Newport gone, Willoway still underway!

One October project down, and one to go!

The Newport was an October 10th birthday gift (and not a Christmas gift as I had first assumed when I gave the lady the estimate for a finished painted Newport in the middle of September).  So, we had limited time to get this project together.  Luckily in the past year or so Mom and I had partially assembled a Newport kit and it was sitting in the store so that saved me a great deal of time!  Just had to prime and stain the interior, insert the interior walls, assemble and paint the majority of the exterior trims and stairs, and paint the roof panels as customer did not want shingles.

Assembling the rails and posts

All assembled, now to paint!

So after the many, many, many rails were assembled and painted (what a chore that was! Did I mention that there were a lot of railings?) I stained the floors and polyurethaned them.  (Yes, even though my computer constantly tells me polyurethane is a noun and I cannot add an "-ed" ending to it, polyurethane is also a verb!)  I think the floors turned out lovely, but Mom thinks they were a bit too dark.  Although she did like them better after the semi-gloss polyurethane went on them:

I will admit that they look brighter in the photo than they were in the flesh and they only appear that way in this photo thanks to the flash on my camera.  But I still like the contrast of the dark floors with the white primed walls though.  Even if the floors are dark.
Stairs were painted white (because they were MDF it was all we could do since Medium Density Fiberboard won't take stain nicely):

So, customer arrived yesterday and took the birthday present home for her daughter!  What a lucky little girl!

All Finished!

And ready to play!

So that October project was kicked out quickly.  But we still have another one . . . .
Recently we have been working on this little lady too:

Before Photo of Willoway

This is a 1978 Craft Publications Willoway Farm Victorian Dollhouse.  (That's quite a title!)  Craft Publications is probably best known for the Pepperwood Dollhouse which still pops up quite a lot these days.  But this is a Willoway Farm house and it is getting a complete overhaul.  Luckily the customer was flexible on a due date so although she dropped it off back in the early summer, we are only getting around to working on it seriously this past month.  Dad has been helping me on this one -- he is really good at demolition and prep work!  Shingles have been removed and the porch rails all repaired/replaced, and the exterior has been completely painted.  Interior has been primed too.  Now today and Tuesday (we're closed Sunday and Mondays) I hope to tackle the electrical and then middle to late next week I begin the wallpaper and installation of floors (floors were polyurethaned -- yes, it's a word, stupid computer! -- a week or two ago).

We were unable to get the porch railings off the house without the risk of breaking the posts or the siding of the house, so we painted around them.  Took a little extra bit of time, but Dad helped with the wall painting and I went around the small bits and posts and stuff: it was a fun team effort!

BEFORE: Walls painted, detail painting around post needed

AFTER

BEFORE: Railing needs touch up paint and wall needs detail paint

AFTER

Half the windows and the door are painted white, but we are still waiting on the other half of the windows which we had to order (they should arrive early next week).  This little lady is coming along and will have a blog post dedicated to her once she is completely finished (hopefully by the end of the month!):

In Progress

Also on Wednesday we have another renovation job being dropped off; October is turning into a very busy month for me!  I hope you are all having a productive, wonderful month too!