The Orchid Dollhouse Kit Construction Blog (Team)

I am finally finished with the Orchid! Or the little brick house, LOL, whichever one you want to call it. Although I am pleased with the exterior of this house (the pictures don't show it well but the outside is a very light blue), I am not very thrilled with my wallpapering job. It wasn't my best .... Anyhow, here it is!

The Ananda family have moved into the store and are gathering to give thanks to Lord Ganesh for the opportunities for success in my little community. The family includes Mamma Ananda, Mrs U.S. (Laksmi) Ananda, Mr Upani Shad Ananda, daughter Parvati and baby Sita.

My wallpaper is now COMPLETELY done, although I am not real happy with it. It is not one of my better jobs .... As of now I'm leaving the stair case out, because I can't find what I did with some of the stair treads...



Time to put the porch posts on the house. Because I bricked the house and the little slots are NOT going to fit in there, I cut the slots off the back side of the porch railing. I'm gluing these on with white glue, but I'm also using a little technique that Rik Pierce taught me. I put the white glue on the back of the rails, and a good dab on the bottom, and then I take SuperGlue and put one TINY drop on the bottom ends and two TINY drops on the back of the railing that goes against the house. The point of doing that is to instantly bond the rails to where they need to go and to hold them in place while the white glue dries completely.



Then comes the front door. I'm not making this to where it will open, and I'm just gluing it in. I still need to put the door knobs on.



Then comes the upper railing, and I'm still using white glue. Actually, once I've painted something, I almost always use white (Elmers) glue. On the very top of the upper railing only (where it meets the house) I put three TINY drops of Superglue to hold it while it dries.



I've got a gap on this, probably where there is wood putty on the house so I'm not getting a flush fit. I'll have to run a piece of wood behind it and then I'll have Jimmy run some caulk in it. I'll get him to wait so I can take pictures of what we do to fix that. Not that I know HOW to fix it, LOL, I just have an idea in my head.



And now we're ready for the roofer! Oh Jimmy! Where are you?!



Hey Nutti, why is it that every time I pick up a can of blue paint I think of you?

Compliments of LPCullen

Now that my wallpaper is done, it's time to install the interior windows, and I use white glue (Elmers) only when gluing in windows. Of course, I have to use my special handy dandy weights for that ....


I'm probably going to leave a lot of the outside trim off the house, mostly because I don't think it will go well with the brick. Here's what the outside of the windows are going to look like.



Compliments of LPCullen

Because this house has double hung windows, cutting the wallpaer at the windows is a bit tricky. You have to trim the wallpaper large enough for the double hung windows to go in, and sometimes the wallpaper doesn't want to come off the wall when you trim on the inside. Like so:


I've already used a razor blade to cut around this window to where I want the wallpaper to be. So, to remove that paper that didn't come off I take a wet washrag--not dripping but good and wet--and wipe it along the paper so that I get the paper throughly wet. Let it sit for a minute to soak up the water.


Then I just take my fingernail and scrape off the paper. You may have to re-wet the paper several times to get it all to come loose.


After you're done getting that excess wallpaper off, then go back over that area with the wet washrag to finish removing any bits of paper and remove the glue that's there.


Now, the kitchen window was a bit more tricky, because that paper was stuck on that wall good! So, I've cut where I want to remove the excess wallpaper with my razor blade.


Then I just wet the paper good with the wet washrag, let it sit for a minute to loosen. Then I again just use my fingernail to scrape off the paper. Once the pattern portion of the paper is off, I just continue to wet and scrape, until it's all gone.


Compliments of LPCullen

Been working on the wallpaper in the Orchid. It's coming right along.

I chose this for the livingroom.


And this for the kitchen.


And this for the bedroom.


As most of you know, I like to "lay over" my wallpaper at the edge of the walls in my house. This is how I did that partition in the upper rooms. I had to cut it, lay the top edge over first, and the bottom edge over second.



Compliments of LPCullen

I've painted the base coat of the bricks all a nice wash with Brown Iron Oxide.


And then I went back and added some Dark Burnt Umber, some Hippo Gray, and then I changed it out a bit and added Burnt Sienna instead of Red Iron Oxide. Same results, I think. What do you think? I still need to clear coat the bricks, but it's raining here so I will have to wait for it to stop raining ....


Now, on to wallpapering ....

Compliments of LPCullen

I was so impressed with Tracy's porch, that I've decided to copy it, sort of. So, I had Jimmy go ahead and attach the porch to the house.


Then I started covering it with paperclay.


Now, to make my brick patterns. I'm only putting bricks on the outside of the porch, so I have to make some measurements all around and I'm using the little tool that I got from Rik Pierce's class. I make indentions in the clay all around using the smaller end of that tool. I think that's a 5/8 inch measurement, but can't remember.


And I've got my measurement all around the top of the porch. Time to move on to the step.


