleaming mansion, but it has so many other uses! Here are some that I've used it for. It's perfect for siding a farmhouse or other "rustic" building. A simple wash gives it a fantastic aged appearance without a ton of work futzing around with multi-layers of painting and sanding and aging techniques. Some awful blurry old pics below of my farmhouse when it was in progress. I don't think they show just how fantastic that siding looked IRL. Another pic below is a pic of a bedroom in (I think) Salem, MA. See that ceiling and that planked wall behind the bed? I used Greenleaf siding to recreate that and I was totally thrilled with the result. I also used Greenleaf's shingles on that same Colonial. The front was clapboard but I shingled the sides. I needed smaller shingles because historically those were pretty narrow. I simply snapped 'em in half, no scoring required. The first floor of my Creole is going to be pretty "raw", with exposed brick exterior walls, but the interior walls of the first floor will be exposed planks behind stud framing. I'll be using even more Greenleaf siding for that. It's 3/4" wide so I'm going to score it at 1/2". The half-inch planks will be for the wall framing, the remaining 1/4" will be the equivalent of 3" lathing for the attic ceilings. And, of course, loads of it to plank almost all of the ceilings! So there are a few of my handy-dandy uses. And at $5.00 for 360 square inches, I challenge anyone to find a better deal! If you could even find something that works half as well. Do you have other-than-intended uses for the siding or other products? Edit: And oh yeah, it worked fabulously well for horizontal planked wainscoting in that Colonial house. I was going for a very early Colonial look so I didn't want any fine mouldings. That siding did the trick!

Hello! I am finally hoping to start on my own dollhouse after renovating a dollhouse for my toddler. I am thinking about the weight of the house, as well as cost and have searched and searched and have not found as many photos of siding made with cardboard or upholstery strips. I would love to see some examples! Thank you I have also attached a picture of my dh, it is front opening and I will be making some modifications to the exterior to add modern touches and am also thinking of cutting windows on both sides.

Hello everyone! I'm new at this stuff, but I've been reading this forum for months and I've learned so much from you all. Finally realized I should register. I'm hoping you can advise me on one issue... I'm attempting to renovate a large 1970's dollhouse that originally had no siding. Very carefully I glued on clapboard siding (the kind that comes in overlapping wooden sheets) using Beacon Quik-Grip. After letting each side dry overnight, weighted down and taped, I began to paint it with Kilz primer and regular latex house paint. And then... horrors! The siding began to warp a bit and came up in a few spots! The water-based paint must have overwhelmed the sticking power of the glue. But even so, the warping was minor enough that I thought I could just get away with squeezing more glue under the lifted edges and weighting them down. It was still not quite as even as it had been before painting, but it seemed... okay. But THEN... we went away from the house for a couple of hot summer months, and when we came back I saw that the humidity had done a number on the siding. MORE warping! I ended up scraping off one entire side of it. Do you have any advice to keep this from happening again? Is there another kind of paint I could use that might impart less moisture to the wood? Thank you! L

I'm looking to buy some siding sheets for my San Francisco house and I'm confused with the imperial sizes. I'm interested in your opinions on the right size (height wise) siding for 1:12. The options where I'm looking to purchase are 1/2 inch or 3/8 inch.. which is better for scale in your opinion?

I've been looking for the smaller scale wood siding and flooring - in particular the sheets of wood that usually come in 3" X 24" sheets. I would like it to be grooved and all that I can find in the 1/16" grooves is only sold if you buy 10 sheets of it. That's like $25 - $30 plus shipping. I only need a couple of sheets though. Any suggestions? It looks a little like 'bead and board' but I think its generally just grooved wood with either 32 or 16 grooves per inch. Fat chance finding it, enh?

Hi Everyone, The measurements on clapboard/siding are doing my head in! I've look and got the old trusty tape measure out but I'm just as confused as ever. LOL I read a topic on here about 6 months ago regarding this same issues but now I can't find it. : - ( SOS half scale peeps! Can anyone advise the sizing for half scale chapboard/siding and where you bought it from? Also - I'm going to need so finishes to hide the corners where my outside walls meet and where my roof joins. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Cheers : - )

