Welcome to my life . . . .

This is a blog about my passion: dollhouses and miniatures. This particular blog was started to follow my miniature dream: to create a Victorian Mansion. But work on my Mansion is slow. Very slow. Sloth slow. Ice Age glacier movement slow. Why? Because I am easily distracted by other personal miniature projects (I have 50+ roomboxes and 15 dollhouses in various stages of incompletion) and because I work for a miniature shop and am often up to my elbows in miniature projects that aren't mine! So, I thought, some artists work in a particular medium (woods, watercolors, clay, oils, etc.), I work in progress . . . .

Thursday, November 21, 2019

3rd time's a charm: Another Duracraft Farmhouse #500

I have been swamped with work, trying to inventory and pack up the brick and mortar shop as I transition to online only.  I was so busy I forgot to post this blog update when I finished it a month or so ago.  Oops!  The third and final Duracraft Farmhouse #500 for this year is done.  We were hired to assemble the kit to a shell stage (no windows or doors installed), cut an extra stair hole opening to the attic, and install wiring.

So many little pieces
Every wall had to be constructed one piece of 2-1/2" strip of wood at a time.  Very time consuming and incredibly flimsy wall structure.
Gluing the pieces together
One wall fully assembled
Luckily the walls fit into corner pieces which gave them some stability. But still feels flimsy to me.  It really made me realize how amazing it is that so many of these survived from the 1970s and 1980s!

There were also many warped pieces.  Most we could straighten or replace with similar pieces.  However, the porch support was a specialized piece, cut with a bevel and angle cuts on the ends.  Under our time constraints we had no choice but to use the warped piece.
This piece was warped side-to-side as well as up-and-down
With enough clamps, glue, and wood fill, it turned out pretty!
Ready for the customer to paint and shingle!
Interior has wiring put across ceilings and in some rooms at outlet level
Three more customer houses to complete before we go online only.  Realistically only two will get finished by our closing date in December.  The third one will most likely be finished at my house after we have gone online only.  There's just not enough hours in the day to do everything.