Plant Roombox

This was a quick little project we stuck in between the other customers' houses we are finishing.  It is a shadow box kit from Real Good Toys.  Customer wanted a small space to put plants so this 4-1/2" deep by approximately 14-1/2" wide roombox seemed perfect!  I was to stain the exterior, Magic Brik the interior walls (How To Magic Brik: My Previous Magic Brik Project), and Magic Ston the interior floor: a simple and sweet job.  Until I opened the box to assemble it and realized the box is MDF and not real wood so...no staining.

For those that have never tried (i.e. for those who haven't accidentally forgotten and stained MDF anyway), MDF doesn't stain well.  There is no grain to enhance or actual wood to create that beautiful richness when you stain it.  MDF just absorbs the stain, becoming a brown color with streaks of darker brown depending upon your brush strokes.

Porch Floor made of MDF we stained

I pointed this out to the customer, but she elected to have us stain it anyway: she isn't interested so much in what the exterior is like: she is more focused on the interior!  Most of the exterior isn't seen anyway because who ever looks at the back of a roombox?  And, most likely, the roombox will be on a bookshelf or up against a wall.

All of this will be against the bookshelf and never seen

I also debated about attempting to faux paint it to look stained as I had read about in another miniature blog (Late Victorian English Manor) but I was too chicken to try experimenting on a customer's project that had such an immediate deadline.  There would be no time to practice or experiment with new techniques.  But it was a good lesson to learn that if customers have their hearts set on a stained exterior I ought to convince them to buy Alessio's shadowboxes or roomboxes which are made out of real wood!

So on to the interior...
Per customer's instructions, we Magic Brik'ed the interior walls with red bricking.  Then we sponge painted over them in white, leaving some spots of the red showing thru.  We started the Magic Ston to create the stone flooring:

Step 1 for Flooring

Step 2 for Flooring

Customer wants a light gray stone flooring, but I don't think the monotone gray looks very realistic.  So I painted some of the stones to add a touch of realism:

Step 3 for Flooring and front trim is glued on

Sconces are in:

With lights on....

I don't know exactly what type of plants the customer is putting in this box, but I grabbed some off the shelves here at the store to see how it'd look with stuff in the room:

Finished box

Customer is picking the box up tomorrow before she heads off to the Chicago Show where I'm sure she'll find all sorts of fun goodies for her roombox!

Now I've got to get back to work on the Little Lost Cause or the Donation House!

Bits and Pieces...(Part 3 of 4: Flooring)

So, I've been working away on the Willoway!

This past week the house was wallpapered and flooring cut and installed.  The rooms were so deep that we had to connect two sheets of flooring.  I do this all the time, but a customer mentioned that he always had trouble matching them up and installing floors so I decided to do a blog post about it for anyone else who has issues.

First we polyurethane the wood floors.
Then we make a template of the dollhouse floor.  We do this by overlapping paper and taping them together until the floor space in the dollhouse is completely covered by paper.  (I know, we only use the best tools here at the store.)  Remember to write on the paper what room the template is for and which direction is towards the open end of the dollhouse as you want the nice manufactured edge (presumably the straightest edge) in the front where people will see.
By now the polyurethane is dry and you can match up the two floors.  Put them edge to edge.  They will not always match up great (i.e. there will be gaps):

Some gaps are visible which is why it is best to do this on a white table where gaps show thru the wood clearly.

If that happens, turn one of the floors around so the opposite edge is now against the other floor's edge.  Sometimes you will still see a gap in which case you will then need to rotate the other floor.  Basically, keep turning the floors as one edge will match up very nicely to the other floor's edge:

Butted up to each other and there are no visible gaps!

Now flip the floors over so you can tape the backs together where the seam is located:

Starter pieces of tape to hold the seam in place until the rest can be applied.

I go overboard with the masking tape to hold them together.

Now you have a large wood floor with no visible seams or gaps:

A 17" x 22" wood floor!

Pull your templates out of the dollhouse and arrange them on the large wood floor you have created:

I can cut two rooms out of this!