Hi everyone! I'm from Sydney Australia and received an Orchid kit for Christmas - very excited to start! I'm currently in the planning stages and am trying to work out what I'm going to do with the outside of the house. I saw a couple of posts on here with what looked like vertical siding (??) and really liked that but I have no idea what it is or how to use it. Any suggestions? Or if I go with regular siding, is it better to use the sheets of siding, or the single panels? Also, DH has a 3D printer so I'm planning to design and 3D print a different set of stairs in wood filament. Does anyone have any tips / experience for using 3D printed items in projects like this? I'm just in the very early stages of planning and figuring out my approach so any tips and suggestions gratefully received

Hi everyone, Hope all enjoyed their holiday and having some time to work on minis! I'm working on a Duracraft Heritage. The directions recommend using a good oil based paint on the siding. Which led me to ponder as most paints in my garage are not oil based... Do they recommend oil based paint because other paints would cause swelling, like water based glue may be noted to do? I'm interested in the general consensus of the subject matter experts in this forum. To oil base paint or not? Doth it matter? Or are there no issues painting with acrylic, craft or other types of paint? I ask because I have many Sherwin Williams cans of left over paint and they are not oil based. Thank you and Happy New Year! Christie

Hi, My name is Erica and I recently ordered the Greenleaf Willow kit (due to arrive tomorrow), as well as purchased a partially complete Greenleaf Garfield (which is HUGE!!!!). The Garfield has quite a bit of damage and work that needs to be done so it is more of a restoration/build. Super excited to join this group and build my dollhouses. I'm 32 years old and have never had one for myself, and I have two boys so I figured I better make one for me since I probably won't have a daughter. I live in San Diego, CA. I have two boys age 10 and 7... and a small boston terrier named Roxy.

Hello All, I'm working on my Beacon Hill and just finished siding the porch area. According to the instructions, I'm supposed to install all the windows and trim before putting up the siding and just cut it to fit around those areas. Then in Gina's blog I read she installed all the siding before putting in the windows and bay window roofs. Has anyone else done the siding this way? I just don't want to glue down siding before installing the windows or bay roofs and then have them not fit over the siding. Thanks !

Hello all! Working on the Beacon Hill and am about to put up siding. Instructions suggest hot glue but I've read many postings on this forum suggesting never to use hot glue. Instructions say to avoid using white glue due to moisture in the glue warping the siding. Then I've read in Gina's blog, she uses Aileen's Tacky glue. Any other suggestions?

I have acquired a Beacon Hill that is completely built. It requires the siding put on. Looking for templates or ideas on how to do this successfully with so many cutouts. Also I have also modified the main floor. It has a garage attached to the left side so I removed the outer wall to make a large kitchen to hold the bespaq kitchen I just purchased for it. In the living room I removed the hallway wall into the living room so that I could have more space. This house was tape wired initially and I now just need to make repairs to the main lines. Please reply with any messages on ideas for colours etc. I usually only build RGT but have failen in love with the exquisite details that only Greenleaf has!

After a lot of research, I think I want my first house to be the Fairfield. I have a question about siding I think I want to buy siding sheets (I would have bought the individuals from the Greenleaf but the shipping is more than the siding itself). I wanted know how to choose what siding sheet is appropriate for the Fairfield. I'm considering ordering from the Little Dollhouse Company because they are slighty closer to me ( has anyone ordered from them before?). Thanks for the help.

First off I'm not sure if this post belongs here or in the trading section so Admin folks please feel free to move it if you get the notion. I have recently acquired the build of my dreams, Dura Craft VM-800. Unfortunately it arrived with some siding pieces missing. This is the older kit with the tongue and groove type siding. I'm going to start the build soon and I have a few ideas for making up for the missing pieces but if anyone has any extra siding pieces from a bash or a partial kit that you would be willing to part with I would be willing to buy them from you. Please PM me if you have anything. Thank you

Recently we visited the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana. There is a shingle-sided church on the property that caught my eye, plus extensive faux finish (marble) and decorative painting in the main house. I've posted a few photos in a new album in my Gallery.

I have a question about using Popsicle sticks for siding on a 1/12 scale house. I have thin stir sticks, medium Popsicle sticks and thick tongue depressors. I know the stir sticks would be too small, but which of the larger two would be more in scale for wood siding? (I prefer to use these rather than the thin veneer because it seems less likely to warp.) Thank you.

Hi everyone, I am about to try the birch veneer siding sheets for the first time. When I've looked at houses online, there have been several where they used the veneer sheets and you can see clearly a line where two sheets meet up. Is there any special trick to hide the seam? Thanks for any advice! Kim