My Willowcrest Blog

More dolls

2012-02-10T07:10:00.000-08:00

As well as the resin figures covered in the last post, I have five china-head dolls that I had picked up cheaply in sales bins at shows. They obviously don't look as realistic but I am hopeful I can use them to add more customers to the quilt and knitting shops.

I will put my hand up and admit that dressing dolls is not my forte. If I'm on a course with a teacher to guide me, then I can turn out a reasonable product. Left to my own devices, I generally end up with something that looks more like a mutant.

Here are the 'before' pictures.

The doll at the right is wearing a hand-knit jumper that I bought separately. She was the least in need of attention, so I started with her.

I stripped off the remains of her blouse and took off the trousers. They were way too big, with a crotch that was about half an inch too low. So I raised the crotch and slimmed down the legs with some stitching.

I also cut off the waistband and re-stitched the front and back seams to reduce excess.

Then I put it back on the doll, hand stitched the pleats in again, and gathered up the waist.

As she was suffering from a major bad hair day, I trimmed up the hair with nail scissors and then sprayed her whole head with hair spray to smooth down the fly-aways.

Then the handknit jumper went back on.

Now she is having a good dig into the sales bin in the knitting shop.

The next mutant to receive some attention was the older bag lady in the head scarf. I stripped off all of her clothes, and peeled off her wild hot-glued hair mop. I had some grey hair in my stash already formed into ripples, so I glued some of that on to create a hairstyle, and added some bead earrings.

For her clothing, I cut up an old cardigan. I used a bit of the ribbed collar for her skirt, and then cut a pattern out of kitchen paper towel for her tunic top.

I cut the tunic out all in one piece, hemmed under the cuffs at the wrist, and applied glue along the cut edge of the back and front to stop fraying. Then I cut a slit for the neck, and sewed the side seams on the sewing machine. I wasn't sure what to do with the neckline, as I thought trying to turn it under would be too bulky. So I glued on some mini rickrack. I'm not entirely happy with it, perhaps I should have tried to do a collar.

And here she is, taking part in the quilting workshop on the top floor.

Two dolls was all that I had time for, so three more to go.

All dolled up

2012-01-28T10:04:00.000-08:00

There are two big jobs I have been putting off on this house, and today I finally started one of them. The other job will be to make loads of precise small quilts to hang from the ceiling. But today I tackled the doll population.

I'm not always convinced about dolls in a dollshouse, partly because the ones I can afford don't look very realistic. Some of my houses have them, some of them don't. But I felt that part of the ambience of a quilting and knitting shop is to have lots of customers and staff, so I have been picking up cheap resin figures and cheap dolls when I've seen them over the past few years.

I knew it was time to tackle the dolls when DH asked why there were so many 'corpses' littering the shop floor. We decided that the psychopath must be the guy with the coffee cup as he looked far too young to be drinking coffee and too calm about being surrounded by dead bodies.

Anyway.

So today I tackled re-painting the resin figures. These are relatively crudely painted in the first place, so there was a fair bit of touching up to do where paint had slopped on the wrong surface or hadn't fully covered. Also, I had some duplicate figures which I wanted to make look different. This was surprisingly time consuming and while the results are not perfect, they aren't bad for an average £8 per figure. All touching up was done with Games Workshop acrylic paints. I did find that some of these dolls aren't the same scale, with obvious size differences when you put them next to each other.

I started with the ~~psychopath~~ gentlemen. The guy on the right who will be a husband just needed touching up plus I painted his t-shirt grey. The store clerk got darker hair, less effeminate eyebrows, tidier shoes, and a nametag which reveals his name is Cam.

For the knitter, I tidied her up, gave her silver shoe buckles, made her hair and eyebrows greyer to match her wrinkles and reduced the size of her staring pupils. The shopper in yellow got her bra show-thru toned down, another strap on her sandals, and a tidy up. Shopper on the right got a tidy up, a blonder hair colour and improved shoes.

I wanted this other knitter to look younger, despite the wrinkles, so I darkened her hair and gave her a fringe (bangs) which looks awful in this picture but looks more convincing in the dollshouse. I darkened her skirt a little, changed the neckline of her jumper and gave her different shoes.

This figure isn't great to start with, her head is too small and a bit squashed looking. I wanted the duplicates to look different. I tidied up the left figure, repainted her 'fabric' stack, reduced the size of her pupils and tried to make her eyebrows look less surprised. She is staff so also got a nametag after I took this picture. The shopper on the right got blue jeans, a turquoise top, socks, red shoes, blonde hair, different lipstick and makeup, blonde eyebrows. As a finishing touch, I glued a real leather handbag strap over her arm, cutting it so it looks like it is hanging from her arm.

Another pair of duplicates. The one on the right just got a tidy up, and a quilting magazine to hold (I trimmed it so it fit into the crook of her arm). The one on the left got tights, new shoes, a red cardigan, brunette hair, and a handknit scarf.

By this time I had run out of energy so the dressed dolls will have to wait for another day. But I enjoyed sticking the results of my labours into the Willowcrest.

So much detail

2012-01-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons that I prefer constructing dollshouses to actually furnishing them is that there is just so much detail required to give any semblance of realism. You can spend a couple of hours creating one small thing to tuck into one corner of a scene where it gets almost lost even though it adds to the atmosphere. Yet a couple of hours might be the only amount of time I get to dollshouse during a working week.

Doing a quilting shop is very detail intensive since your average quilt shop is packed chocka full with stuff. But I am soldiering on.

I unearthed some 'cutting mats' that I had printed off a few years ago and glued to green card, when I was building the cutting station for the main shop. This time I cut out the smaller mats to use on the workshop tables on the top floor. Now I need to work out how to simulate 1/12th scale rotary cutters to go with the mats.

My two hours this week was spent putting together a Phoenix Miniatures white metal kit DH51 antique sewing machine. This is how it comes, and at first I didn't understand how to put it together (there are no instructions). I did some googling and found it was a model of a Wilcox and Gibbs sewing machine, then found this fabulous website which had pictures of actual old machines to help me understand how to assemble and paint it.

So I glued it together with Zap-a-Gap but left the base separate. I painted the machine with Games Workshop (GW) Chaos Black, GW Chain Mail, GW Scorched Brown and GW Burnished Gold. The base is supposed to be wood, so I painted that with Scorched Brown, drybrushed with GW Snakebite Leather, and painted the feet with Burnished Gold. I finished them both with a gloss varnish but in retrospect I think it would have been better to do the wood in a satin varnish as it came out looking too shiny. The gold decoration was way too tiny for me to paint so I just 'scribbled' with the tip of a toothpick dipped in Burnished Gold to give an effect. If you are wondering what I am holding, it's a wine cork topped with bluetack which my DH came up with as a handy way to hold small things you are trying to paint. I think he saw the idea on someone else's website.

The machine was placed on top of one of the display cases in the knitting shop, as a cute accent.

Bribery works

2011-12-28T11:04:00.000-08:00

With the prospect of being able to start the McKinley build if I can just get my Willowcrest into a more finished state, I have actually done some work on it this week. My office is closed between Christmas and New Year so I have some time in hand to work on it.

I started with the top floor, which I have designed as a workshop area and knitting corner. This was the easiest place to start as most of the components were already assembled and just needed to be put in place. (Although I also stuck a few more accessories into the knitting shop on the second floor).

First off, I took out most of the furniture from the top floor and stuck in some 'quilts' on the walls. I still need to add more, but left to right these are: a print of a vintage quilt on fabric, which I sewed into a 'quilt'; a silk carpet which I thought looked like a quilt; two small cross stitch pieces which a friend gave me; another silk carpet which I trimmed down to fit above the storage cupboard; and a cross-stitch coverlet (done by machine I think) which I bought at a dollshouse show. The tiny hand stitched hexagon quilt over the stair railing is a vintage quilt I bought at an antique show.(The giant red reindeer on the outside balcony is a Christmas ornament.)

I had a bare-wood ironing board that I think I bought from Apollo Miniatures, and a bare metal iron. I painted the ironing board grey to start with.

Then I painted the tray part of the ironing board with Games Workshop Chainmail to look like silver metal. The iron I primed with Games Workshop Foundation Paint, and then painted white, with a neon green insert and a red light. I covered the board itself with a printed fabric cover, just wrapped around and glued neatly underneath.

I positioned the ironing board behind the stair railing, where it will be accessible to all workshop users.

I had previously made five plaster copies of a resin sewing machine that I had purchased (see previous post). This week I spent some time making them all a foot pedal, using some spare electrical wire and a piece of crown moulding cut into segments and painted white. Once those were ready, I stuck in the workshop tables and chairs, and positioned the five workstations with their machines.

With the tables in place, I can start adding accessories to each work station, such as some tiny tape measures, some turned spools of thread, some bolts of fabric, and a tiny little thimble, and a pre-prepared sewing notions basket. I need to add lots more, including some cutting mats.

Now I am working on the 'knitting corner' on the other side of the railing. I had one knitting bag that I made in my old dollshouse club quite a while ago, so this morning I made up a kit from Model Village Miniatures for a second bag. The kit comes with everything you need, including fabric, cardboard, handles, and the materials to make up some accessories including wool, 'needles', a fake pattern, segments of drinking straw, preprinted wool labels and a pre-printed tape measure.

I shouldn't complain as the kit is extremely reasonably priced, but I found the instructions for the bag rather unclear so resorted to working it out for myself. It turned out fairly well.

Then I made up the accessories.

And this is the finished knitting bag, which will go on the floor next to the bench in the knitting corner.

Merry Christmas to me!

2011-12-25T06:12:00.000-08:00

Look what Santa managed to deliver on 23 December, courtesy of the Greenleaf company sale!

It's the 1/12th scale McKinley wall-hung dollshouse kit, which I've always wanted, plus the Diana which is one of the newer birchwood laser cut 1/24th scale Victorian houses.

For the benefit of any UK readers, I will go into a bit more detail about what was involved in ordering this from the States.

When I got the sales notification, I emailed Greenleaf directly to ask how much international shipping to the UK would be. For these two kits, they quoted c. $110. From the paperwork included with the box, it looks like this was based on the United States Postal Service Priority main International Rate / Commercial Base Pricing. The large but thin box was posted on 6 December from Greenleaf.

Around 16 December, I received a card in the post from UK Parcelforce Worldwide to say that a parcel had arrived from overseas and was subject to Customs charges. On the declared value of $130, they charged the following:

Customs Duty: zero
Excise Duty: zero
Import VAT (Value Added Tax) £30.17
Other: zero
Clearance Fee: £8
------------------------
Total £38.17

I paid this fee online using a credit card at http://www.parcelforce.com/, and was able to specify my delivery date. I picked 23 December because I knew I would be home that day, but I could have had it earlier. The parcel was delivered to my door early on 23 December.

This means that my total expenses for these two houses are:
Purchase at 25% discount in sale, plus shipping (c.$110): $245.72 (c. £157.61)
VAT/Clearance fee: £38.17
----------------------------
Total: £195.78

Considering that I don't think you can get either of these houses in the UK at the moment, and that Elora Dollshouses in Canada (who come up in Google results over here as UK shippers) would have charged CAN $192 just to send the McKinley over here (c £120), I think my purchase compares favourably. Also favourably against the price of UK-made house kits, although I am on weaker ground there as the McKinley is still the rubbish mahogany diecut plywood. Now that I have bought one, Greenleaf will no doubt issue this in spanking new laser cut birch ply.

Now I must exert superhuman willpower and not start building the McKinley until I have done a better job on finishing up the Willowcrest.

Christmas comes but once a year

2011-12-23T05:44:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of Christmas decorations, but this year our real tree is about two feet shorter than last year due to significant price increases and I didn't have room for all my ornaments. I was looking for somewhere to put this set of ceramic Alice in Wonderland ornaments when my eye fell upon my Willowcrest front yard.

Look who's come to browse the fabric and yarn sale!

It's Miniatura time!

2011-09-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, it was Miniatura time again, which embarrassingly seems to be the only time I blog on here. But I've pretty much finished up my Fairfield build, so perhaps I will be able to continue with the Willowcrest when I get more time to do minis again.

Anyway, I had a lovely day up at the NEC in Birmingham, going around one of the UK's largest miniatures fairs. I was mainly looking for 1:24th scale accessories for the Fairfield, but I ended up getting several things for the Willowcrest.

