Woodline Victorian Ready for Play

Between illnesses, doctor visits, and the lingering real life redecorating of my daughters' rooms, the only miniaturing I got to do in February was on customer projects.  The Woodline Victorian is completely repainted and ready for the customer to come pick it up for daughter to play with it!

House was brought in missing all second story railings and some of the first floor railings.  We were hired to repair or create all railings, repaint exterior, create working front door and side door, finish shingling the house (customer had started a while ago but never finished), repair 2 windows that were missing mullion pieces, replace the "grass" in the yard, and wallpaper 3 remaining rooms inside.

BEFORE

AFTER

Originally customer was uncertain about removing all the black accent touches.  So our first step was to repaint the trims, leaving the corbels and window trims black:

IN PROGRESS Painting

But daughter didn't like the look so all trims were painted over.  Those black interior window trims were changed to white.  It took five coats of white to cover, and even then I think it could have used a sixth and seventh coat but we had reached the budget limit back on coat four! LOL Surprisingly, covering the black with the teal color only took 2 coats in most places -- and good thing too, because it was nerve racking to paint the edges of the shutters without getting paint on the white house!

Customer provided the wallpaper and we tackled the remaining 3 rooms in the house that were not papered (top two rooms and center middle room):

BEFORE: a few rooms left needing wallpaper

AFTER

BEFORE Center two rooms needing paper

AFTER

Longest part involved the porch railings: regluing all the exterior railing back together, painting the railing while it was already glued to the porch, and needing to cut two new porch post corbels!

BEFORE: Side porch missing all rails but a porch post and corbel railing.

AFTER: Needs a wicker porch set and a table with summer drinks on it!

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

Now that this house is done, I am finishing up another customer's red townhouse (townhouse has been in since I primed it and installed some tapewire over a year ago: customer has been slowly picking out wallpapers and chandeliers for me to wire in:  Video of customer's townhouse after getting fire place lights installed).  And once that is completed, I can go back to working on MY miniature stuff again!  I wish everyone a productive and sunny Spring!  Caio! (That was for you, Julie! LOL)

I Found a Name! (And it's Woodline)

My curiosity is appeased!  This house that keeps appearing to haunt me finally has a name! (First mention of this style house. Second post about this style house.)

The house we worked on in 2004

The same style house that appeared for work in 2015

Another turned up again in 2016

And, in November, a fourth one showed up for repair!

This house is in for repair in 2018

But this customer had all the manufacturer's instructions and some other reading material about miniatures (including some catalogs from the 1970s or early 80s for Lynne's in PA)!


 

So this style house is called the Victorian Doll House by Woodline Products out of Illinois.

Now that I had a direction to google, I have found some other Woodline Product houses with the most popular being:

Not certain if you can see the other houses offered so here's another image of a kit up close:

That's that.  Now I know who made these houses I keep seeing and what they are called.  And now you do too.  Lol

Another Farmhouse

We've worked on this style house a few times before (Other Farmhouses) so we knew exactly what needed to be done this week with this poor beaten up little house...

Needed TLC

A sassy cat had decided a long time ago that the porch was it's bed.  So all the railings were destroyed.  And at some point in time the roof and third floor had fallen off.

Customer still had roof pieces

Second level porch was cracked and almost broken off.  First level porch was warped (from kitty's fluffy rear end, no doubt) and would need extra support.

Top porch floor is cracked and almost broken off

Lower porch floor is warped and needs support

After new railings were cut for it, supports were put under the porches, an interior wall was added to help support the upper floors, and third floor and roofs were glued back on, the house is ready for the customer's daughter to play with it!

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

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And another farmhouse gets another chance at life/play!

I still haven't forgotten my promise of showing the popsicle stick flooring for the Little Lost Cause house...it's getting grout this weekend so next week will be the blog update on that house.

Pink House; Deja Vu!

So we had this pink house dropped off for a good cleaning for a child's birthday on Feb. 21st.  Owner didn't know much about it; it was her childhood dollhouse that she was now passing down to her own child.  Wasn't even sure if the person who made it for her had built it from scratch or from a kit.  She suspected it was built from scratch.  It was constructed with 3" high siding strips glued to corner pieces (which is why at times you can see gaps or separations where customer's relative did not have them lined up exactly right).  Staring at it pricked at my brain, making me think I should remember something.  But, it was a simple job to just clean the outside, wash the curtains, and to glue the broken railings back together and onto the house.  So I ignored the nagging voice in my brain (not an easy thing to do) and got to work . . . .

Before: Dirty and missing railings on the top porch.

After: Cleaned up and railings are glued back together and onto the house.

Before: All the railings and porch posts on the second level were broken to pieces and missing off the house.

After: Railings were glued together and reattached to the house.

Before: Filthy, filthy.

After: a good scrubbing makes it look so much better!

Before/In Process: Cleaning the house.

After: Railing on side porch is repaired too.

It still bugged me though.  That voice in my head would not shut up: Something about this house was so familiar.  Then it hit me: We've worked on this type of house before!  Our first repair house was this same style house, only in a black and white color scheme, back in 2004.

Before of 2004 Repair Job

After of 2004 Repair Job

Two separate houses with the exact same layout and construction method.  And, yesterday I found a third one of these homes for sale on Craig's List.  This was definitely not something the customer's uncle/father/grandfather threw together for her - not unless he made 3 of them and I happened to have found all three within 11 years of each other!  Must be from a kit, but what an unusual kit that you construct using siding strips!  I have tried researching this house (as of yesterday) but have not discovered (yet) who created them.  They are cute though!
And if anyone out there knows anything about this house and/or any kit it may have originated from: please let me know so that I can ignore the "continue to research it until you find answers" voice in my brain.  It needs to be silenced so that I may enjoy the "have some more chocolate" voice instead.