The Arthur Dollhouse Kit remains one of Greenleaf's most popular kits. You will find this blog useful for tips a decorating ideas as build your Arthur Dollhouse.

The Best way to navigate this blog is to select a members name from the category are to the left. That will sort all the blog entries so that you will be looking at one persons progress as the move through their construction of the Arthur Dollhouse.

Please Keep in mind that blogs are in reverse chronological order, so you we recommend that you scroll down to see the start of this dollhouse kit, and then scroll up to see the progression through the building progress.

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Arthur Dollhouse Kit originally posted 6/1/05
I spent the morning making bathroom fixtures out of seashells, I'm thinking of crocheting a shell-stitch curtain for the rectangular window.
The bathtub is a large half a bivalve shell with barnacle "feet" and a 3-pointed clear beadfor a water tap, with a tiny amber seedbead for the tap top.
The lavatory is pure whimsy, I had a really neat cluster of barnacles with all sorts of holes & angles, I sanded the bottom smooth to glue it to half a bivalve shel for a base. The basin is a different kind of shell (I used to know them, now I just gather them) glued into the hole where two barnacles grew out of each other. I made a tap like the one on the tub.
The commode was the most fun, though, and fitting different shells together is how I thought of doing shell bathroom fixtures in the first place. The bowl & lid are a pair of bivalve shells with the bottom of the bowl glued to the opening of a seasnail shell; where the hole is that the starfish made to get at the snail got sanded flat & is glued to the wall. I gilded a coffee-stirrer straw & glued one end into another snailshell and glued the whole apparatus to the wall behind the commode for the tank. I couldn't find any chain so I crocheted a pull-cord for the flusher, complete with bead & tassel.



complements of havanaholly

I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who loves starting a project and hates to finish it. That's become the problem with the Arthur. I really haven't done anything on it since my last blog entry... and I'm embarassed to check and see how long ago that was.

Well, I gave myself an ultimatum... I can NOT start on the Westville until the Arthur is finished. The Westville will be for me and I'm brimming with ideas for it... and, just by virtue of it being a new project, it feels a whole lot more exciting right now than slapping the rest of the shingles on my Arthur and painting more trim. But tonight I bit the bullet and got the bulk of the remaining work done.

About a week ago I glued the back roof onto the Arthur. Let me back up a bit though... a few weeks ago (after my last blog entry) I had another tantrum, akin to the siding incident from earlier in this project. This time it was with the wallpaper. I was just having a terrible time with it. I loved the colors I'd picked out but the scrapbook paper was too stiff to get it onto the irregularly-shaped ceiling easily. Plus, I'm apparently the only person in the universe who doesn't like Yes glue. Even when I was super careful, I wound up with glue on my wallpaper. And it showed... badly. Finally, after spending several hours futzing with the wallpaper and getting more and more frustrated, I stopped myself. Why was I spending all this time decorating a house I'm not planning to keep? The new owner will have her own ideas for how it should look, anyway... I know if it were me receiving the dollhouse I'd be thrilled to have the outside finished but would want to put my own touches on the inside. So, I ripped all the paper out.

That may be one reason I haven't blogged lately... the inside of the Arthur looks really ugly and... well... plain, now. But I am trying to ignore that and focus on the outside. I am not planning to give the house away immediately, so I can always change my mind about this (and very well may!) But for now, it was holding me up!

Anyway, here's the house with its back roof glued on.



It took me about 3 hours to do the shingles, but I'm SO glad to have them done. I was surprised by how few shingles I had left when I finished... only about 3/4 of a sheet. I expected to have a lot more since I didn't do the porch roof. I might have run out if I had.



And I put one more coat of paint on a few of my trim pieces. Calamari only used one set of the trim that goes under the peak of the roof on either side of the house, and graciously sent me the extra when I asked. I am planning to use this on the front of the house, instead of the longer (more gingerbready) trim that's supposed to be used. I'm also leaving off the trim from the peak of the roof. My roof doesn't meet perfectly at the peak, so I'm going to have to get some corner trim from the mini shop to cover up the gap.



You can see the porch fence is getting a little more paint... I have not found a good way to secure it to the porch and it keeps coming off. I wanted to try sticking a mini nail up through the porch and into the post, but the blocks of wood I used to keep the foundation square when I glued it are in the way. I may just have to settle with glue and the knowledge that the fence is really fragile.

Stay tuned for one more blog entry when I get the trim up.

