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New member- Building the Arthur


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2 hours ago, Hipbutterfly118 said:

Bought siding to put on the dollhouse. I haven't done anything yet except paint the siding. Do I put the siding on the wall pieces before assembly of house or is it better to wait? I have no idea what I am doing as this is my first doll house.

please help !

Hello, Colleen, and welcome to the forum. Questions  like this are better suited to the General Mini Talk section. Do respond here, though, and tell us a bit about yourself. How you became interested in miniatures, what house are you building (I just noticed the Arthur in the heading), and so forth.

To answer your question, the thing to do is to assemble most of the house in dry fit, which means holding the pieces together with masking tape or blue painter's tape. This is how you adjust individual pieces for a good fit (in your Arthur, some tabs or slots may need to be sanded or shaved to fit solidly), and you can see areas that might be hard to reach to decorate after it is glued together. When you have it in dry fit, you'll be able to see for yourself whether it is a good idea to put on the siding before or after the building is constructed or whether sections may call for siding during construction. 

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Welcome to the little family, Colleen.  I have built a kit or two (including the Arthur) and I always put at least the shell into dry fit, not only to adjust the tabs & slots but also to make sure I understand the instructions (sometimes I find a better way for me to build the kit), and I leave it in dry fit for a few days to see how it will look put together and to see if I might want to make changes (called bashing).  I always wait until the very last thing to put in windows & doors until after I have decorated, since my hands are not steady enough to paint frames or wallpaper without messing up the clear plastic parts.  I'm not a huge fan of clapboard siding, unless the house demands it, but if there is a porch I would definitely put on the siding before hanging doors & windows or installing the porch or the roof.  I lay the door and window frame pieces over their openings on the house and trace around them with a pencil and then butt the siding piece up to the traced line.  The first house I ever put siding on was the Westville and I put the doors and windows on after the siding, on top of it, and had to perform surgery on the porch to get it to fit.

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I just finished my Arthurs.  There are photos on pinterest.   I did put s u ding on my latest one. I put them on after I had the base house glued.  I find it easier to wait until the house is assembled to ensure the siding matches on front and sides.   I did not use individual siding strips, but a pretty pressed MDF siding.  

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Hi Colleen, welcome to the forum. :wave:

I agree with Lawanda, that it's better if you sides and front siding match up. So perhaps after assembly is better. Or at least line up your sides in a row and side them so that they match.

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