Return of the Mansion

In reviewing my posts to show a customer how the remote control works with dollhouse lighting (youtube video using the remote control), I realized it had been almost a year since I worked on my Victorian Mansion.  I pulled a rookie mistake and because of it I had hit a stumbling block with the mansion: I forgot to square out all the window and door openings before I started decorating.  And now that several rooms were already decorated, no doors fit!  I had discovered the doors didn't fit just before my health got really bad last year.  And so I've avoided the mansion because the one thing I really hate doing is sanding.  And given that all doorways were about 1/16" to 1/8" too narrow and short, I knew it would take a lot of sanding and filing to fix it.  A lot.  And I'd have to be very careful because wallpapers and floorings were already in place in half the rooms.  Wonderful.  So, my way of dealing with it was to avoid it.

Out from behind the dining room table so I can get all around it

But now my mojo is going strong (Asian garden is just waiting on Shoji doors; New Yorker Roombox is waiting on some minor electrical soldering, broadway poster frames, and a battery platform and then it's done)!  So I pulled the mansion out from behind the dining room table to give it some long-needed attention!

Took almost 3 hours but all 6 doorways are now sanded/filed to the proper opening size.  Some doors are still a tight fit but I can't sand anymore!  I quit! LOL

Filing doorway between Parlor and Library without hitting fireplace or marking up the painted Parlor walls

Parlor door now fits

Filing Guest Room doorway tight fit...

After a lot of sanding both doors in Lady's Room fit...

I also touched up the library door from where some white spray paint had hit the molding edge.  So that involved a bit more sanding and a reapplication of stain.

Small amount of spray paint on molding edging that bugged me

Sanded and restained molding

And I cleaned the floors from all the dust I had created from my sanding and filing.  The dust was getting into every hairline crack and creating white streaks in my flooring so I broke out the Tack Cloth.  If you know about Tack Cloth, skip this next part:

This sticky rag gets up so much and even gives a tiny polish appearance to wood floors!  I prefer to wear gloves or a plastic bag when I hold the cloth; otherwise your fingers have a tacky feeling for hours afterwards.  But it gets all the dust and stuff off your wood floors!  I also cleaned the floors in a display house at the store:

Dusty Floor

Wiped with damp cloth but dust clings in the hairline cracks creating white streaks or dots

Scrub with a tack cloth

All clean!

So, I'm back into Mansion mode!  Hopefully a ton of work will be done on this in the next few months -- stay tuned!