For the corners, I make a line across it and angled, and then I begin cutting in some bricks. I'm using a little yellow tool to cut the bricks.


I kind of "cut up" the bricks on the edges.


Once all my bricks are cut in on the top, I take my little white tool (you can use whatever you have on hand) and kind of roll that around the edges of the porch to finish the cut for the bricks.


And now we're done cutting bricks for the porch. Have to wait for that to dry and then I can do my "dirty wash" on the bricks and begin painting!


Compliments of LPCullen

The family who own the store are of Asian Indian heritage but proud citizens of the US, so much so that Mamma Ananda named her baby boy Upana Shad; so the store sign quite correctly reads "USA General Store".
I made a parlor stove for heating & cooking out of a plastic egg, a film canister cap, a medication bottle "child-proof" cap, four oval wooden beads, a jeselry finding and a Sonic drinking straw. The sub-assembly is visible in the left side of the previous post's picture of the canned goods' components. I spray painted everything with black glossy enamel when the glue was dry & attached the finding for a door with superglue after the paint was all dry. I used the Corona Concepts diningroom furniture kit to finish furnishing the upstairs:

I made foamcore diningroom chair seat cushions and covered them with scraps of the red acetate scarf.

Here are how the stove, shrine, table & chairs look:

I found an old watch dial I liked a whole lot better for the face of the case clock than the printed one that came with the kit. I stained all the furniture pieces golden oak except the clock trim, I went with red mahogany for that. I used glass beads for hinges and knobs for the hutch base doors (which are fake).


I made curtains for the end windows out of the red flowered scarf and had enough scraps to glue to an acetate package "blister" shaped like a bathtub & just the right size to fit under the bathroom dormer window. I made a surround from foamcore and covered that with some vinyl shelf liner with little red flower buds (or strawberries?) all over it. I sculpted a lavatory & commode stool from white polymer clay in flower shapes and sprayed them white when they were baked. I covered a restaurant jelly packet with some of the vinyl for the WC tank:
When I installed the fixtures I made the mirror over the lavatory using an idea I got from a "Crate & Barrel" catalog:


Finally, here, at last, is the USA General Store in all its stoned & shingled glory:

I made storeroom shelving using tongueblade-size craft sticks for the verticals and popsicle-size craft sticks for the shelves:  

I painted them with a wash of yellow ochre & burnt umber:  
and installed them:  

I made a rolling set of storage bins from the October '06 issue of American Miniaturist, #42, page 25.  DH was delighted to see me actually use some of the table trash I've collected...

  

From Making Miniatures:  Projects for the 1:12 Scale Dolls' House by Christine Berridge I made the open-back counter on page  55; I closed off the back.  I used a scrap of 1/8" basswood, foamboard, toothpicks, a tongueblade and a scrap of posterboard.  In a Goodwill store I found a ladder-type shelf unit that had an "Avon" label on it (that later fell off).  I "aged" the three items with my INdia ink & isopropyl alcohol mixture.


I finished off the bead curtain & hung it in the storeroom doorway.  I began making stock for the store by painting some of the "woodsies" I'd collected:  

I cut acetate to make "glass" shelves for the bay window.  Note:  Superglue gel "frosts" acetate & doesn't stick worth a  darn, I will NEVER use it for that again!  I had to cut & paint craft stick sections to help support the shelves.  Elmer's all-purpose white glue did the trick.
I painted turned woodsie bowls & acorn cups with raw siena to resemble terra cotta and then painted them with "folk art" designs in red, white, yellow, blue & green.  I needed to make more shelves for the store to display "groceries" and "sundries":     

I went  bit berserk at www.printmini.com and printed cigarette packs and cigar boxes.  I painted over the printies with clear nail enamel and scored the folds with the back of the point of my utility knife before using it to cut out the pieces.  I used foam core to glue up the cigar boxes, and posterboard stacked to make the cigarette packs:  

Then I cut 1/4" diameter dowel into 3/4" lengths with my hobby saw and sprayed them silvery and covered them with the labels I printed from Jim's site:  


I used printies from www.geocities.com-boopmini40 to make other grocery items.
I used a RED flowered acetate scarf I found in a charity thrift store to cover a styrofoam mattress & make draperies for the bed area I'm using the gable space for (Thanks, Sabrina's mom).


The Ananda family who own this store are devout Hindus so I made them a family shrine dedicated to Ganesh, the Bringer of Prosperity.  I had some kit scraps to make the stepped base and two sizes of HH porch punch-outs to shape the shrine around and somt stairrail punchouts for pillars.  We had found a wee little metal Ganesh figure in a shop in Racine, WI.  
I made the body of the shrine with poster board I embellished with paper lace.  I sprayed it all silvery and completed the assembly with carved "ivory" (I think they're actually bone) beads & flowers & a filigree gold-colored bead cap for an offering bowl.  Once I placed Ganesh's figure within I installed the pillars

and mounted it on the wall of the living space.