Compliments of fov

The UPS driver left the box on DH's truck's hood so he didn't have to get out of his truck, he was pulling out of the yard as I ran out to get the box. The first thing I did was to open the box to see if everything was there; one window's missing from the acetate sheet, but I have already thought how I'm going to bash this cutie and will make a replacement.
I scribed floorboards & nailholes in the livingroom & upstairs floors & began to prime everything else. The "floorboards" have been stained maple & sealed & everything's lying flat to dry. The livingroom floor is already dry, so I masked it to prime the porch floor. I'll begin painting the porch floor & ceiling tomorrow & finish priming.
One side of two partition pieces & one side wall needed filling with spackling compound, looks almost like termite holes!



Complements of havanaholly

I am finally getting a chance now to upload the pictures of the work I did on Saturday.

Geoff and I made another trip to the hangar. My main objective for the day was to get the door finished. Doors in die-cut houses are notorious for not fitting right, especially after you've painted on the edges. With my Orchid, I must have spent half a day trying to sand down the inside of the doorway to get the door to fit... very frustrating! It didn't occur to me at the time that I could use the electric sander to sand around the edge of the door instead. Since the sander lives at the hangar, I wanted to get the door assembled so I could sand it to fit in the doorway.

But first I started my day by staining the rest of the shingles. (I had only stained about half of them initially. There isn't really a well-ventilated place in my house to do it so it's better to do staining at the hangar.)



(Notice the torn wallpaper inside the house... I had a mishap with Yes glue. Fixing that and finishing the papering is next on my "to do" list.)

Next came the door pieces. Some of the outer layer of wood came off the back of one of the door pieces when I punched it out. It's not terribly noticeable, but you can see it if you look closely at where the two pieces meet (where the window fits in). I just have to console myself by thinking that most people won't be staring at the house from an inch away the way I usually do!



Another great reason to visit the hangar -- to borrow Geoff's C clamps!



While the glue on the door was drying, I smoothed out the inside of the doorway with woodfiller and then painted it to match the trim.



And, I also took this opportunity (drying glue) to paint and glue on the piece of trim I bought to cover up the "crack" where the top and bottom parts of the front wall visibly meet (because I left off the porch roof).




Unfortunately, when I glued this on I didn't use a ruler, so it went on crooked. I didn't notice until the glue was mostly dry, so when I tore it off some paint came up too. This means sanding and repainting before I glue it back on. That'll teach me not to use a ruler! (Or maybe not. )

Before we left the hangar, I sanded around the edge of the door and it fits well now. The next step will be to apply woodfiller to the edge to make it smooth, then paint it, then put the door in place. I've had frustrating experiences with hinges before so I'm not exactly looking forward to that.

Back at home, I finished the shingling. Here is a picture of the front of the house.



The porch fence is not permanently attached... it keeps breaking off when I glue it. I might try to stick nails up through the porch, into the posts. Also, the piece of trim across the center of the house is held on with fun-tac right now because I haven't glued it back on yet.

Next up: finish the wallpapering and the front door, get the back roof up and shingle it, and finish the little bits of trim. Almost there!

Compliments of fov

Ever since I've been working on the Arthur I've had this idea in my head that I'd like little leaf embellishments on the shutters. Why leaves? No idea, except maybe because the green accent color is kind of leafy. I'm not usually into "cute" houses but because I'm not planning to keep this one, I'm giving myself permission to do things to it that I normally wouldn't. And who knows... maybe the Arthur will cure me of my disdain for cute houses!

Last week I made a trip to the scrapbook store and bought a leaf-shaped paper punch. I have been looking for these for a while to do a wreath project Dollhouse Miniatures featured last year, and unfortunately the scrapbook store only had one style of leaf (maple), so I'm still looking. But the maple leaf was fine for what I had in mind for the Arthur.

First I tried using the paper punch to make a stencil, and painting leaves through the stencil, but it didn't work. The paint seeped through and it came out looking like a blob instead of a leaf! So I went on to plan B and painted a piece of posterboard with my accent green. Once that dried, I used the paper punch to punch out a leaf for each shutter.



I glued the leaves onto the shutters, then painted the shutters with a coat of matte finish. This made the leaves more durable, so I'm not as concerned about the edges curling or peeling off.



The other big thing I got done this week was shingling - my first ever shingle effort! I started by staining the shingles that came in the kit.



I started shingling with wood glue but it just made a big mess, with the shingles curling and slipping all over the place. So I decided to use a hot glue gun like Greenleaf's instructions suggest. I've heard horror stories about using hot glue on dollhouses but honestly can't imagine getting the shingles done any other way. The hot glue dries very quickly and doesn't warp the shingles. I will definitely use this method again on my next house!