I was pleased to find all of these modern resin figures, including two that are actually knitting!! They were on the Jennifer's of Walsall stand. Normally I only see figures in Victorian costume, but these will make great customers for the store, and the knitters can go into the 'knitters' corner' on the top floor workshop area. The man with the coffee cup might go behind the counter and be staff, although I need to make him look a bit older as he looks far too young to even be drinking coffee, much less working in a store. I also got the little vacuum cleaner there, because stores usually have those to clean up with at the end of the day.

I made most of my bolts of fabric for my quilt shop myself, but I couldn't resist being lazy and buying some more from Shepherd Miniatures, as well as the basket of fat quarter fabric pieces.

The 'No Smoking' and 'Private' signs are for the shop, as is the solid oak footstool which was an astonishingly cheap .80p from a stand selling mainly Tudor furniture.

The kits at the front for three display stands and a knitting bag are all from Model Village Miniatures, who don't have a website but they do mail order and here are their details:

I got some other nice things for other houses, which are on my main blog here.

It's a miracle

2011-08-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am actually posting here. Just to say that I have made a few jugs from paper using printables, which will go in the quilt shop as 'artistic decor'. You can read about it on this short post on my Fairfield blog.

The Willowcrest has been weighing increasingly on my 'guilt' button, more and more I feel like I should be working on it and getting it to a more finished state. I'm almost 'finished' the Fairfield (are they ever finished) so I think after that I will try to return to the Willowcrest and clear up some of the chaos on the ground floor.

Thanks to anyone who is still hanging in there!

Display detail

2010-11-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

This week I was so desperate to work on a dollshouse, and I'd had to put away my Fairfield construction project as we had a guest in the house, that I actually did some work on the Willowcrest (gasp of amazement). I'd been chucking things into the quilt shop on the ground floor as I acquired them, where they sat waiting for their final destination.

Some of those things were adorable 'kits' for making teddy bears, which I bought at Miniatura, together with a mini teddy bear to display with them. From the same stand, I bought some mini x-stitch 'kits'. So these all went up on the wall in the quilt shop as a new display.

Not much progress I admit - but it's something.

To quote Monty Python: "I'm not dead yet!"

2010-10-03T11:50:00.000-07:00

Despite the temporary abandonment while I build my Fairfield, I have not given up on the Willowcrest. And today while I was at Miniatura, the biggest dollshouse fair in the UK (I think), I snagged a few more accoutrements for it. Plus we went to the big Dollshouse Emporium shop in Ripley, where I picked up a few others.

The two woven silk rugs, from Dollshouse Emporium, are intended for children's rooms but will make great quilts to display in the Willowcrest quilt shop. I may cut down the 'applique' quilt into two smaller cot quilts.

The advertising sign board is a kit from Model Village Miniatures, who were also selling the tiny knitted teddy in the corner of the picture. The knitted teddy, and the cute 1/24th scale fair isle sweater from another stand (being sold off for only £5!!!) will go in the knitting shop on the upper floor.

I'm being unfaithful...

2010-07-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

For the patient people who are STILL waiting for me to finish this house, I have to 'fess up that I am being unfaithful. I'm spending all of my dollshouse time now on a Greenleaf Fairfield kit, which you can read about on my other blog here.

I am still intending to finish the Willowcrest interior (well, as much as these things are ever finished) and I have picked up the odd thing for it at dollshouse shows. But somehow it is just far more sexy to be building again, I am much better at construction than I am at interior decorating it seems.

Third floor workshop area

2009-12-20T07:20:00.000-08:00

I converted a bare wood chest of drawers and a cheap cupboard, to turn them into furniture for my third floor workshop area in my Willowcrest quilting and knitting shop. You can read more about it on my main blog post here.

Dust - the ever present enemy

2009-11-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

The problem with American-style open back dollshouses, or indeed with any miniatures not sealed up behind a hinged door or a glass front... is DUST. It is so awful to look proudly in at your creation and suddenly realise there is a light film over everything, including lots of things that will be impossible to dust or vacuum without breaking them or losing them down the vacuum forever.

I've even taken to covering my vignettes and smaller houses with a plastic-bag tent - looks like heck but at least it keeps the dust off. And my Christmas vignette is wrapped up in clingfilm until December rolls around.

So it was inevitable that the Willowcrest would fall victim to the enemy. I am still (very) slowly working on it, but the dust is working on it faster. So it needed a cover. It's too big to put a plastic bag over so I was trying to think what I could do.

On another open backed house, I have screwed screws into the sides so that their heads just protrude, and drilled holes into thin plexiglass so the sheet will hang from the screws and keep the dust out.

But the Willowcrest construction isn't strong enough for putting screws into.

So I had a brainwave and went to the haberdashery store and bought some clear vinyl, and some of the Velcro that is sticky on one side, and the other side gets sewn on.

I cut the vinyl to shape to fit the back of the house from top to bottom, and stuck pieces of velcro at all four corners of the opening. On the vinyl, I sewed on the corresponding velcro, backing it with felt to strengthen the stitching.

Now I can just press the cover on to keep out most of the dust. It doesn't look too bad, and it is easy to remove. I took a closeup picture so you can see the felt stitching on the upper corner.

Office nearly finished

2009-07-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to do some dollshousing every week, and have slowly filled and accessorised the sales counter, office cupboard and sink counter for my Willowcrest quilting and knitting shop. This is situated in the area which is normally the kitchen for the kit, only I cut out the wall into the hall to turn it into the office area for the shop.

This is the office shelf. The laptop and printer are from Jim's Printables site of free printies, as are some of the office products, the calculator and tape dispenser are metal minis I picked up somewhere and painted, the basket of quilting goodies on the bottom shelf came in a swap, the filing box is from Jim's site, I made the in-tray from coffee stirrers.

This is the sales counter. I put together the kit I bought at SIMP in Paris, which is boxes of little cards wound with 'Anchor' tapestry yarn. They are a bit out of scale I think, but look nice as a display in my shop counter. I filled the rest of the shop counter with a gift box display I made from a free cut-out in a magazine, and with ribbon wound onto some of the reels I assembled from a kit by 'Lisa's Little Things'. I glued a tape measure onto the top of the counter for measuring the ribbons at point of sale. Now I need to make a cash register and credit card machine, and paint my plastic telephone to go on top of the counter.

This is the sink counter, which fits under the side window. I had two fridge magnets that looked like a photocopier and a filing cabinet, so I have doctored them up (removed the magnet, covered up or painted out unwanted detail, added accessories). And I made a little curtain to go under the sink, which itself I ripped out of a cheap cabinet and glued on top of a whitewood open-shelf display unit.

This is the nearly completed office, although I have since put down a carpet which looks nice behind the sales counter.

You may remember (if you have been reading older posts) that I had an alcove under the stairs which was going to house the toilet until I realised there wasn't enough headroom. I didn't know what I was going to do with it after that, but looking through an online catalogue for something else, I suddenly had a brainwave and realised a washing machine would fit in there perfectly. Now the staff have somewhere to pre-wash their fabric, wash finished quilts etc.

And here is the state of play. As you can see the office and bathroom are largely finished, the knitting shop is pretty much finished, the quilt shop itself is still in flux, and the attic workshop area is awaiting attention.

Finally some work on this house

2009-05-23T01:38:00.000-07:00

I apologise to anyone who has been wondering what's happening with my Willowcrest. For several months it was bundled into my bedroom and pretty inaccessible, so didn't really get worked on. But I have now converted the end of my living room into a dollshouse display area using old kitchen cabinets, and most of my bigger houses are now on view and accessible for being worked on. So I've finally done a bit more work on the Willowcrest.

In the customer bathroom I 'frosted' the window glass by stippling it with Fabric Mod Podge quite thickly. Once dry it looks amazingly like frosted glass.

Inside I mounted a wall shelf accessorised with pretty 'bottles' and spare toilet roll, and added an ornamental 'liquid soap' container to the sink. I still haven't decided what I will do with the under-stairs closet - it may be a stockroom eventually, or I may just conceal it with a curtain.

In the knitting shop I have added lots more knitting on display including some pieces that I bought at the London Kensington Dollshouse Festival (like the lace shawl in the window), and generally given it a tidy up. There are still some empty shelves I need to fill with books and accessories. I haven't taken a picture but I also stuck some knitting out on the walls of the stair landing, where customers would see them as they came upstairs.

Still loads to do on this house, on the ground floor quilt shop and on the top floor workshop area.

No, it isn't finished yet

2009-02-02T05:12:00.000-08:00

Thank you, Erika, for prompting me to post again. I've been meaning to for a while, just hadn't got around to taking any pics. I haven't been doing much work on the house as my real job has been pretty busy, but I have now filled most of the shelves in the quilt shop. There are still loads of accessories to add, to dress all the nooks and crannies, but here are some pics of the work in progress so that you know I haven't just vanished into the ether.

This is the top floor, which will be an area for quilting workshops, and for quiet knitting groups to gather.

This is the knitting shop, currently in a bit of a mess because I have thrown in things that need to be added but haven't actually placed them yet.

Here is one view of the quilt shop.

And here is a view looking to the left in the ground floor quilt shop.

Here is the sales counter and office, still in rough shape.

Still winding fabric bolts

2008-10-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

Anyone still reading this blog is likely wondering if I have died. I am still slowly winding fabric bolts for the quilt shop, and probably have the shelves about 75% full now. I've also bought a few more things for the house at the big Miniatura show in Birmingham. And I made this cute Indian elbow basket from a kit.

Earthquake strikes house

2008-08-22T02:26:00.000-07:00

Not my house, just the Willowcrest. I decided it was time to move it out of the kitchen, where it has been since I started constructon in October. The main construction was completed a few months ago and since then I am really only working on furnishing the inside. For quite a while the house was on the dining table and we were eating on the picnic table. Then the mostly completed house got moved to the picnic table and we got the big table back. And to be honest I haven't been working on it much, not least because I didn't have enough working room on the little picnic table (I am one of those people that can fill up any given worksurface with cr*p and end up actually working in a clear area about six square inches right on the edge.) So today I took the big decision and moved the house up to my bedroom, and all the tools and bits and pieces and RECLAIMED THE KITCHEN! Hilariously, neither Ds nor Dh have noticed yet, even though they came back to the house while I was in the middle of doing it. I think the mess has been there so long that we have all developed a blind spot for that corner. Needless to say, the kitchen seems enormous now that the massive blot has been cleared away. My plan is to continue to work on furnishing the house in my bedroom (which is also my sewing room). Here is a before and after pic of the kitchen.

The yarn shop is pretty much finished now, although I can always add more accessories. So now I have started winding fabric bolts for the quilt shop. I have cut white mount card into pieces 5/8" x 2 inches. If I cut fabric pieces a little under four inches wide, then fold them in half and iron the fold, I can wind that around the card a few times then glue down the loose end. It makes a fairly realistic looking fabric bolt. Luckily, as a quilter, I have a wide selection of cotton fabric patterns and colours to choose from. It's going a bit quicker than winding yarn balls, but I still need lots and lots of them.

What's happening?

2008-08-01T01:59:00.001-07:00

Sorry about the long silence - my momentum has slowed to a crawl the last few months. I never thought that when I set up in our kitchen back in October, that the house would still be here nine months later. Luckily my family are being very supportive about it - they are so used to it being there now that I think it just blends into the general clutter.

I have been making a few furniture kits up for the shops, which I have blogged at my other blog here. I've also continued to wind dozens of balls of wool and have now filled all the displays in the yarn shop.

So the yarn shop is pretty much finished apart from more signage and accessories, and it is time to start creating fabric bolts for the quilt shop. Again, I want to go for a very well stocked look - I think a lot of dollshouse shops fall down because there isn't enough stock to be realistic - real shops are usually pretty crowded with goods for sale.

Dijon UK are having a 50% off sale this week and I have sent off for a modern sink to go in the office (what is normally the kitchen in the Willowcrest). I already have some cool fridge magnets that look like a photocopier and a filing cabinet.

Still winding balls of yarn

2008-06-16T03:23:00.000-07:00

I am (very) slowly filling up the yarn studio with balls and skeins of yarn. I can do about 18 in an hour before I get bored. I want the shop to look very well stocked, so I need loads. Not much else is happening apart from I stained the assortment of whitewood furniture for the quilt shop on the main floor so that it all matches. I have sent off for some sewing accessory kits from Lisa's Little Things in America which will help to stock the counters.

