I trimmed out the sleeping nook

So, yesterday and today I stained the floor, painted the bead board on the sleeping nook (that is what I call it now that I like it) and I cut some trim with my NEW miter box and saw.  Yup, I have tools and know what to call them!  I "stained" the trim with acrylic paint because I learned a while back that real stain just looks funny on this little scale.  It just seems as if it is not deep enough to me. I also added some beams inside of the little triangle dormer areas.  Right now they are just wedged up there in the stucco.  Oh yeah, I stuccoed, is that right, applied stucco? oh well.  I used Dap vinyl spackle as the stucco with a little acrylic tan paint mixed in for color.  I had also used it on the exterior of the second floor.  I need to find a base for this so that I can finish up with some landscaping and moss.  Then it will be move in time.  Well, maybe.  I am also considering adding a wall to the left of the sleeping nook on the second floor because as much as I like the open space, I need some wall space! 

Working in the second floor

I am working on the layout of the second floor of the Orchid.  Those of you who have seen the Orchid know that the second floor is a nightmare!  The windows and the sloped roof make the layout very dysfunctional, to put it mildly.  I am attempting a false wall that will make a bed-space out of the middle window and will make wall space that is actually perpendicular to the floor under the smaller windows!  I think then I will be much happier with the space.

 

After looking through Sylvia's blog and seeing how wonderful her little chairs from Lea's tutorial turned out, I attempted my own.  I did not have any staircase spindles, so I made the front legs out of polymer clay.  Needless to say, it is a bit wobbly, but as attempts at miniature-making go, I am quite pleased with it!  Thanks for the inspiration Sylvia!

I think I've made some progress

I don't know what I've done since my last post, but here's a photo anyway :-)  I've decided, but not begun, to add false walls below the two small windows on the upper floor because that space is just USELESS!  I've got to get going on this because I've bought two more kits off of ebay; The Tennyson and The Van Buren.  Ebay + me = lots of random purchases.  I should never have installed the iphone app.  There is a super-awesome dollhouse-builder named Robin Carey http://robincarey.blogspot.com/  whom I am totally going to copy for the Van Buren.  No, not exactly, but she is a total inspiration.  Check out her "Key West House."  Not sure what I'm doing with the Tennyson.  I'm sure I'll come up with something!  I'm up for anything.  I forgot how much I love working on anything miniature.  I will probably need to be stopped at some point. I am making excuses to not get real work done in favor of completing "little" projects.

The Orchid dollhouse interior

Today I have begun to layout the interior of my Orchid! Hard to to see it yet, but it is going to be a bakery with a kitchen and a little apartment upstairs. I added the fireplace and turned the stairs from the kit and added a landing. I really wanted a fireplace and stairs and this was the only configuration I could come up with. I need to add a wall upstairs in order to accommodate an oven. I do not have a clear plan for that space yet. I don't really care as long as I can fill the whole place with mini cakes, pies, tarts, macaroons, cupcakes, and the like. I need to paint the beadboard before I attach it to the wall, and the baseboard and crown. I wish I was working on it now, but I have to watch 24! Again, sorry for the crummy iphone photo:

Moving on

Here is my first miniature oil painting! It's 1.5" x 2" and I stretched and gessoed a piece old 600 thread-count sheet. REALLY bad iphone pic, I know, but I lost the cable to my camera so this will have to do. I had to take a break from painting the "old people." I mean that in the nicest way, really :-)

I just bought a new house on Ebay!

Here is the Ebay picture. It was listed for local pick-up only in my town! Also, my "Ebay bucks," that I know nothing about, are redeemable tomorrow! I thought that meant that I should definitely buy it. Hopefully I can pick it up tomorrow when I am out and about :-) I know that I sound like a goob :-B

Fully shingled!

I could not be more pleased with these shingles! Whoever you are who posted the vinegar/steel-wool technique wherever you posted it, THANK YOU!

Shingles

Updated progress on the Orchid doll house

Did a lot of painting this weekend and also electrified the house with Dad. Can't quite decide on the interior design. Definitely a bakery. I want to bash the stairs to contain a landing. I am also working on the shingles. I found an aging technique that involves soaking steel wool in vinegar and painting the result on the shingles, producing a blackened look. I could not believe it worked! The end is in sight if I can make some decisions!

Here is my baby girl's Playmobil doll house

Ooo, sorry about the crappy iphone photos!

Here is the progress on the orchid doll house

A base, some shingles, paint, and landscaping and we will be done with the exterior

Here is the beacon hill in progress

This has taken my Dad 100s of hours to get to this point! You can't see all of the detail, but he has endlessly sanded and filled those jagged little Greenleaf pieces to an unrecognizable smoothness! We can't WAIT to get our(my) hands on this!