Put the edge of the template up to the edge of the wood floor and start cutting.  Actually, I freehand cut around the template but if you are feeling cautious I would recommend either pencil lining around the template and cutting along your line or taping the template in place so it doesn't shift while you are cutting.  Once the flooring is cut out you can test fit it in the house (usually there is a place or two that needs minor adjusting to get it to fit exactly right: paper is more flexible and forgiving than the wood sheet flooring so a few snips along the edge might be needed for a flatter, easier fit).

Use double sided tape or tacky glue to install your flooring:

Installed in the hallway and read to go! (Lower level has weights on that floor while the glue dries)

We also stained the stairs for the dollhouse.  But the pre-assembled stairs had a lot of glue that prevented the stain from taking to the wood in the creases:

Lots of raw wood gaps.

Customer wants to keep costs for this dollhouse reasonable (it is for a child to play with) so we did our usual "cheat" method and filled in gaps with a dark brown marker before we polyurethaned the stairs.  Doesn't completely cover all the gaps, but makes them less noticeable:

Some raw wood gaps are still there - may put another coat of marker on it

If there is time I will color the more noticeable gaps with marker again.  But it will be picked up Wednesday and I still have shingling to do.  Shouldn't be too bad except that tomorrow is Halloween, today are the kids' school activities relating to Halloween, and I don't work Sunday or Monday (and kids are off of school on Monday and Tuesday due to the end of the semester) so getting kid-free time here in the store to shingle will be tough, but I will get it done (or at least beg Mom to help and do some shingling)!  Interested in shingling with a hinge on the roof? Look for installment Bits and Pieces...(4 of 4) next week!

Bits and Pieces from Everywhere (Part 1 of 4: Electrical)

I've been working on several projects this past week, and today's blog will be about the electrical issues of two of the projects.  My frustrations with electrical hit new highs this past week.

Personal Project was going along great: the microjacks were finally working  (Installing Electrical in Library Ceiling) and I was ready to move on to the next room!  Music Room electrical went fine!  I was on a roll!  Guest Room electrical went . . . . well, that's it.  It went.

I tried to install the first set of microjacks and they did not go in correctly thanks to my heavy soldering.  I tried to remove some of the solder but the constant heat and cool from soldering application and removal must have compromised the integrity of the microjack because when I tried to put them in, they snapped in half.  By then the first holes I had drilled were looking fairly sorry; I was thinking they must have been enlarged due to the installation attempts.  So I drilled new holes and tried to install a new set of microjacks (using only a dab of solder this time!).

New holes drilled next to old holes

Success!  They went in beautifully and my tester chandelier lit up great:

New Microjacks are in!

It's Working!!!

Then I removed my chandelier, and the microjacks decided to keep the chandelier's adapter prongs along with the chandelier's wires!

Prongs and the wires from left side are gone - still stuck in Microjacks

So not only did I have to trash my chandelier (thank goodness I used a cheaper fan light to test and not my $150 chandelier!), but I had to rip out that pair of microjacks too since prongs were stuck in them!  So, I didn't want to do it, but I have decided to use tapewire in the Guest Room.  I will try using the microjacks without tails (so no soldering).  Microjacks without tails just push into my predrilled holes in the tapewire, so this should be easy.  I ran the tapewire into the Guest Room and put the microjack on the awl pin (as directed by the manufacturer for installing microjacks).  And pushed it into the 1/16" hole I had drilled.  And removed the awl from the room to discover the awl pin was still stuck into the ceiling with the microjack.  Are you kidding me?!?!  Using pliers I finally pulled the awl pin out of the ceiling, along with half of a microjack.

Yup, that's right: a third pair of microjacks destroyed!  WHAT IS IT WITH THE GUEST ROOM AND MICROJACKS?  The Guest Room must be cursed.  I have walked away from the project for a while so I don't throw it out a window.  My patience was exhausted.  And it was only Monday!