Winding endless balls of yarn

2008-05-30T12:06:00.001-07:00

Despite winding what seems like 100s of yarn balls, I am still only about halfway through filling up my yarn store shelves on the middle floor of my Willowcrest. I've also worked out a way of winding skeins of yarns, for some variety on the shelves. I've also had some fun pinning up some knitted garments (bought, won in raffles or gifts to me) on the walls.

It's an inside job

2008-05-25T00:17:00.001-07:00

The exterior of my Willowcrest is now pretty much finished - there will just be some signage to add with the names of the shops, at some point. I am now working on filling the inside.

The picket fence came from Joanne's Fabric Store in America, it was in the dried flowers section and is about 3/4 inch high - more of a 'keep off the lawn' fence. You can see that I painted my electrical wire green, to blend it into the lawn, and the bit of fence it goes under can be loosened in case I need to lift the house off of the base.

It feels very strange to finally be positioning items and furniture that I first conceived of more than six months ago. I think for a long time it seemed like this day would never come, when the house was still a bunch of unpainted bits of splintery plywood and endless tasks like the clapboarding still lay ahead of me.

I've started with the knitting shop because I have all the furniture pieces for it - I don't have everything for downstairs yet and have ordered a few more bookcases from Maple Street (a dollshouse website here in the UK). I had several white wood bookcases and yesterday I cut up many tongue depressors to create vertical dividers in the bookcases, to turn them into yarn display cases. Then I sprayed them white with auto primer. I took all the balls of yarn I have wound so far - and found they only filled half of one display case when I have five or six to fill. This is going to be a big job. I was able to buy some pre-wound wool balls at the London Kensington show, but I will have to do most myself. I did fill one cabinet so far and it looks very effective.

Gardening time

2008-05-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the landscaping around the house. I don't want to do too much, as American houses typically have a pretty empty 'yard', unlike English gardens. I will be adding a picket fence which is why there are little pegs glued into the base which will be the supports for the fence. After painting the base green, I flocked it with model railway fine flock for 'grass', then I added some 'bushes'.

On the side I wanted to use some rose blooms that I bought at a scrapbooking shop. I made stems from paper covered wire painted brown and green, and glued the roses on, then added some 'leaves' of green lichen. The roses all looked a bit same-y so I touched them up with a bit of paint. It doesn't bear close scrutiny but considering it didn't cost much, it looks ok.

Thank you, Mar!

2008-05-11T10:53:00.001-07:00

I received a lovely surprise when I got a message through The Greenleaf Forum from Mar in the Netherlands. She has enjoyed reading this blog and has found it helpful for the renovation she is doing of an old Willowcrest house. She offered to send me an embroidery silks sample card to use in my quilting shop, as she was making up a few for some Dutch ladies. Of course I said yes, and yesterday it arrived. Not only was there the little card, but several more waiting to be cut out, and a HUGE bag of embroidery silks, and some linen fabric! Thank you so much, Mar, you are so nice and I can certainly use this in my quilt shop. I will use some of the silks as embroidery skeins, and likely wind some of the other into balls of 'wool' for the knitting shop. Here is a pic on the steps of my Willowcrest. As you can see, I now have the glass fitted to the shopfront.

It has been full steam ahead on the house whenever I can get some time. I am working full time now so it is harder to make time.

I tried out a stained glass window effect for the stair window, using Sharpie permanent markers to draw a pattern on plastic. I used a tip from Rik Pierce and painted clear nail polish on the external side - if you splodge it on, it makes the plastic look much more like glass. Don't paint nail polish on the coloured side, it will dissolve the marker pen color - ask me how I know this... This is a picture taken through the living room bay (ignore the cupboard, forgot to move it out of the pic) and you can see the window.

And I've started landscaping the base - starting with a coat of 'grass green' paint. Then I will flock it with foam flock to look like grass, then put in a few bushes.

Interior windows, and refinements

2008-05-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

After four coats of paint, sanding in between each one, I declared the interior window frames 'done'. They still look rougher than commercially produced windows but it was time to move on. I think I mentioned before that the acetate windows that came with the kit were all scratched as when I opened the kit box I found them mixed in with all the shingles and clapboard sheets. I was able to purchase some heavy vinyl plastic from Maple Street (a dollshouse store here in the UK) and I re-cut replacement windows, using the originals as patterns. This worked well apart from it means I do not have any sashing strips in my windows (the originals had unconvincing white lines screen printed on them). I think this makes the windows look rather empty and not convincingly period, but my husband says it looks like the house has been updated with modern doubleglazing. I'm going to live with it for a while, I may decide to add wooden cross bars later.

I then glued the plastic to the inside of the frames with tacky glue, and weighted them with books while they dried. The finished windows were glued to the interior walls with quick grab solvent based glue. I was fairly, but not entirely, successful in keeping glue off of the window panes. As I said before, I found that the window frames and the window apertures were not identical in size, therefore I had to paint the back of the internal frames (because it shows from outside in some cases) and a rim of external colour on the interior walls (because this showed inside in some cases).

I haven't done the right side wall windows yet (bath and stair) because I may try to do a stained glass effect on them. I have now been starting the final refinements on the construction, tidying up various things, such as:

- covering up the angles of the dormer windows with right-angle moulding, to hide the tabs.

- I had stained the bedroom door frames, and it was bugging me that the unstained wall was showing through. So I stained some coffee stirrers, and covered up the wall for a more finished look.

- and before I put the glass into the front shop windows, I glued in some laser cut signs that I bought in Chicago - one for the quilting shop above where the sales counter will go, and one at an angle on the staircase to point customers upstairs to the knitting shop.

Exterior now more or less finished

2008-04-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

Suddenly my exterior is more or less finished. There are still the windows to install, but as they go on the inside they don't really count as part of the exterior. The only thing I still need to do is the landscaping of the base. I've been trying harder to put time in on the Willowcrest because I want to get it finished so I can get busy with the house that I built in Chicago in a workshop with Rik Pierce.

After painting the plastic railings to look like verdigris, I installed them around the top roof fascia by drilling holes partway into the wood to accommodate the plastic posts. By carefully trimming the pieces of railing, I was able to achieve a seamless look although I haven't actually glued the seams yet. If I do glue them, I will use plastic modeller's glue. The posts themselves are fixed into the holes with tacky glue. I think the railing really adds an authentic 'Second Empire' look to the house. I may also install railing around the porch roof and fix a sign to it, but I will leave that decision until later.

Then I painted the Northeastern brackets that I bought in Chicago at the Three Blind Mice show. The brackets that came with the Willowcrest kit almost all fell apart, the inside of the veneer sandwich literally crumbling away in whole or in part from most of them. These Northeastern brackets are virtually the same size. They came in sets of four so I had enough to install two brackets at the rear of the house to give continuity, although I had to trim them narrower as the fascia does not protrude as much at the back. I think I mentioned earlier that my main fascia is not entirely level, so I had to trim the angle on several of my brackets to fit them into the not-90-degree positions.

I am now working on all the interior window mouldings, which I sealed and then gave a preliminary coat of emulsion prior to a thorough sanding and filling holes with smooth filler. Before I did all that, I glued some crown moulding on the 'sills' of most of the frames, to make them look more dimensional and realistic. It seems that each window will need individual attention, as the frames are not exact matches for the openings. Therefore on some windows you will see the underside of the interior frame from outside (so it will need to be painted in the interior colour) and on other windows you will see the interior edge of the opening protruding forward from the interior window frame (so it will need to be painted in the external colour).

I'm still going

2008-04-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

Evidence to the contrary, I am still working on this house but things have stalled a bit the last month. I was away in Chicago for two weeks (building a house with Rik Pierce and attending the Tom Bishop show) and now I have started a new full time job which is demanding a lot of my energy.

I bought loads of accessories for the house at the Bishop show. But about the only thing I have done since I returned is to paint the railings to look like verdigris. These will be installed on top of some of the roof trim, like a typical Second Empire house.

Roof colour

2008-03-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

I think I am just about there on the roof colour. Starting with a basecoat of Anita Rust Red, I washed over a thin coat of Anita Chocolate Brown. I then shaded under the shingle lines with Anita Hunter Green watered down. Since taking this photo I have also highlighted the upper edge of the shingle line with Games Workshop Foundation paint in a light red. I picked out the line of fishscale shingles in watery Hunter Green.

As you can see, despite best efforts, I have managed to get quite a bit of paint onto my blue trim, so the next job is to go back and touch up the blue and green paintwork.

Shingling finished, now deciding roof colour

2008-03-14T07:12:00.000-07:00

The shingling is finished, and I could finally sweep away the kazillion little bits of shingle and splinters and sawdust littering my work area. It looks like a house now, and I feel like the end is in sight, even though there is still loads to do.

I have about three-quarters of a sheet of shingles left, even after wasting about a sheet on my false start, so there are plenty of shingles in the kit. In fact, I also found some more clapboard in my box which I had thought was shingle, so I had more clapboard left over than I thought also.

Now I have to decide what colour to paint the roof. I've put on a starting coat of Anita's Rust Red but I don't want this to be the final colour, it is too orangey and too much like the foundation. I'm not sure whether I want to go darker, or lighter. I've taken the left over shingles and mocked up a bit of 'shingled roof' on a scrap bit of MDF board, and I will try out a few paint possibilities on that. I want something that will look realistic, but also contrast with the blue and green colours. I am tempted to pick out the fishscale shingles in a different colour, but I did read that that wouldn't be historically accurate. I might do it anyway.

Right mansard roof shingled

2008-03-02T13:51:00.000-08:00

Right mansard roof is now shingled. I introduced two rows of fishscale shingles for some period interest, and again used the cardboard shingles on the corners. On the back I shingled up to the level of the fascia board, then stopped to give the illusion that the fascia board continues around the back of the roof. I've bowed to family pressure and moved the house onto the small picnic table so that the family can have the dining table back. The red colour is only a base colour, I will be adding further washes over the red.

Top roof shingling done, and main roof fascia

2008-02-22T00:22:00.000-08:00

As my family are getting increasingly fed up with having the dining table tied up with my Willowcrest building project, I have been pressing on with the shingling. The top roof is now done (apart from final painting). As you can see in the 'before' picture, I used the Greenleaf wooden shingles for the main panels, but finished the ridges with cardboard shingles from Bromley Craft Products which bend easily and look realistic when painted. I used pre-painted shingles in places that were touching up against other finished paint work, then gave the whole roof a base coat of Anita's Rust Red when finished. Once the mansard roof is also shingled I will be darkening and toning down this red colour.

In preparation for shingling the mansard roof, I have also glued on the main roof fascia board. This went on fine, I only had to adjust the shaped end to fit around my clapboard a bit better, and I am doing a bit of filling on the exposed ends.

Next step will be mansard roof shingling, and after that perhaps I can return the dining table to the family and use the picnic table instead.

Shingling

2008-02-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

Now that the clapboard is finally out of the way, I have turned my attention to shingling the roof. I am using the thin shingles that come with the kit. The instructions advise you to draw lines on the roof at a set distance, and they warn that when the roof encounters another roof line, the angle will be different. The instructions say to continue the previously drawn lines across the new roof angle, although the gap between them will now be different.

Well, I decided to start with the top roof (where the chimney is), thinking that it will be easier because it is at a shallow angle and fairly simple in shape. I shingled up one narrow end, and then started across the back. I was dismayed to find that the rows of shingles on the back side were not matching up at all with the shingles on the side roof, even though I was butting up to the lines I had drawn. I had to remove the shingles from the back roof, which destroyed them so hopefully there are extras in the kit. I know it is something to do with the differing angles but I can't get my head around the problem. So I am drawing new lines that match up to the first shingled side, one row at a time, and checking each time to ensure that it looks ok visually. It is a bit of trial and error but I am slowly getting there. The tip in the instructions to put masking tape on a row of shingles works really well, and I am finding that I can easily trim them with scissors. The pic shows some masking tape on a pre-painted sheet of shingles, before I cut them into strips.

I've also painted my foundation, and finished painting the porch, and installed my cellar windows. I decided that I don't like the acetate windows that came with the kit, mine are really scratched because they were just kicking around with all the shingles and clapboard inside the box when I opened it. And they look really shiny and unrealistic. I've got some heavy vinyl so I cut some of that to replace the cellar windows. Not sure what I am going to do for the main windows.

