Revisiting an old friend

My customer emailed me this week and sent me photos of her dollhouse that we renovated for her a while back (Last Blog Update on Lost Cause Dollhouse ). She has installed all her furniture and accessories -- her grandmother made some of the furniture and the customer herself made some of the accessories. Wanted to share these with you all!


Living Room -- I adore the birdcage under the stairs, next to the TV!

One of my favorite rooms: the Dining Room

The bright and cheerful kitchen is another favorite of mine

I am so happy the customer put a battery operated light in the kitchen to show off those accessories!  So much to see in there!

A bit blurry, but here is the Bathroom.

I really like the table lamps in the Master Bedroom!

Customer made the Russian books on the desk in the children's room

I am so glad when I get to see the dollhouses I've worked on being enjoyed and played with!  Such a good thing the customer didn't give up hope on this treasured childhood house and throw it away!  It will provide her with many more memories to cherish!

Lost Cause to Realized Vision

The little Lost Cause dollhouse has it's new identity!  If you follow this blog, you already have read a few entries regarding this little house, including why I gave it the nickname of Lost Cause (First Blog Post About Lost Cause Dollhouse).  But now it is finished, so here's the recap:

First brought to us in sorry shape, this house needed some TLC:

Before, needing some TLC

Customer wanted to keep as much as the original as she could: her father made it for her when she was young.  But she wanted it painted white/green (exterior) and for the interior rooms to be painted the same colors as her real house.

BEFORE EXTERIOR

AFTER EXTERIOR

We sanded down to the bare wood on the exterior, repainted, and replaced the windows/doors/balcony (creating new ones using the same design her father had used).

BEFORE: BALCONY

AFTER: BALCONY

BEFORE: DOORS

AFTER: DOORS

Read previous blog entries to read about the reconstruction of the windows (First Blog Post on House) and the doors (Putting Hinges on Door).

The interior rooms had been previously stripped by someone else.  There were fragments of paper still on the walls that we needed to remove and many imperfections in the exposed raw wood.  After spackling and sanding and covering the interior with wallpaper liner, we were able to paint each room to her specifications and put down flooring:

BEFORE: KITCHEN

AFTER: KITCHEN

To read more about the kitchen flooring go here: Kitchen Flooring

We did not touch the tile work in the bathroom (seen below) as her father had done that and we wanted to keep as much of the original as we could: that's what gives each dollhouse their own personality and charm!

BEFORE: BATHROOM

AFTER: BATHROOM

BEFORE: DINING ROOM (that's our flooring sample in the front of the room)

AFTER: DINING ROOM

BEFORE: LIVING ROOM

AFTER: LIVING ROOM

I gotta give Mom props on this one: My mother decided the half stairs going from the landing to the second floor needed to be remade.  Someone else (not the customer nor us) had glued the half steps on upside down and there were glue blobs and wood filler in various places on the steps.  So Mom spent an afternoon cutting and fussing, and using the original steps as a guide, she created some beautiful (I think) replacement stairs...

BEFORE: Someone else had glued the steps on upside down and slopped wood fill all over the place

AFTER: Gorgeous steps!

BEFORE: Messy

AFTER: Is it crazy that I love them so much?!?!?

BEFORE: MASTER BEDROOM

AFTER: MASTER BEDROOM

We also added lighting to the second floor (customer will add battery operated chandeliers to the first floor once she arrives to pick up the house and see the full selection of battery operated lights we carry).  Hidden behind the ceiling trim we installed LED strip lighting.

IN PROGRESS: INTERIOR, with all remaining wallpapers, trims and window trims removed

AFTER: Bright and ready to display

 Overall the interior cleaned up rather well -- it's a colorful, cheery, warm home:

BEFORE: OVERALL INTERIOR (that's scrap of our wood flooring in the front of the dining room)

AFTER: OVERALL INTERIOR

This little lost cause is now a proud realized vision of the customer's dream!  I'm so glad I had the opportunity to work on it!

AFTER: Little Lady is heading home!

Small Hinges for Doors (Lost Cause Being Finished Up!)

I am intimidated by installing large hinges that hold dollhouse panel walls (I'm always convinced the hinges will never support the weight of the wood wall!).  So I usually avoid anything to do with hinges.  But small hinges I can manage!  Well, with glue assistance anyway.

This is just a quick blog entry regarding small hinges.  Attaching a door to hinges is easy if you glue them in place first:

Got all my necessary supplies.

Glue is on the edges of the hinge (keep it away from the working parts of the hinge though!).

All hinges are glued in place.

Using a push pin/thumb tack, I make starter holes for the tiny "nails".

Insert the nails/screws.

Push in as far as you can.

Done, repeat for other hinges. If any don't push flush with hinge, use a flat edge of a screwdriver to push them in more.

Apply glue to the edges of the other end of the hinge to put in place in the door frame.

Just as was done on the door side of the hinge, once glue has set on the door frame side use a pin/tack to make starter holes, and push the nails in.

Door opens/closes!

So doors are being put on the Lost Cause dollhouse today (French door is in, obviously, as photos above show, but front door is still waiting for a second coat of paint, doorknobs, and hinges).  I still have to attach the balcony, paint the flat rooftop, and glue trims on the exterior so it will be done Tuesday morning (I was hoping to finish it up today but personal reasons are keeping me from obtaining that goal). Next blog post will be about the whole process with before/after photos!

Little Lost Cause Flooring

Customer wants a tile floor that resembles the floor in her real life house.  Unfortunately the pic she emailed to us didn't fully capture the "orange" color of her floor...

Customer's real life kitchen floor

Customer picked out an orange tile here in the shop that was similar in color, but didn't have the variation of color that her real life floor has.  So customer was willing to "settle" for the plain, monotone, perfectly-square orange tile we had in stock.  But this lady is super sweet and so pleasant to work with and I wanted to give her what she had envisioned.  And I always wanted to experiment with a popsicle stick floor -- of course, I thought I would be using the popsicle sticks to create a wood floor and not a tile floor, but how different could it be?

Taped together

I grouped a few sticks together (and taped them together so they'd all be cut the same) and marked them.  (In the future it would probably be best to give them all a coat of paint FIRST, and then cut them into individual "tiles" instead of the other way around -- hindsight is 20/20).  Used the jeweler's saw to cut them all...

Piles of tiles

This was when I realized that it would have been better to have painted them BEFORE I cut them up.  DUH!  Let's blame lack of coffee for not thinking of that sooner!

I painted them each in various shades of orange.

And glued them to a template that fit the room.  I like to use a roller to squeeze out any excess glue and to firmly adhere the wood down to the template...

Then I had to polyurethane it to seal the wood because it would need some grout (to better replicate the real life tile floor)...but I use wall spackle as grout and in order to wipe away the excess with a wet rag I would need the "tiles" sealed.  So, after polyurethaning the flooring twice to make sure the tiles were sealed, I then put the grout in it:

I like Dap Fast 'N Final Wall spackle, but any spackle will do (including the one I used for this project which was a purple-but-dries-white spackle).  Then it got another coat of sealant and it was put in place:

I had fun - and learned a little bit too from my experiment.  It has the variation of color and the slightly haphazard nature of her real life kitchen tiles! Can't wait to do something similar for another project I'm considering -- a future Birthmas (half Birthday/half Christmas) gift for a friend....this isn't half bad for a little pro bono kitchen floor!  I hope she likes it!