So, since I'm not working on my personal project, I will get lots done on customers projects!
The little blue Willoway needs tapewire put in it.  A simple 2 day project.  Nice and easy, straight tapewire runs across floors and ceilings (everything will get covered with wallpaper and flooring so no restrictions on where I put tapewire!).  Until I looked in the house on Saturday afternoon last week and discovered the customer had crown molding in all the rooms already!  And it was glued on solid; no removing it.  Might even have been part of the construction process.  And Dad primed over it all so it was also painted in place too (even if the glue had been weak, the paint would hold it tight).

Crown molding blends in with walls (Crown is where arrows are), but it is in every room

So I had to get creative with the wiring.  In order to get the electrical power from one room to the next, this dollhouse now has a hybrid of round wire and tape wire.  So first thing Tuesday I decided to tackle the electrical:

Some round wires can still be seen (see arrows) but will be tucked away once decorating starts

Many spots needed to be soldered - but trying to solder the wires behind the trim (where the arrows pointing up are located in the picture) was difficult: First, my head and hands couldn't fit into the space to see what I was doing or where I needed to solder.  The windows were too far back on the side for me to peek in too.  So I needed to use a mirror and solder backwards in the mirror.

Because holding a mirror, solder, and a soldering iron while trying to solder backwards is so easy to do.

Then came the next challenge: the solder kept dripping down the soldering iron.  Yup, that's how gravity works.  Just because I want the solder to melt up into the place where the grommets and wires are, gravity insists it must flow the other way, down the soldering iron tip and towards my hand.  Wonderful. So the house had to be tipped onto it's side so that the melted solder would flow into the hole and not down the iron.
So I ended up having to solder, sideways and backwards in a mirror balanced on a spare piece of trim.  Very nerve wracking and used up a lot of my patience.
But it's done!
But I haven't tested it yet . . . because if there were problems I wouldn't have had the patience to fix it this week!

Customer's Non-Colonial Colonial

This dollhouse originally came in to be converted into a true Colonial (centered front door with symmetrical single windows on either side).  However, the siding is individual strips glued onto compressed wood so removing, cutting and replacing the different components would involve a great deal more labor (and cost) than the customer wished to spend.  So she opted to have us do minor architectural repairs and changes.  Customer will then remove the interior wallpapers and re-wallpaper the dollhouse for her granddaughter.

BEFORE: Double window needed repair and
the rooftop porch needed railings.

AFTER: Minor repairs made.

 At first the customer wanted the entire window replaced, but the only window that fit in this space was this same exact window (another window fit the opening, but did not have as large of a pediment resulting in repairs and paint needed above the window if we replaced it).  Customer then opted to have us replace the missing mullion:

BEFORE: Mullion is broken in lower left hand of the window.

AFTER: Quick and easy fix!

Biggest change and hardest work to complete was cutting the archway from the kitchen to the living room.  I love the I-drill and it usually is a quick cut to create windows, doorways, and other holes where needed in a wall.  However, the I-drill handle wouldn't fit in the room properly and the I-drill would not cut along the curve of the archway.  Plus, the wall is a compressed wood product that splinters and shatters when cutting.  This turned into a slow process of cutting out chunks and filing away the excess wood and then sanding the splinters and jagged bits away.  Luckily the customer is putting Unique Miniature's arch trim on the walls so we did not have to make a perfect cut (which greatly reduced the labor time) . . . .

BEFORE: Kitchen in need of an arch doorway on the right wall.

AFTER: Archway is cut in wall. Customer still has to remove
old wallpapers; then she will install the arch trim (see photo below).

AFTER: Arch trim (loosely in place) will help finish off the opening
once customer removes the old paper and gives the walls a fresh finish.

We replaced and repaired a few shingles on the back roof and installed railings on the rooftop porch area on the addition:

AFTER: Shingles replaced in various spots and along the edges of the roof.

BEFORE: This rooftop porch is not to code.

AFTER: Another quick and easy fix that really completed the house.

AFTER

Now on to the Harborside Mansion decorating job, the Contemporary Ranch (very excited about a glass block half-wall this house is getting), and a Dutch-style dollhouse we worked on in 2009 that has been returned for wallpapers and electrical work!