I finally finished the clapboard!

2008-02-01T00:56:00.000-08:00

I glued the last two small pieces of clapboard on this morning, and it is finally FINISHED!!! I can't believe how long it has taken, this was a supremely fiddly job and I am now sympathetic with the builders who just stucco the whole outside of these houses. It looks really good though, and I am very pleased with how the house is looking so far. I need to go back and touch up the paint job here and there but overall it is getting close to being finished.

I was fairly miserly with my use of the Greenleaf individual clapboards that came with the kit, re-using shorter pieces whenever possible. After clapboarding all four sides, I have leftover 14 whole sticks, and a handful of shorter bits, so there is enough if you re-use everything that you can. I kept a Tupperware for all the really short pieces, which you sometimes need to fit into odd cracks around the window mouldings etc. I think I used up about 3.5 travel-toothpaste-size tubes of solvent-based glue to do all four sides (like QuickGrab, UHU, Bostik etc.).

I appealed on the Greenleaf community board for tips on how to shape the clapboard around intricate window mouldings. On my own, I had come up with pressing a stick of BlueTack (an office product, like a sticky clay for sticking paper to walls) around the moulding to take an impression, then tracing around that onto a board. A very clever suggestion from the group was to run a compass point along the moulding edge, while the pencil end simultaneously traces the shape onto the board that you hold up in the correct position. My cutting shears were invaluable for quickly snipping straight cuts into the boards, and I used an X-Acto knife for curved cuts. My Dremel tool with a medium sanding drum was also useful for shaving off small amounts for final fitting, particularly from curved cuts. I pre-painted all the boards, and before applying each board, I touched up any raw wood showing from being trimmed. I also painted a narrow band of the clapboard colour around all mouldings so that if there were any gaps at the ends of boards showing through to underneath, it was less obvious.

Mochas Mom - question re hinging

2008-01-23T01:55:00.000-08:00

Mochas Mom, your profile is set to 'no reply/no access' so I couldn't email you re your comment. Here is my answer to your query re hinging doors:

Thank you! I love this house, it is such an attractive design. Because I have converted the house to be a shop (store), I actually only have two hinged doors. There is the main front door, which is a commercially purchased set of French doors with the grille removed, so it comes already hinged. The other is the bathroom door. Because the kit door is so thick, and got even thicker when I applied coffee stirrers to give a panelled effect, I hinged the bathroom door with the pin method. I drilled a small hole at the top and bottom, near the corner, and glued in a sewing pin, then cut the sewing pin down to about 1/4 inch. You need to round off the hinge edge of the door for this to work, so it will open smoothly. Then I drilled a corresponding hole in the floor for the bottom pin to fit into, and a slot into the top of the door frame (hidden by the door moulding) for the top pin to fit into. To mount the door, I just pushed the bottom pin into the floor hole, then stood the door up so the top pin went into the slot. Then I glued on the door moulding to hide the slot. The door pivots on the pins. If you didn't round off the hinge side of the door, then the corners of the door would bind and it wouldn't pivot properly. They do make small brass hinges but I felt it would be too difficult to try to attach them.

Porch framed in

2008-01-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

I've finished framing in the porch, although I am going to leave the glazing until later. I filled in between the door and the pillars with some scrap ply leftover from the kit, and applied a baseboard of the same. I applied thin strip along the upper edge on both sides, then finished off the top surface with a coffee stirrer to bring it pretty much level with the top of the pedestals. At the back edge I ran a strip up from the lower panel to the bracket going into the house, to mark the outside of the shop window. Since taking this photo, I have applied clapboard on both sides and now the display window looks pretty much like it was meant to be there. For the glazing I am planning to make framed panels that will stand on the 'shelf' of the lower ply insert and butt up against the sides of the pillars.

Second side done, moving on to the front now

2008-01-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

I've finished applying clapboard to the left side now. I found fitting the boards around the top window moulding was very fiddly, I had a lot of trouble with breakages as the boards splinter apart very easily when you try to make complicated cuts. But it's come out fairly well, I'm pleased with it.

I've now moved onto the front, where I need to finish my conversion job to turn this house into a shop. I am going to glass in the porch as a display window. The first step was to customise the french doors and glue them in. Next I will be fitting panels either side of it which will support the 'glass'. The graphics on the door are things like credit card logos and opening hours that I found on the internet.

Living Room Bay Window

2008-01-03T02:13:00.000-08:00

After finishing the first side, I moved on to the back of the house. This was straightforward to apply clapboard to, apart from the question of whether to paint the exposed edge in the clapboard colour, or to leave it as the interior colour. I decided to paint the edge in the clapboard colour, so that you have the suggestion of the wall being cut away to reveal the house interior.

Then I moved on to the right side, which includes the living room bay window. I ran into trouble deciding how to treat the edges of the bay window, and ended up trying three different options before arriving at a fourth option which was my chosen solution.

1) I had already painted the bay window in my clapboard colour (green) before applying the blue window trim. My original plan was to apply clapboard only up to the window sill level, and leave the rest of the bay bare green. However, I found that once I started clapboarding up the side of the house, that when I looked from the front of the house, the bay side wall looked really naked and wrong. So I ripped off the side boards I had applied, back to the level of the windowsill. I am now using a British solvent glue called UHU, similar to QuickGrip but perhaps not as strong and more prone to strings, but I was able to rip the boards off.

2) I mocked up a narrow vertical strip of clapboard siding on some masking tape, and stuck it on the front bay side wall (the one you see from the front). This immediately looked a lot better from the front of the house, because it gave the continuity of the clapboard ridges. But it looked terrible from the side of the house because you saw all the rough raw edges of the clapboard ridges and the gaps between them as they rested on top of each other. And although I have seen pictures of other Willowcrests where keen builders have applied clapboard all around the tiny gaps between the window frames, I didn't want to try to do that with all the complex angles involved. Because of the big gap I had previously had to fill, between the bay front side wall and the next angled panel, my corner wasn't even sharp, it was more sort of rounded from filler and not even entirely straight vertically, so I didn't fancy my chances of trying to mitre clapboard around the corner.

3) I tried simulating the clapboard ridges by cutting appropriately spaced grooves into one clapboard, and sticking it on vertically on the bay side wall. I flooded the grooves with a little diluted black paint to give them the appropriate shadowing. This didn't look too bad from the front of the house, but didn't look very realistic from the side, so I took that off as well.

4) My final solution has been to stick an additional post down the side of the front bay wall, painted green to match the clapboard, and then applied clapboard in the remaining space between the post and the side wall. This means that from the front of the house, the eye sees the expected clapboard, but from the side of the house, the post gives a neat finish and you don't see the rough side edges of the clapboard. Painted green, the post is unobtrusive and the end result is acceptable. I still need to do a bit of paint touch up, but you can get the idea from the photos.

Happy new year to everyone following my build, and I hope that you have a productive 2008.

First side finished!

2007-12-26T01:16:00.000-08:00

As it is Christmas time, I have managed to squeeze in several hours on the clapboarding, and have finished the first side including the dormer! You can really start to see what the house will look like when it is finished. I'm really pleased with it.

The side is wider than the clapboard sticks. This wasn't a problem for most of it as the board run is interrupted by the kitchen bay or by windows. Where a board runs completely across, I was careful to stagger the joins.

I am getting into a routine with this and it is going a bit faster. I cut the pre-painted board to size (using cardboard templates for complicated shapes like the stair window) with either clippers or an X-acto knive, daub some paint on the cut end, apply QuickGrab (and possibly Tacky Glue) along the reverse top and bottom edges of the board, let it all dry briefly, then apply it to the house. If it is QuickGrab, then just holding it with finger pressure for several seconds is sufficient. I did this whole side with about 2/3rds of a tube of QuickGrab.

Because I have exposed wiring on the outside, I couldn't use QuickGrab glue on all the boards (it would dissolve the wire insulation), so where the boards would cross a wire, I used Tacky Glue on that section. This meant having to do some clamping and letting glue dry before I could move on with some sections.

So far (touch wood) I am not worried about running out of clapboard as there looks to be loads still in the box. You can use up lots of short bits on all the complicated fussy cutting, so I don't feel that I am wasting very much.

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope Santa brought you lots of good minis.

Clapboarding (is that a verb?)

2007-12-20T08:12:00.001-08:00

I have officially started the clapboard application. I started on the kitchen bay window, as that is the most straightforward, with absolutely no angles or windows making it more difficult. You can see in the pic that I am lining up the pre-painted (two coats) boards with the pencil lines.

Then I moved on to the right wall. This has an inside corner to be trimmed each time, and now I am just starting to sculpt boards to fit around the stair window. I realised that I need to paint a little ring of green paint around all the elements, just in case I leave a tiny gap that you can see through when trimming the boards. I am snipping my clapboards with a hand-held cutter (like garden shears) that is sold by hobby stores, and using an X-acto knife for complicated cuts.

I think I am going to be doing this for a looooooooooong time.

A word about windows

2007-12-14T01:41:00.001-08:00

I've now finished gluing on my windows. On the two bay windows, I painted the main body colour around the window openings as I thought it was going to be too fiddly to try to apply clapboard in such a tight area. The clapboard will start underneath the window sills. The windowsill of the living room bay required a certain amount of fiddling and trimming to get it to fit around the complex angles.

The small windows were a bit fiddly as well - these are the two second floor windows on the front, and the two on the side (although I am only using one side window as I didn't punch the ground floor side window opening). The instructions say to glue-laminate the three layers of external trim to form the window frame, aligning the top of the window opening. The implication is that you then achieve four matching window frames that appear as a solid unit along the edges such as the top edge and the sides of the window opening. Certainly in the box picture these look like solid one-piece windows.

I found that none of my three trim layers exactly matched each other on these small windows on all edges. And I don't mean they were a little bit out - it was more like a 1/8th or 3/16th inch difference on several edges. So for example, instead of the top of the window appearing like one solid edge, I have three distinct edges from the three layers, with perhaps the middle layer sinking inwards by 1/8th inch and the top layer protruding more. On the middle 'strut' of a couple of windows, the second layer is significantly narrower than the first layer.

I decided to just leave the separate layers showing, in a kind of 'carpenter gothic' effect. Where layers were almost the same (such as on the very tips of the wings of the upper flared part) I did sand to one level, but otherwise I just painted them all the same trim colour and sanded the individual edges smooth.

The other item that requires a bit of fiddling is the windowsill. On these small windows, the window sill fits over the three 'legs' of the window, and then fits into the actual window opening to form the sill. All of my window sills required customisation to get them to fit over the 'legs' of the window (slots needed widening) and into the window openings (tabs needed trimming). And in order to have the sill fit tightly against the window (i.e. no gaps beween the 'legs' and the back of the sill slot), I had to trim width off the sill on all the inside edges.

On the side window, I also had to trim length off the sill on one side because it was obstructed by the corner trim.

When gluing the small windows onto the house, I found one window opening was too tall - if I aligned the tops of the window openings, but glued the sill onto the bottom edge of the opening, it left a significant gap between the sill and the bottom of the window trim. I filled this with a bit of coffee stirrer - now that it is painted to match, it looks like part of the 'carpenter gothic' effect.

Now that all the windows are on, I am gearing up for the clapboard and have started painting clapboard pieces after giving them a spray of sealer on both sides. This is a tedious job, thank goodness for podcasts to listen to while I do it.

Still painting trim, porch, starting to install windows

2007-12-07T05:58:00.000-08:00

I've put in several hours now on painting and installing trim / windows, but there is still so much more to do. I keep thinking something is done, then when I look at it from a slightly different angle, or with better lighting, I see more spots that need a touch-up, or a fill, or sanding down.

Step S - (install porch assembly) - the instructions say to lay the house on its back but I didn't do this - I found it easy enough to just slightly lift the roof piece and slide the porch trim assembly into place. I had previously checked that a) the slots in the roof were wide enough to accommodate the tabs on the porch assembly, and b) that the tabs going into the wall from the porch assembly were going to fit into their slots. I also trimmed down the wall tabs so they just went into the house wall, and wouldn't protrude too much on the other side (particularly in the stairwell where it is practically impossible to get at them. I applied glue all around the top of the assembly but was worried about the base adhering to the porch floor, as the tabs are quite loose in their holes. So while the assembly was clamped to dry, I also fitted the Porch Base Trim (step S.3) making sure to glue it to both the porch post and the porch floor, for some extra adhesion. I let it dry all night, then took the clamps off, holding my breath in case the whole assembly popped back up off the floor, but it didn't. Whew. I then added some additional trim to the post bases with coffee stirrers, giving a panelled effect that also covers up the raw edges.

