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San Franciscan Dollhouse, how to remove wall


mBluebear

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Hi guys, i just bought this dollhouse from a thrift store. It looks pretty, however, there's no interior door, :(.

I would like to remove the walls and add doors. Is it posibble?

Thanks.

PS: I couldn't submit the image through this website, so I submitted on imgur, please click on the link below.

https://imgur.com/a/TFmsLpC

 

Edited by mBluebear
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You have the SF550, beautifully done.  There were no interior doors. you can make them.  The ready-made doors won't quite fit the openings, but you can always fill or whittle the openings to make them fit...  When you have made five posts you can open an album here to let us see "before" and "after" pictures.  Why not post us an introduction in the Newcomers' Forum?

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I am currently working on this house but the 555 version ...which is the model they made after the one you purchased.  Which walls are you looking to remove? and welcome to the forum.  You'll find lots of knowledge people here willing to help where they can.

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Hello, and welcome to the forum! As Holly said, the house is beautifully finished, but you may want to fill in some of the gaps created by trim not fitting snugly against  walls and/or ceilings. Small details like that are magnified in small scale. A bit of painter's caulk smoothed into place with a fingertip will do the trick. Have fun with your new house, and do keep us posted on your progress. We love eye candy.

 

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Thank you so much for advices. I think I might ruin the house while trying to remove the middle walls of the main and second floor. But It's so tempting to do that since interior doors make house look so nice. It seems like I would have to remove these walls then get the wider wood pieces then cut it to fit, put doors in, then paint and put it back to the house. 

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32 minutes ago, mBluebear said:

interior doors make house look so nice

Yes, they do. But take the house apart to install interior doors? There is another option if you don't need the doors to be functional. Make doors to fit the openings and glue in place or (probably a better idea) use museum wax or something similar to set them open or closed or ajar, so they can be repositioned later. 

You've not been here long enough to hear my mantra: Smoke and Mirrors. Like a magician, we create illusion. Our plumbing doesn't carry water, our beds are hard, our food won't rot, our grass never needs mowing, and so on.  In miniature, if it LOOKS real, it IS real. :) 

I don't think you realize how complicated removing the inner walls will be. You'll end up taking the entire house apart before you're finished, and there is bound to be some damage -- all this in a house that is no longer manufactured, so it is difficult to get replacement parts. Think really hard about whether the doors need to be functional.

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32 minutes ago, mBluebear said:

Thank you so much for advices. I think I might ruin the house while trying to remove the middle walls of the main and second floor. But It's so tempting to do that since interior doors make house look so nice. It seems like I would have to remove these walls then get the wider wood pieces then cut it to fit, put doors in, then paint and put it back to the house. 

It really isn’t all that difficult if you have the proper tools, desire and patience. 

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From what I can tell is that you already have the openings at the rear of the wall. Find a door that will fit in the current opening, put a header above it, patch with drywall compound, sand and you are done. No need to remove the walls to do this.

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Personally I think this house looks fine without interior doors. If you add them to the openings they might interfere with the exterior doors.

I suggest you play around with furniture before you do anything. Once you see how it looks with furniture you might decide you don't care as much about the interior doors.

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I have the 557 version of this house and am attempting to add doors to mine. I opted to have an opening on the main floor but I filled in the wall from the ceiling to door height for a more realistic look. A standard door with trim doesnt fit in the current opening because trim needs wall on both sides to but up against and these openings go right up against the front wall. The size of a standard door with trim on both sides of the door is too large for the opening. You can either cut off the pre-attached trim on one side of a Houseworks standard door to butt the door up against the front wall. From experience I can tell you it will interfere with the exterior doors somewhat. Or you could use classics narrow doors, which will require you to add a piece of wall to the opening attached to the front wall so that you have something to attach your trim to and to account for the narrowness of the door. This will also eliminate the problem of the exterior doors. You will also need to add wall in above the door.

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I use foam board to make door ways where none are present.  The best part is that you can fit it in, see how it looks, and then remove it if the doorways do not work or you don't like the look.  Of course, this works best if you are planning on wallpapering the walls so that the foam board is hidden.  

I agree with people discouraging removing entire walls.  I'm not familiar with this house, but dollhouses have load-bearing walls just like regular houses.  You could weaken the house structurally if you remove interior walls.

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Removing a wall IS possible if you are careful.  In doing rehab houses, I do it quite a lot.  Mostly I just hope they were put in with just glue-which is easily loosened with a heat gun or hair-dryer. If they used small nails, that creates a whole 'nuther set of issues to work around. 

From looking at your pics, I don't know that removing a wall is necessary to put in a door- but I may want to loosen the glue on that crooked wall on the 3rd floor to see if it could be straightened out.  I agree with @Samusa about possibly using narrow doors, if you want functional doors.  As she stated, you may need to add a thin bit of strip wood to the front wall to help it fit - and add a bit of wood/foamcore board as a header above the doorway as @Sable mentioned . And this is all possible without moving walls.

And spackle and/or painters caulk for those gaps will work wonders!  :) 

 

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You could also trace your door openings onto scrap paper and make strip wood boxes that fit snug into the openings and make your doors to fit the interior of the boxes and pin-hinge them,  You can then cut more strip wood or mini molding to make the frames for the doorways.

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