The Doll House

Building any house is an experience.  Such an endeavor requires planning, decisions and perseverance.  A doll house is no exception.  After our last visit to Victoria's Miniature World, we have become fascinated with the idea of building one of our own miniature Victorian houses.  The scale is one inch of the doll house is equivalent to one foot of its counterpart in real life.  This provides some interesting sizes for everything from doorknobs and nails to wiring and furniture.  Because of our affinity for San Francisco in general, and the "Painted Ladies" in particular, we chose a kit that reflected the Victorian time frame and design.  It will stand about 42 inches tall.  The bottom is about 32 inches deep by 42 inches wide.  There are over a thousand pieces.  Hobby Lobby was the purveyor of this marvel on June 1st.

Jim started by reading the instructions.  Page after page of them.  It seems that the order of construction is one of the most important tasks to get right.  Just like in any construction (think  "recent kitchen remodel" here) we had to figure out what step would impact the next.  Overwhelming almost.  So we started slow.  Jim sorted the pieces and we began the job of painting the exterior walls.  This was a safe start because nothing at this point was being glued together.  BUT, we learned that even this step was not simple.  Each exterior wall had to be painted three times with a careful sanding in between.  This accomplished two things.  The paint adhered better and the finish feels silky smooth.

I started painting the exterior doors (in four colors) and stained a table from one of the furniture kits while the exterior paint dried.  Fun, but very precise, detailed painting to get it right.

By now (June 17th) we were so enthralled, we stacked up some of the walls on top of the foundation to visualize some progress.  The base was painted a grey color with texture added to mimic cement.  The whole project is located in the area just off our new kitchen that we call the "keeping room" after some British series we've seen on television.  There was not enough room in either of our hobby rooms in the house nor the shed for a project of this size.

By July 1st, we had first floor wood and tile flooring installed.  A neighbor, who stopped by and saw our creation, kindly donated a round rug to the mix.  Wow!  It really felt like progress.  Again we had to hold up some walls to get a feel for what was evolving.

Between then now on July 14th, Jim has completed the first floor electrical wiring and wall paper.  The floors are permanently fastened down with glue.  We also found a doll house store in Vancouver, B.C. that yielded more goodies.  We now have Victorian living room furniture, an antique camera, more carpet and wall paper, along with a dining room ensemble in hand.  (Not to mention a long list of other possibilities now added to our list of desired future acquisitions for the house along that line.)

We'll keep you posted as we make progress on this intriguing new hobby.