Step S.2 (Porch Roof Trim) - I dry-fitted this and drew a pencil line around the inside then removed the trim. I used the pencil line as a guide when spreading diluted glue and sprinkling with bird sand. Once this was dry, I removed the excess and painted it black for a 'flat roof' effect. Then I glued on the painted Porch Roof Trim. I made sure to trim the tabs so they wouldn't protrude too much into the house.

Step V (brackets)- the majority of my brackets disintegrated when I punched them from the plywood sheet - the interior seemed to just crumble to brown dust, leaving me with two pieces of veneer skin. I may try to recreate some for the roof trim, but for the porch I decided to substitute some dentil trim that I had, which I think looks quite shoplike. Once painted, I think it gives a good profile.

Installing windows - looking at other pictures of Greenleaf houses, I can see that many people apply the painted windows on top of the house wall, leaving the house wall showing as a different coloured 'filling' in the sandwich of the exterior and interior window trim. I didn't think this looked very realistic, so I have been painting the inside of the window cutout to match the exterior trim. This sounds simple, but the reality is a lot of rough wood so sanding and filling. Also, most of the exterior window trim is not an exact match to the profile of the window cutout. I debated sanding the window cutout to match the exterior window trim, but was afraid of distorting the opening. So painting a little 'surround' around the window cutout, to match the exterior trim, disguises the fact that it is protruding a bit. On the front dormer window, I also painted a little 'surround' in the green body colour where the balcony was going to go, as it will be impossible to get in there to fit clapboard or paint after the balcony is glued on. So far I have glued on the two bathroom windows, the dormer windows and am working on the kitchen bay window.

Step M ( Front Dormer Gable Trim) - this assembly took an incredible amount of sanding - in fact it was more like sculpting at some points. The cut-outs have quite rough edges, but also, when you place the trim over a contrasting colour, you notice right away how irregular and unmatched they are. It took quite a bit of fiddling to get them to an approximately similar shape. I don't know what shape the cutout on the very peak is supposed to be, mine was just a rough opening. By the time I finished sanding and filling, it looked a bit shell-shaped so I left it at that. There was quite a bit of filling/sanding needed on the outside edges, and to cover up crevices where bits of ply had fallen out, etc. In the meantime, I decided to finish the sides of the barrel roof in clapboard, which I painted green. I found when I fitted my Gable Trim that it did not fit entirely flush against the front of the house on one side, so I was careful to leave my clapboard protruding slightly from the house on that side to fill in the gap. I also painted a ring of green where the cut-outs of the trim would show through to the layer below, and at the top where the Front Dormer Trim/Back would go, so that I would get a three-layer paint effect. The Trim/Back I painted in the dark blue trim colour. Clamping the Gable Trim turned out to be almost impossible as you can only get a clamp on at the very top, so I used Quick Grab glue and clamped with hand pressure for a few minutes.

Step T (Balcony) - I found that I had to trim down the 'tabs' on the balcony a little bit with my Dremel sander before it would fit into the opening, and also slightly adjust the back of the brackets so they would fit flush against the house. Then I glued it on, with lots of glue around the 'tab'. You can see how I clamped it on by using my clamps through window openings and some scrap wood.

Painting at last

2007-11-30T10:23:00.001-08:00

I cannot believe how long it has taken me to choose colours. I have literally been out several times to buy sample pots and craft paints, and ended up with at least a dozen of those as I paint index cards and try to decide. I think it is because the colour really makes or breaks the house - it doesn't matter how nicely you built it, if you don't like the colour then you won't like the house.

After trying all sorts of colour combinations, I came to realise that I did have my heart set on a blue house, or at least blue as a strong component. I have ended up using the original Soldier Blue, but as the trim colour rather than the body colour. For the body colour I am using Anita's Dusty Green. The roof I am still not sure about but I think it is going to be either dark green or brown. The foundation I'm not sure about either.

So now I have spent hours painting, all the trim, the windows, the porch, balcony, etc. etc. The moment you paint these things and the paint dries, you see more rough patches that you should have filled or that need sanding, so I think it is a bit of a moving feast. I'm concentrating on the porch so that I can get that finished and the front doors on. You can see in the photos that I applied a lattice effect along the porch base, using coffee stirrers.

I discovered that having painted the dormer window, and the test clapboard that fit around it, that post-paint-job, the window no longer fits into the cutout left in the clapboard. I guess the moisture from the paint was enough to slightly change the sizes of either or both. I think now I am going to permanently affix the windows and then cut the clapboard to fit around, but painting the ends of it with the final colour before gluing it on. Then once it is all on, I can give a final body paint job to the clapboard.

Porch stairs and trim, colour choices

2007-11-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

The book I have been waiting for has finally turned up. It is "Victorian Exterior Decoration" by Roger W. Moss and Gail Caskey Winkler. It has a lot of information on historical paint schemes, with original illustrations from the period, and a list matching historical paint colours to modern manufacturers. However, it hasn't been a magic answer and I am still dithering. I guess I was hoping to open the book, spot a picture of a paint scheme that I liked, and just copy it. Instead I had to read the whole book, discovering that the Willowcrest is an example of Second Empire architecture from c. 1870, and also discovering that most historical paint schemes from the 1870-1880s are not to my taste. They went in a lot for rich bland colours like drab, olive green and straw. The blue house with white trim scheme pictured on the Willowcrest box is actually historically inappropriate as blues were not commonly used in this period and trim was almost always darker than the house colour. Blue with white trim came later in the colonial revival and onwards.

After a lot of cogitating, I narrowed it down to a paint scheme I found on the Sherwin Williams web site on their Victorian paints page, then headed off to our local DIY store to see what I could turn up that would match. I came home with several match pots, and painted lots of index cards so I could see what the colours looked like when they dried, and when taped to the house in natural daylight. Most of them weren't what I wanted, so I went out again today and got some acrylic craft paint in a few more shades. Eventually I have narrowed it down to dark brown for the roof (two colours under consideration), a blue-green for the house (similar to the historical colour light blue stone) which I can only get close to in a kitchen-bath paint, and brown or terracotta for the trim. Please note that these are not my personal choice at all, but they seem to be a good compromise between historical accuracy and a scheme I can live with. This is such a big decision, as the colour will really make or break the attractiveness of the house. I'm still not sure about these colours, I am going to live with them for a few days and see how it goes. But I know the house will look more realistic, and less like a toy, if the scheme is accurate.

In the meantime, I built the porch steps (Step Q.f) and applied the porch foundation trim (Step S). I had to relocate the steps to the middle of the porch as that is where my shop door will be. They went together similarly to the stairs in the house, the only real difference being that you glue on all the risers first, then add the steps second.

Bathroom

2007-11-18T14:11:00.001-08:00

While I am (still) waiting for my book to turn up, I spent a day working on finishing the bathroom. The walls are 'tile' (purchased glossy card printed with tiles), and the floor is also a glossy printed card (which conveniently covers up the electrical wires from the kitchen lights below). The upper part of the wall above the tile is painted lining paper, and the blue tile decoration is cut from a different glossy card tile border set.

The toilet and sink are from a cheap set, which I improved with better taps from a different sink. Plus I cut down the old-fashioned cistern and mounted it directly on the back of the toilet for a more modern look.

Originally I had planned to put the toilet in the closet, which is why the closet interior is all finished, but when I tried the toilet in there with a doll in position (use your imagination), I discovered that any would-be toilet user would have to be a contortionist. I had wanted to leave room for a tub, but my husband says that a tub would look silly in a shop bathroom anyway. I was kind of thinking that it was a period house with its original bathroom, converted to a shop. But by losing the tub, I had room to move the toilet out of the cupboard. I've also got room to put a comfy chair for the customers in the corner.

I'm still here

2007-11-13T07:26:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update - not much happening on the house because I am still waiting for the book I ordered from Amazon about exterior colour schemes for Victorian houses. I've been drawing guide lines around the house for the clapboard, which has been surprisingly difficult. First of all, I should have drawn all these lines BEFORE I glued on the corner trim, which would have been a lot easier as I would have been able to lay the ruler flat. Trying to get the lines to match going around a corner has been challenging, and drawing a bunch of parallel lines has revealed deficiencies in the house's construction that I wasn't previously aware of (particularly a decided up-flip on one of the mansard roof corners).

I'm still gluing in cornice. Going around the inside of the bay window was challenging. I cut a cardboard template that fit the bay ceiling, then folded that to get an approximate angle for each corner, which I then drew onto the cornice moulding in pencil, then cut with a razor saw. There were still some small gaps but I was able to fill them and the end result isn't too bad. Probably if you had paid attention in Geometry at school you could calculate what these angles are but I'm not sure it would help you if your mitre box only cuts 45 degrees.

I proudly displayed my house to a visiting dh friend, and rather dishearteningly she looked at my painstaking interior paint job and told me encouragingly how nice the house would look once it was all wallpapered! I resisted the urge to say anything.

Step Q - Fascia and Corner Boards, and Base

2007-11-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

I'm still undecided about colour, so I have sent away for an Amazon.com book on authentic paint colours for Victorian houses. While I am waiting for that to come, I am getting on with more interior trim, and preparing the outside for shingling and siding. I'm slowly marking all the pencil lines on the sides and roof as guidelines for applying the shingling/siding, and I've been working through Step Q - Fascia Trim and Corner Boards.

Preliminary step: you need to sand flush any protruding tabs on your corners or where you will be gluing the fascia strips, so that the trim will lie flat. Do this before you try to glue the strip on and get glue everywhere (ask me how I know this...)

Step Q.a - Main Roof Fascia - I haven't put this on yet because I'm not sure if I want it to go on top of the shingles, or have the shingles butt up to it.

Step Q.b - Mansard Roof Fascia. Straightforward, apart from all four short pieces being significantly wider than the long side pieces, so I had to trim off a good 1/8th inch off their width. The two back wall pieces were also a bit too long, and had to be trimmed down.

Step Q.c - Corner Boards sub-assembly. I did not pre-glue these into an L-shape off the house (which is what the instructions say) because that just seemed highly unlikely to be successful. It doesn't give you any wiggle room if your wall isn't quite flat, or straight, or not 90 degrees at the corner. Instead I glued these directly on the house, one corner at a time. Where I had electric wires in the way, I used my Dremel tool to make a slight groove for the wire to pass under. Two sets were a bit too short, one board on another corner was slightly too long and had to be trimmed. Clamping these required a fair bit of creativity. Obviously lots of masking tape, and then some clamps hooked into nearby windows etc.

Step Q.d - Kitchen and Living Room Bay Fascia. Kitchen was straightforward - both side short pieces needed trimming in length. The Living Room Bay was a bit trickier. I bevelled with the Dremel tool again, but there were gaps that had to be filled afterwards.

Step Q.e - Kitchen Bay Corner Boards - straightforward, miniature versions of the main house corner boards.

Base - I decided (as I pivoted the house 360 degrees for the nth time) that the house needed a base to protect the foundation paperclay and give me an easier way to turn the house/move the house. I don't have a lot of room, so I kept the base fairly small, just slightly wider than the house on three sides and allowing for the porch steps at the front. My base measures 2 feet wide by 20 inches deep. It is 15mm MDF (multidensity fibreboard). I still want to be able to lift the house off, so I hot-glued some blocks onto the base (after tracing around the house with pencil) in strategic places to hold the house in place. These required a certain amount of fine-tuning, but luckily you can pry the hot glue off again if you get it wrong. Once I was happy with them, I put two chipboard screws into each block.

Foundations (Step Q.h)

2007-10-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

I still haven't decided on a colour scheme. I applied clapboard to one dormer, and painted it in the deep Soldier Blue that I had bought, but dh says it looks too dark (it looks lighter in the photo than it really is). I've done a little research on the internet, and apparently Second Empire/Victorian houses were usually mid-to dark colour with dark trim. I've always like the blue and white scheme on the box, but my Soldier Blue is darker than that. They didn't have a nice blue at Hobbycraft when we went. I feel inclined to stick with blue and white even if it isn't authentic, but perhaps I need a brighter blue. With a bit of experimenting, I found that I had more success taping the window frame into place temporarily, and cutting the clapboard to fit around it, then removing the window frame to paint the clapboard. At first I tried just drawing around the outline of the window frame, but cutting to fit a pencil mark that your clapboard is actually overlapping just didn't work very well.