Compliments of fov

Finally, painting all those little trim pieces is starting to pay off!

I love this phase of building a dollhouse... well, love it and hate it. I hate all the tedious trim painting. But when you start to glue that trim in place and step back to see how pretty everything looks - I wouldn't trade that feeling for anything!

First of all, I finished my porch railings. I'm so glad I decided to "bash" this, even if it's a small change. I really like the colors, and the newel posts are surprisingly easy to paint (with a tiny brush!)


I glued a newel post to each piece of fencing. When that dried, I glued the fencing together at right angles.

I haven't glued them on to the porch or the side of the house yet, but here they are assembled.


I'm pretty happy with how they look!

Also, I painted the window trim for the five curved windows, and assembled the windows. (I'd already cut the wallpaper for inside the house and marked where the windows are, and painted the inside of the window frames to match the trim color, so it was safe to glue the windows in now.) I started by gluing the windows to the house. I had to cut them down so the plastic part wouldn't stick out past the trim (this was especially a problem on the bottom).


This can be hard to do without making a mess. I was careful to wipe any glue that showed off the plastic while it was still wet.

Some of the trim looks a little crooked because the vertical pieces were thinner than the ends of the curved piece. That's okay, though, because the shutters will be glued on top of the vertical pieces, hiding the crookedness. I have my shutters all painted but there's one last thing I want to try on them before I glue them in place.

I haven't painted the trim for the rectangular windows yet, or for the interior. With all those little pieces, working in small batches helps me stay sane! (Okay, relatively. )

Oh, I also stained and assembled the porch step. That was so easy. It's not fair how much faster it is to stain pieces than paint them... I wish stain came in the same colors paint does!


It's getting there!

Do you see the "stripe" running across the middle of the house? It's where the two pieces of the front wall came together. Even with wood filler, it's obvious. I guess the porch roof is there to cover up that crack! My plan is to cover it with some fancy trim, but the dollhouse store was closed this weekend for the holiday so I haven't been able to buy any yet. I think it'll look cute when it's done. (I love trim for covering up mistakes!) Stay tuned.

Compliments of fov

As expected, May turned out to be a very busy month for me and I didn't get to do any mini work for several weeks. But now I'm back on the horse! My Arthur is very close to being done. The biggest thing left to do is the wallpaper, and the roof and shingling. Other than that, it's all trim, trim, and more trim... which can take a deceptively long time!


It has to be done, but painting all those little pieces sure gets tedious!

A couple of weeks ago, before I went out of town, I painted the shutters, porch posts, and the fronts of the porch fence. Now that I'm back, I'm working on the railings and the backs of the fence pieces. I'm hoping to get through all these today and to assemble my porch. I can't glue the shutters on yet, though, because I haven't done the trim pieces that go around the windows.

Because I'm using Houseworks porch posts instead of following Greenleaf's instructions, the railing pieces that came in the kit are a little bit too short. So, I cut the porch posts from the kit (which I didn't need anymore, since I'm using the Houseworks posts instead) down to the right size.


This is the piece I'm supposed to use for the railing... too short!

Once I cut my railings to the right size, I painted them green. (The color scheme for the house is purple, with off-white trim and green accents.)


Waiting for paint to dry, again. I am not a patient person!

Before I went out of town, I went to a scrapbook store near my office and picked out paper for the walls. I wanted nice solid colors, a different one for each room, that would go well with the purple exterior. Originally I'd planned on pastels but wound up buying darker colors, instead.


I think these colors are really pretty... I just hope they don't make the rooms too dark!

I covered the first floor ceilings with white posterboard, and cut the wallpaper pieces for the first floor rooms. I'm not going to glue in the wallpaper just yet though. Since the porch fence pieces fit into slots on the front of the house, I don't want to put up the wallpaper until those are glued in and any cracks are sealed up... just in case. I'd hate to get glue or paint through the slot and have it mess up the wallpaper.



Here's what the first floor will look like. I haven't cut the paper for the second floor yet (that's the hard part, so I'm putting it off!)

Off to see if my paint is dry yet...

Compliments of fov

Here is the finished pictures of my house with Base. I'm thinking about adding some vines but I have not in over a week so this is how the Arthur is looking as of this morning.



I use handmade clay flowers and the ferns are plastic but very thin plastic and look very realistic. The rose vine is actually 2 vines combined because one was not enough for the look I wanted.



Here are the rest of the pictures:






This is the base bottom. It has an opening so that you can access the electric:




Complements of My Mini Shop