I jumped ahead to Step Q.h which is applying the foundation trim, and then applied a paper-clay masonry effect around the foundation. I used my Dremel tool to bevel the joins of the wood strips around the bay, so they looked more like mitered joins. I found one of the pieces on the right wall was about 1/4 inch short, so I filled the gap with a bit of scrap wood from another sheet. A bit of filler smeared along the top edge, and in the joins, makes these trim strips look pretty good.

This is the first time I've used paperclay - it is actually Das modelling clay because that is all they stocked at Hobbycraft - but found it quite easy to use.

I rolled out the clay using two scraps of wood leftover from the house to get the right thickness, and spaced them the correct distance apart to match the height of the foundation.

I used a plastic trowel to mark out horizontal courses 3/4 inch apart, and vertical 'stones' one inch wide. Some of the stones I split into two horizontal stones. I pounced all over with a stencilling brush to give texture. Then I applied a thin film of wood glue to the foundation, and pressed on the clay, using the stencilling brush to prod the clay onto the wood. The cellar windows were cut out of the clay after it was applied, while it was still wet. I also pressed the cellar sill and window frame into the clay to create depressions where I can glue them into later.

So many decisions...

2007-10-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

Now that my shell is basically finished (and the last step was to glue on the roofs of the right and left dormers), it is decision time on decorating and color scheme. I need to finish all the tricky bits on the interior before installing the windows, so that I can still reach in through the window gaps to do things like install the cornice in the upper stairwell. That went fairly ok, but I think the cornice trim around the upper part of the kitchen/entry wall, with its not-45-degree corners, is going to be hard. I need to do that before I close in the porch.

So I am spending a lot of time filling gaps, painting over the gaps, filling them again for a smoother result, cutting cornice etc. I have also started trying to decide my exterior colour scheme, which I think is going to be basically blue and white but possibly with some additional trim colours. I have painted the roof black in preparation for shingling, but even that involved several decisions as to what was part of the roof, and what wasn't. I've decided that the barrel roof will be clapboard, and also the sides and front of the dormer, but I will shingle the upper roof as well as the mansard roof. I think I am also going to shingle the back 'wall' piece that goes across the top back edge of the attic room. Internal window trim will likely be white - I've seen several pictures of Willowcrests with stained internal trim, but most of the period houses I have been in have painted internal window trim.

Lighting, & Step M (roof)

2007-10-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

I've finished installing the lights now, and I thought it might be worth outlining briefly what (and how) I have installed. The choice of lights depended somewhat on what I had in my stash, because I only bought new lights for the attic.

Attic Level: I installed four matching ceiling lights whose wires go up through the foamcore ceiling and are brought together in the front right quadrant by drilling holes through the roof supports and feeding the wires through. The wire from a fifth light hanging inside the front dormer feeds up through the gap in the ceiling of the front dormer, and comes back to join the other attic wires. All of these wires were soldered into a makeshift connector strip from a couple of pieces of copper tape. The tape is soldered to a wire which feeds down through the barrel roof, through the roof cornice, to connect to copper tape on the right hand outside wall.

Upper Stair: a hanging 3-light fixture is positioned over the stairwell, so that its wire can feed up into the empty roof space outside the attic wall, and from there come down the same gap as the attic wire and connects to the copper tape.

Bathroom: an out-of-sight bulb inside the toilet cupboard has its wire feeding across the floor (which will have a tile covering) and out a hole drilled above the kitchen bay. A one-light ceiling fixture in the bathroom has its wire hidden inside a routed out path in the ceiling (which I will fill) which feeds out a hole drilled in the right wall. All these wires connect to the copper tape on right hand wall. The copper tape runs down the side of the house and in through the cellar window where it connects up to the terminal block (to which the transformer can be connected).

2nd floor main room: a ceiling fixture near the front of the room has its wire feeding up into the attic (where a piece of furniture will be hiding it) and out the front attic wall and out the front wall. There it is glued along underneath the cornice to meet with copper tape on the left-hand external wall. A table lamp at the open end of this room feeds through into the toilet cupboard and across the bathroom floor and out the same hole as the other bathroom wires. A table lamp on the external (left) wall of this room feeds out a hole to join the copper tape on the left wall.

Kitchen/office: two ceiling fixtures come up into the bathroom, wires feed out as above. A wall sconce on the very back wall, near the bay, feeds out and down the external wall, and into the foundation where it joins the copper tape inside the foundation.

Main ground floor: a five-light hanging fixture feeds its wire up into the 1st floor near the archway entrance, where it will have to be hidden by a carpet, then runs out the front wall, along the porch roof, and meets the copper tape on the right wall. A wall sconce on the left wall feeds out a hole to meet the copper tape on the left wall. A wall sconce on the back wall feeds out, down the outside, and back into the foundation space.

Porch/display windows: Two 'fluorescent' tubes are positioned, one above each side, and connected to copper tape running along the underneath of the porch roof. This runs along until it meets the right wall and splices into the copper tape run there.

Now that the lights are in, I can go back to Step M and finish installing the roof.

Step M.J.4 (Mansard Roof /Left etc.): I installed the first piece of mansard roof according to the directions, and the mess in the picture is the result. I discovered that it is VERY important to run a knife along the scores on the back of these pieces, connecting the cuts right to the edge of the piece and deepening them. Otherwise they will not bend (despite what the directions say) and will just splinter and snap unevenly so that you don't get a smooth curve. I made the cuts on the other three roof pieces and they went in no problem at all. I found a small hammer very useful, because once the roof piece is snapped into position it may still be bulging above the roof supports and not curving properly. If you lightly tap along the piece with a hammer, it will encourage the wood to break a little more along the score lines on the back of the wood, and it will hug in and curve to meet the supports. Use lots of glue.

Step M.L (top main roof): this was straightforward. I had to trim my left piece so it would go around my chimney (since I forgot to put it on earlier). I also had to trim the corners of my front and rear pieces to get them to fit in. Notice that the front piece fits under the little 'fingers' projecting from the barrel roof supports.

Step M.M. (Front dormer gable roof): these didn't fit all that well. I had to deepen the notch considerably on one piece, and the result is a bit wonky, but I think once it is all shingled, you won't notice it.

Got my lights (and a bunch of other stuff)

2007-10-22T02:43:00.000-07:00

Dh drove me around the M25 to visit Maple Street, a mail-order/shop dollshouse store near Cambridge. They have a huge catalogue but I wasn't really sure what to expect from the actual shop. However, it turned out to be quite large as well - rather ramshackle and disorganised, but I was able to find almost everything on my shopping list. I got some lights for the attic, some bulbs for the lights I already had, some shingles, some moulding to trim out the staircase, handles for the front door and bathroom door, some paint which may be the right colour for the clapboard, some heavy vinyl which may work for the shop window (although I was hoping for thin plexi), some railings and turnings which may turn into decoration for the flat roofs, some fluorescent bulbs for my shop window, and a few other bits and bobs.

I have now laminated/glued together all the window frames and the front dormer trim. I gave the balcony, porch and front dormer trim a coat of gesso and have started the laborious process of trying to smooth them down. I spent quite a while on the balcony dabbing filler into holes and sanding, and it looks a lot better now, but it is never going to look as good as more expensive solid wood with 3-D turnings. I've made a start on the porch but haven't got very far yet.

Last night I spent a few hours surfing the Greenleaf Forum gallery and googling other people's Willowcrest houses. It is a bit depressing because so many of them are so beautifully finished, especially where the makers have treated the house as a shell and basically re-clothed it in wallpaper, ceiling covering and floor coverings. Mine is much more bare bones than that, and I know I am not going to get such a beautiful finished result. However, it was fascinating to see the many different ways that people have treated the exterior - I particularly loved the stone clad one at Deb's minis, that almost makes me wish I had another Willowcrest to build again and do as a stone mansion! But I think I am going to stick to clapboard for mine.

Now that I've got the lights, I've started work on the electrification. I am adopting a fairly Do-it-yourself approach, partly because all the components and twin tape etc. are very expensive here in the UK. I use a mixture of round wire and basic copper tape (like the kind for stained glass) and am trying to find ways to hide all the wires since I haven't wallpapered. I will post some pics. It is such a buzz when you connect it up to test, and the lights come on! Haven't electrocuted myself or the house yet, although I did have a short and a few sparks which luckily didn't blow the lights.

Steps N to P

2007-10-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

Step N.b (Main second floor staircase) As I am going to use the under-stairs closet for my toilet, I fitted a cardboard cover underneath the staircase and covered it with wallpaper to match the wallpaper I already used on the two walls. One tip: check the fit of the tabs at the bottom of the stringers, into the slots waiting in the house, before assembling the staircase. I didn't do this, and my tabs were too long, so I spent a difficult time wedging the extremely tight fitting staircase in and out of the gap trying to trim the tabs short enough to get them into the holes. Also, I did not assemble the Upper Section ahead of time, I waited until after the main staircase was fitted before gluing in the upper stringers. I found that I needed to trim the Upper Stair and Upper Riser shorter to get them to fit in the gap.

Step N.c (Attic Railing): the instructions say that Attic Railing 3 is already in place, but it isn't. I glued in the front railing 2 first and I wished I hadn't later, because I found that it was too wide and pushed the end of Attic Railing 3 too far to the right. If I were doing it again, I would glue in the long side railing first, then trim the front railing to fit.

Step N.d. (Stair back, install staircase): although the instructions say to glue in the Second Floor Stair/Back first, and then slide in the staircase, I found this impossible. The stair was too tight a fit and I couldn't see where the (non-fitting) tabs were. In the end, I pulled off the back (luckily the glue hadn't completely set) and installed the staircase first with glue only on the lower tabs. Then I put the back in again, and pushed the staircase down to the correct final position.

After that I glued in the upper stringers, riser and stair. A little bit of wall substitutes for a riser between the main staircase and the upper staircase - I covered this up with a bit of stained wood to blend in with the staircase. The last step was to glue on the handrail.

I wish I had known ahead of time that the outer edges of the floors, and of the two second floor walls, were all going to be on display. Mine had become corrupted with light-coloured paint, and yet really I want them to be stained to match my stained stair back and stained floor edge trim. I think I am going to have to do some camoflaging with brown paint. [Postscript: later on, I stained a bunch of coffee stirrers to match, and glued them over the exposed tabs of the bannisters and around the Stair Back which makes them look much neater. I also stained some chair rail moulding, and applied it like skirting around the outside of the bannisters, and along the base of the bannisters to hide the seam with the wallpaper.]

Step N.d.6 (Upper Section Stair Back): I found that I got a better fit by bevelling the top and bottom edges with my Dremel tool. This will be painted the room colour.

My understairs bathroom closet.

While waiting for things to dry, I have been working on some of the cosmetic issues, like filling in unused slots, and covering up tabs on corners with the right angled moulding I bought.

Step O (Porch Assembly): As I am installing a set of French doors to be my shop entrance, I trimmed away the centre post on layers 1 & 3, and only left some gingerbread on layer 2 to support my door. This was fairly straightforward to assemble - I laminated my layers by weighing them down with soup tins rather than the suggested masking tape. I think the hard part is going to be achieving a smooth finish on all these plywood edges.

Step P (Balcony Assembly): Again, straightforward, although curiously the instructions don't actually tell you to glue in the central bracket, but you can clearly see it in the photograph in the instructions so I glued it in after taking this photo.

Today I spent a few hours punching out everything else on all the sheets, grouping it (small window, kitchen bay, etc.) and putting each group in a labelled zip-lock bag, and checking the instructions to make sure I have found everything. The only pieces that seem to be missing are some foundation trim for the front of the porch, and I can make that from some of the leftover scraps. I am basically down to all the trim now (apart from the roof which is still waiting for my lights). Suddenly I feel like I have reached the summit and am starting down the other side - I have a house now... it just needs an awful lot of trim. And all the trim has to be smoothed and painted first.

Steps M.G to N

2007-10-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

Finally, I am onto the second sheet of instructions! Yay! Although it is looking much more like a house now, I have to say that sometimes the amount of work left to do is a bit overwhelming. It seems like every time I move the house I see another slot that needs to be filled, or another gap that will need to be covered.

I had to skip Steps M.J.4 to M.M for now, because I realised that if I was going to light the house, then I needed to install the attic lights before I put on the roof . I haven't used tape wire because I didn't wallpaper, but I am hoping to use conventional wire for lighting and hide it behind furniture, inside the mansard roof and down the outside of the house under clapboard. In the picture, you can see the ceiling I made for the attic out of foamcore. So I have to wait until Sunday, when my dh is going to drive me to Maple Street (a big dollshouse shop outside Cambridge) to get some lights. Meanwhile I have been getting on with installing the second floor stairway.

Step M.G (Chimney)- this is now all installed, with the cut down chimney treated with a fake stone product by Bromley (UK supplier). Can you spot the not-deliberate mistake here? Perhaps if you look back at the last post and compare the picture of the mocked up chimney with this one? Yes, the instructions say to insert the chimney through the roof piece before gluing on the chunky top trim. I did it for the original mock-up, then completely forgot to do it for the finished product. So I will be performing some surgery on the roof piece to fit it around the already-in-place chimney.

Step M.H (Front Dormer Barrel Roof): This went together fine apart from the slot in the Mansard Cornice that the Barrel Roof Support Top/Right should fit into was a good 1/4" out of line with the front wall. I had to cut a new slot. Don't know if this is my construction or the kit's fault.

The Barrel Roof fit on quite well, and in the picture you can see I have wedged a bit of scrap wood to hold the roof tightly against its support.

Step M.J (Mansard Roof supports): These are straightforward, apart from the instructions referring to fitting them in the "remaining four slots on right and left sides and front". They are only on the right and left sides, they don't go on the front. Then I had to skip the rest of this step while I wait for the lights.

Step N. (Second Floor Staircase). This went together far more easily than the main staircase. I am going to stain all of the parts when the glue dries.

Steps L & M

2007-10-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

Finally, some glorious gluing (and some bad words when I found out that I had painted the wrong side of one piece, and lost another piece completely - I eventually found it tucked under the box flap of the box I am using to spray into).

I also realised that I hadn't enabled comments for non-members - I've fixed that now and I do hope that some of you will leave comments. Either suggestions for improving the blog, or for improving the house (!) or just cheer me on - it will be much appreciated.

Step L.2 - straightforward.

Step L.3 - straightforward, although disappointingly there is a rather large gap (1/8th inch) on the front side of the bay because the Kitchen Bay/Right Wall didn't seem quite wide enough.

Step L.5 - again some noticeable gapping. I can understand why the Greenleaf books recommend decorating the bay windows with stucco, to cover all the gaps and tabs etc.

Step L.6 - straightforward.

Step L.7 - these required a bit of finessing to get them to fit in, and the front angle has a huge gap between it and the Living Room Bay / Front wall. It also didn't line up very well with that same wall at the bottom but I am likely going to cover the foundation with paperclay which will hide the lump.

Step M.A2 and M.A3 - I found it easier to interlock the attic walls while still on the table, then fit the whole thing onto the house.

Step M.A4 - I needed lots of clamps to hold these walls on while the glue dried, as they wanted to gap in several places.

Step M.B - straightforward. I also glued in the front dormer walls at the same time (Step M.D2 ).

Step M.C2 - I'm afraid I had to get the hammer out for this one again, even though I made sure all the slots were wide enough to accept an offcut first (using the Dremel router bit to widen any narrow slots. It hardly needed gluing after the tight fit, but I did smear glue into the joints.

Step M.C3 - straightforward

Step M.D.3 - it was a bit tricky to wiggle these into position. The back edge should be flush with the angle of the attic wall cutout, while the top edges should meet without a gap. Have some masking tape ready because gravity makes the first piece want to fall inward while you are trying to insert the second piece.

Step M.E - straightforward, although some of my slots had to be widened slightly. As far as I can see from the directions, the attic doesn't actually have a ceiling, so I will have to look into creating one myself. I don't like the look of leaving the roof void open with the supports showing.

Step M.F - I have skipped this step for now because I'm not sure I like the look of these floor edge trims.

Step M.G - I am showing a picture of what this sub assembly would look like if you did install it, but like many other Willowcrest builders, I am actually going to cut the chimney off at the attic ceiling line.

One thing I am finding is that my box of wood sheets is rapidly turning into a random box of pick-up sticks, because the constant shifting through the sheets looking for the pieces I need is causing lots of other pieces to fall out. Whenever I notice this, I grab the loose pieces and label them with the sheet number they came out of, but it is a losing battle. Thank god all the individual pieces are labelled in pencil. In a well run world, you would have a whole table just to lay the sheets out that you aren't using, but I am having to keep mine all in the box under my work table.

Shopping & Prepping (steps L-M)

2007-10-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

I had a great time yesterday at the Dorking Demo Day - this is an event put on by the Dorking Dollshouse Club which features several round table makes and some great sales tables. I managed to spend all the money I took with me, but I picked up about 10 really cheap bookshelves to be the shelves for my store. It is a mixture of cheap white wood furniture, and simple shelves that I think the club members had made themselves as a fundraiser, and they were all between £1.50 and £3 so I did really well.
When I got home, I raided my own stash of spare furniture to find all my own spare tables and shelving units, then had a lovely time playing with arranging the furniture in my future shop. I also picked up some baseboards, crown moulding, and some great right angle molding to cover up some of those tabs and slots.

Meanwhile, I have been spending a lot of time punching out the pieces for Steps L through to M/E, sanding, spraying, gesso, paint, zzzzzzzzzzzzz...... this is getting tedious. After carefully studying the picture, I think that the Bay Roof Trims in Step L are actually the final trim on these projecting bays. So before I glue them on, I have prepped them and painted them white, and I have painted the 'roof' of the bays with a mixture of black paint / glue / sand to give a textured 'flat roof' look. Likewise, the Mansard Cornice and Mansard Cornice Trim in Step M-C looks like it will be at least partially on show in the final product, so I have prepped them for painting. I haven't painted them yet because it looks like they will be built up in layers with some other pieces later. I can't wait to start gluing things on to build the house up more, but I am trying to control my impatience and do a good job on the painting - hopefully it is going to save time and awkward-reaching-into-the-house in the long run. I'm hoping to get to the fun part - the gluing - tonight.

Back to the Shell

2007-10-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

I am finally back to where I started from, with the shell assembled, only this time it is all glued together.

Here is a pic of the decorated upper hallway before I glued on the Right Wall. I thought I might as well stain/varnish/glue in the door trim while it was easy. I took Havanaholly's advice and 'panelled' the bathroom door with coffee stirrers, and I've gone ahead and pin-hinged it. There are various ways of doing pin-hinging, I went with the fairly low tech method of drilling a hole in the floor for the bottom pin, and slicing a cut into the wall above the door on the bathroom side with my Dremel tool to accept the upper pin (this will be hidden by the door trim). I haven't permanently installed the door yet, but I wanted to do the Dremel cutting before I put the third floor on, while I could still get the Dremel tool in there. The door is just painted white at the moment, I will decide on a final finish later. The second pic is the lower hallway after the Left Wall went on.

I also cut down the fireplace wall in the kitchen and glued it in and filled the seams, to complete the overhang above my future sales counter. In this pic you are looking through the sales office out towards the shop window cut-out.

Both the Left and Right Walls were easy to glue on because I have been so careful to keep everything square... or so I thought. When it came time to glue on the third floor, I just about despaired. You needed to be an eight-armed gorilla to wrestle that sucker into position, either that or have really serious big clamps (which I don't have, I only have girlie hobbyist clamps). Either that floor is trapezoidal, or the upper floor of my house had become trapezoidal (despite all my squaring up, and the second floor fit great as well). If I put one corner of the third floor into its appointed slots, the diagonally opposite corner was a good half inch away from its destination, and only brute strength would compress the house so that all the tabs would go into the slots. And of course, if you are using brute strength to do that, you have no hands free to do any clamping, and in any case my girly clamps were just not up the job. I got there in the end, through a combination of fabric ties through windows to cinch the back of the third floor towards the front wall, and sticking bits of scrap wood into the slots in the third floor (the ones which will eventually accept the attic walls) so that I could clamp the walls to the scrap wood with my short clamps. What I seriously needed were big pipe clamps the width of the house, like cabinet-makers use. For extra strength, I ran some hot glue around the inside of the wall because as far as I can tell from the instructions, that will be hidden inside the mansard roof. Although I did make one very big screw-up here, I was happily running the bead of hot glue, and had gone right across the front wall edge of the floor before I remembered that it will actually be on show as the room opens to the window at that point. So then I spent an exhausting half hour trying to cut and scrape away the hot glue from under the window, not very successfully. I foresee a really big display stand, or perhaps a sofa, going under that window now, something to hide the mess I have made of the floor.

But it now looks like a house! and I still have a huge pile of wood sheets left in my box, despite all the work I have done, I have hardly made any inroads at all into all those pieces waiting to be punched. Roof next...

Gradually re-assembling

2007-10-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

I am continuing to glue the prepped pieces onto the structure, and am pleased at how it is starting to straighten up and look less wonky.

I tried out the wood filler on some of the tabs in the floor, and then stained over it. They certainly don't disappear, but they are less conspicuous.

I've installed the staircase and am decorating the 2nd floor hallway while I can still get at it (the first floor hallway is painted). I've also filled in some of the slots in the ceiling with the lightweight No Sanding polyfilla, which dries white and covers the slots up quite well.

Step G - Staircase Sub-Assembly

2007-10-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

While I was waiting for paint to dry, I thought I would do the Step G – Staircase Sub-Assembly. Whew!! This is exhausting. I found and punched out all the pieces for Step A and B (some of these were in my ziplock bag because they were embedded within pieces already punched for other steps). This was my first go with using my glue, which is Evo-stik wood adhesive, a white glue that dries clear. I was very taken aback at how runny it was and how it gushed out of the nozzle, but when I think about it, I have been using Aileen’s Tacky Glue almost exclusively for years so that’s why the Evo-stik seems so runny to me. I found it hard to control from the nozzle so shifted to using those paper ketchup cups that you can acquire at McDonald’s to hold the glue, which I then applied with an offcut. The other aspect I found difficult was that, unlike Tacky Glue, the Evo-stik has no ‘grab’ to it, so I was reduced to using loads of masking tape. I was worried about how long it would take to dry, but surprisingly it sets up in 5-10 minutes which is good.

Step A was fairly straightforward, but went a lot easier once I realised that I was misreading my own pencil marks and gluing everything to piece 7 (the back of the stairs) instead of to piece 1 (the front of the stairs). I am trying not to get glue everywhere as I am planning to stain the staircase. I am not staining up front because I know a lot of the pieces will be hidden in the finished product so I am not wasting my time.

Once that glue set up, I moved on to Step B. You can see in the picture my working setup: the stair is propped up on some offcuts (because there is a tab underneath that stops it sitting square on its own); I have masking tape cut in half ready to be used as clamps, and I have all the stairs, landings and risers laid out in order. My working procedure was to find the next piece, fit it on the structure to check, then erase the pencil mark and give it a final sand, then glue in place and masking tape it to hold. I got into a bit of trouble partway up, because as far as I can see, Stair 6 and Stair 7 are actually the same stair and there is only one. I spent a while looking, thinking I had missed on punching out a stair, but when I counted up from the first stair, I can see that in fact this is likely a misprint in the instructions. Either that or I am constructing a unique and special staircase that will be like no other staircase.

Turning the second landing and moving up the last set of stairs got more difficult. My part 6 stair cut-out does not seem to exactly match the stair cut-out in part 5. And as I glued on risers, it started looking more and more like a parallelogram instead of square. I glued on the stairs and forcibly masking taped it back into something resembling square (and stair 12 seemed way too deep?) and am comforting myself that no-one is going to see this part of the staircase anyway once the house is constructed. In fact, really, the whole last few hours have almost been a waste of time, but I suppose that I will know that my (special, unique) staircase is there. Now that I’ve done Step C, I think it would make more sense to glue on Stair Trim 4 during Step A, as it would support the wonky part 6 and keep it spaced apart properly. But you should probably punch out Stair Trim 1 and use it to make sure that you are positioning Stair Trim 4 properly as it needs to touch Stair Trim 1 at its bottom end (if I find out this isn’t right when I get to installing the staircase into the house, I will come back and correct this post).

Step C surprisingly leaves out the important information in the 2nd line that you should lay Stair Trim 2 face up on your staircase sub-assembly, not just on the table. Otherwise the trim never actually gets glued to the sub-assembly if you follow the instructions literally. Also in the 2nd line, the reference to aligning Stair 1 and 3 tabs is referring to Stair ‘Trim’ 1 and 3, not the 1 and 3 you used in Step A. I’m just nitpicking really, you can figure this stuff out yourself after a few baffled minutes.

I’ve started gluing the actual house together! (the paint is dry now). After gluing in the centre wall, and looking at this thin glue joint in the foundation and thinking of all the abuse it is going to take as I construct the rest of the house, I cut off some chunks of batten (about .5” x 1.5”) and glued them in a few places to reinforce the joint. While I was waiting for the glue to dry, I stained the staircase - it looks surprisingly good. I wasn't expecting much with this wood quality and the somewhat crude construction, but it actually doesn't look too bad. Because I will not be using the entry/living room wall, you may be able to see the staircase in the corner (if you stick your head into the dollshouse) so it is good to know it will look reasonable.

Prep Work

2007-10-08T01:25:00.000-07:00

I spent Sunday in doing prep work on the pieces of the shell as follows:

- having stained the three floors, I drew in 'floorboards' with a No. 1 Pigma black pen, then gave them a light spray with polyurethane to protect them during construction. If I go with the hardwood floor look, then I will varnish again later. I am thinking that there are going to be some slots to fill/stain in the floor area so I am not giving a finish varnish coat now. I also stained the porch on the ground floor, because that will be the floor of my display window.

- I sprayed all pieces once on both sides with the Humbrol acrylic coating, to start the sealing process.

- On the pieces where I was planning to paint (the majority), I sanded and sprayed a second coat of Humbrol, then a coat of white auto primer, then applied two coats of Gesso (the first across the grain, the second with the grain) sanding in between with my trusty palm sander.

- I painted the ceilings with the Crown 'suede effect' textured white paint, which made a superb textured ceiling effect with excellent coverage from one coat. So far nothing is warping!!

- I have started to paint the walls with the finish colour of warm beige emulsion (latex). I experimented on one of the smaller walls, and one coat is not enough coverage, but two coats gives a fairly smooth result (considering the quality of the wood to start with). My plan is to give all finished room surfaces two coats now while it is easy, but knowing that I am likely going to have to touch up after construction and will also have to hide corner seams somehow (I am thinking moulding).

- I have also applied wallpaper on the two walls on either side of the 2nd floor staircase - reasoning that this will be virtually impossible to do after the staircase is inserted.

It may turn out that I have wasted some of my time, if the finishes get damaged during construction or it turns out that tabs/slots are inconveniently obvious, but I thought it was worth doing as much as I can now, while it is all flat and easy to get at.

Step H-K, and deconstruction, and conversion

2007-10-06T11:59:00.000-07:00

Today I finished putting together the basic shell, and made some more decisions about how I am going to convert it. I've made a few changes to the plan: I realised that the bathroom has no window so I will install one, and I decided to punch the left wall 2nd floor window after all because I realised that there was no other window on that side, unlike the ground floor where there is a bay.

Step H - straightforward, visible in photo in Step I.

Step I - the first try at putting these on wasn't very successful, as suddenly the wonky structure is having to pull together into a more rigid box or otherwise all the tabs won't fit into these side walls. Plus some of my slots weren't big enough (which I have now fixed). As above, I decided to punch the windows on the 2nd floor of the left wall, and to insert an extra window in the bathroom. Afterwards, I smeared glue into all the cracks of the left wall ground floor window diecuts, to seal it in place.

Step J - I've only balanced the third floor in this photo, it isn't tabbed in properly.

Step K - I discarded the closet door as I won't be using it, and put some filler around the inside of the door opening.

Then I de-constructed the shell in reverse order, starting the prep on each piece as it came off including staining, starting to apply filler to the edges that will show (inside of door ways for example), filling in a few cracks in the ceiling ply and doing lots of sanding. I LOVE my palm sander - it is absolutely wonderful and in seconds I can get the whole of a piece very smooth. I used an offcut of ply to test all slots and notches, and where they didn't seem wide enough I used a Dremel tool with a thin rotary bit to carve them a bit bigger (aren't power tools wonderful?).

Conversion of Right Wall: I have a purchased octagonal window so I marked a hole on the right wall, centred above the kitchen wall and hopefully high enough to allow a bath underneath. I used a coarse cutting disk in my Dremel tool to make the initial cuts, then cut through the last layers with a knife. I may use a bit of trim to make this window look more like the diamond shaped window lower down.

Conversion of Kitchen / Entry Wall: I cut this off because I am going to have a sales counter open to the main part of the shop. I will also cut off the fireplace wall and only use the top part of it to carry the overhang along the ceiling. I have left the Center Wall alone because I realised it is holding up the second floor!

Conversion of Front Wall: I cut out a large square opening which will reveal the store through the glassed in display window (porch). I centred this opening and left some wall on either side to act as the backdrop to the display window. This meant that I had to cut partway through the former French door, and almost all of the entrance door away. I used a knife to make these cuts but found it very difficult to get through despite repeated strokes and a new blade. Then I glued back the loose punchout pieces on the sides. Afterwards I filled in the grooves of the diecut with filler. (the soup cans were weighting down the glue parts while they dried.)

I have stained all three floors to give me the option of using them as flooring - although I haven't ruled out carpeting. I also stained the third floor bannisters - they aren't very satisfactory as despite a LOT of sanding they still look rough inside the punchouts. I also noticed that they aren't even punched out at the same height, but I've decided that won't be very obvious in the finished product.

So I think I am just about ready to start spraying on the sealer tomorrow. I went back to Focus and bought some more paint for the interior walls, and discovered a 'suede effect' ceiling paint that looks like a textured ceiling, so I am going to use that on the ceilings instead of the paint I bought yesterday.

Steps A-F

2007-10-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

To begin with, I am just doing a dry-assemble of the shell only, to check the fit and to check my ideas for customisation. So I am not doing a full prep of each piece, and I am only doing the steps that apply to the shell.

Accepted advice is to use an X-acto knife to cut the pieces free of their ply backing - I promptly snapped mine off at the tip when I tried this. After a few more futile goes, I have evolved plan B - which is to look at the back and see where it is starting to catch as I press out, and to cut those out. I have also been caught several times by slots that aren't big enough for tabs, which is frustrating when you are trying to hold a flimsy wavering structure together with both hands. [postscript - I am having better luck with one of those blades where you can snap the tip off to get a new sharp blade, it seems to work better]

Step A - Front Wall - I am ashamed to say that I had to get the hammer out and use it for this very first step. But there was no way the two slotted pieces of wood were going to slide along each other, no matter how much I dangerously distorted them. There is just too much friction from the locking tabs.

Step B - Centre Wall - It took me a little while to work out where this was meant to go. And it was again difficult to twist it to get the front slot to fit into the corresponding slot on the front wall (meanwhile with the front wall flailing around) [postscript: I have realised that part of my prep work is going to include widening slots until an offcut will pass through them easily].

Step C - Porch Foundation - fairly straightforward.

Step D - I was rather mystified by the seemingly purposeless tab on the inside of the Entry/Living Room Wall, since there isn't one on the fireplace wall, but it turns out that this will fit into the Kitchen entry wall in Step F. I am not actually going to use the Entry/Living Room wall so I left it out after taking this picture.

Step E - Second Floor - another headache trying to slide the slots together, and out came the hammer again. I'm beginning to worry I will never get this shell apart again.

Step F - Kitchen / Entry Wall - twisting and turning as I might, there was absolutely no way this was going to go on, and the inevitable happened: the thin piece on the other side of the bathroom door snapped off. Whoever wrote these instructions seems to think that wood is much more flexible than it really is. I will glue the snap back together later, won't bother with it at the moment. By the way, I am keeping all such pieces that come free from the main sheets in a ziplock bag for safety.

So far I have an extremely unstable and wonky looking structure - I have to have faith that one day this is going to look good. And you wouldn't believe the splinters and sawdust, I've had to hoover (vacuum) several times as I work on the sheets.

I am highlighting the instructions as I go along, so I can see what I've completed. I am also highlighting the names of pieces on the component sheet as I remove them.

The start (finally)

2007-10-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

My Willowcrest has been sitting in its box, leaning against the wall of my bedroom, for almost four years now. I asked a friend to mail order it to me from the States, when I heard that it had been discontinued. I have always admired this house since I was very young (I am now in mid-40s) and I panicked at the idea that it might disappear forever. However, having got my hands on it, fear set in. I felt very intimidated about the idea of the zillions of pieces, the splinters, the terrible wood, the complex do-it-yourself windows, and the more I looked at other people's Willowcrest blogs, and the excellent Greenleaf Forum, the more intimidated I felt.

So I have been procrastinating for four years, and I am finally going to do it. In that time I have printed off many many tips on how to do it, preparing the wood, etc. etc., I have also purchased the three 'Dollshouses to Dreamhouses' books and the Schleicher 'Creating Dollshouses from Kits' book. I've even collected a whole bunch of furniture, kitchen and bathroom sets, and a big bunch of lights - most of which I am now not going to use because I've decided to do a shop instead of a house.

So I have commandeered the kitchen table and told my family (dh and ds) that it will be at least until Christmas (3 months), ordered a felt backed vinyl tablecloth to protect the dining table, set up a temporary table to eat at (brought the patio table indoors) and I OPENED THE BOX. Scary scary.

What are my credentials? I've been into dollshouses for about 20 years now - I built my first house from scratch when I was 18/19. Since then I have built a few more houses, many room boxes and vignettes, and done up houses built by other people. I live just west of London in the UK, and belong to my local dh club. I've only built one other Greenleaf house before, it was a Fairfield, and I made a right old mess of it when I was about 24 or so. I foolishly believed the instructions and used hot glue (this was in the pre-internet days before you could get so much good advice from other people) and wood filler and lots of other bad stuff - I sold it at a boot sale (flea market) in the end.

So, what have I done so far? (this is Day 2). I have taken all the sheets out of the box, and gone through every one and labelled every single piece in soft pencil. Compared to some of the stories I have read, I have been lucky: I am not missing any sheets, and I had very few 'floaters' come loose from their sheets. Most of the wood appears of relatively good quality. I say relatively because this is not great wood. The wood is not warped (something I had worried about as it sat there for four years).

And I have a plan. I am going to make a three-floor craft shop, so I am going to open up the front like they did in Book 3 of Dollshouses to Dreamhouses, but unlike that shop I am going to try to retain more of the front detailing. I am going to keep both staircases, but lose the wall between the stair and the living room, lose the chimney stack on the 3rd floor, and cut down part of the kitchen wall to turn it into the counter. I am not going to punch the two left side windows, to give me more display space. The kitchen will become the sales counter and office, but the bathroom will stay (for customer use only!).

I went out shopping today (Day 2). I am in the UK, so the nifty products I read about on the internet like Krylon or Deft sealer, or Quickgrab glue, etc. are not available over here. I had to go to two different stores looking for sealer. The first store had never heard of it, the second had a choice between Humbrol 'acrylic spray coating' in Crystal Clear, or Hardboard polyvinyl sealer, or sanding sealer for use under cellulose laquers (?). I went with the Humbrol and have conducted several tests on a scrap of ply (actually one with the fireplaces in it because I am not going to use those) and it doesn't seem to warp the wood. I am waiting for my emulsion paint to dry to see if it goes on over the sealer.

The total damage so far is £19 on a Black & Decker Palm Sander (a neat little gadget called the Mouse, how could I resist), two sample pots of Dulux 'Almost Chalk' paint at £1.29 each, a 3 for the price of 2 offer on filler which netted me Polyfilla 'No Sanding' (good for filling deep holes), Polyfilla Fine Surface filler (fills only up to 2mm) and Polyfilla Woodfiller (you can stain over this); 3 rolls of masking tape, and a can of Colron Wood Dye in Georgian Medium Oak. Total bill: £39.33. Then I went to the other store for the Humbrol spray and a small filler knife and spent another £9.50. Note to self, do not tell dh about this blog (I've hidden the palm sander already).