Decisions and Dilemmas

I get very involved with the dollhouses and projects I work on.  I get to know their little idiosyncrasies, the small bits that make a room just perfect, or the minor imperfections that cause one wall to stick out slightly more than the others, etc.  I even begin to talk to the dollhouses. Yes, I talk to the dollhouses ("I know you'd look really cute with a pediment here, but I'm already $10 over budget so you aren't getting one!").  Sometimes they answer back to me in my mind.

So, this house is being picked up on Tuesday, finished to the customer's specifications.  (Before and After pics will be in next blog entry on Tuesday).  But I really want to make some minor changes to it.  The front door the customer picked is a beautiful white Majestic Mansion's door (I love Majestic Mansion stuff!).  But the house is also painted white.  It looks nice, but the dollhouse and I have been talking . . . 

Love that front door!  Can you see it?

Overall view of the exterior, looking like a lovely little home.

I don't know if the customer has steps for the house or not, but if she does, I think they need to be black.  And with some touches of black on the door, I think it would really pop!

Now I see that door I love so much!

Amazing what I can do with black construction paper, huh?

Seeing as how we are already at the top of the budget (and the customer may have front steps at home for the dollhouse), I can't take the time to create the steps for this house.  But the dollhouse talked to me and said it could rock the look! LOL

The dollhouse just whispered to me that I ought to email the customer to ask if she has front steps . . .

Steps of Progress . . .

Best part of this redecoration job has been the stairs!  Priming the inside, painting the outside white, painting shutters black, and adding gray shingles to the roof is fairly straightforward work that doesn't involve any spark of creativity or excitable sense of 'that looks smashing'!  So I was pleased when the customer said she wanted wood floors installed on the first floor and the stairs to be a paint/stain combo!

First I stained and poly'ed the treads and handrails:

Staining didn't have to be perfect because white paint would cover any mistakes.

These are my favorite finishes for stairs!  Sometimes found in Federal, Empire, Victorian, and contemporary homes (roughly 1780-present), the paint/stain combo was originally a safety precaution: pre-electricity times made steps a hazard to see when climbing the stairs at night, holding that flickering candle whose light projection barely reached past your knees.  The contrast of the white riser and stained tread on stairs made it easier for someone climbing the stairs to see where the next step was.

Primed and painted!

All ready to be glued back into the house!

 

Now it's just a crisp, clean effect and looks elegant on staircases, even dollhouse stairs!

Work Coming Out of the Woodwork!

As soon as I took out my own personal project to seriously work on it (Leaky Cauldron/Diagon Alley), a slew of customers dropped off their projects they want/need done in the next 2 or 3 months!  There's five different customer projects I'm working on at the moment . . . .

First up: A pink dollhouse that was in a garage for a decade or two and is being renovated for a daughter!  Mostly this is a clean-up, painting and shingling job.

This pink house will get a white house body, black shutters, and gray shingles!
Plus it will get a new stunning Majestic Mansion's front door!

The rooftop is loose (as are some of the interior walls) and they needed to be glued back in place.

Rooftop is popped up in the front and not laying flat.

The interior had never been finished off before, unless spider webs and dirt are your idea of a snazzy decor.  The raw wood has some water stain/mildew damage that we have to clean and seal.  And somewhere along the way a mouse decided that this was a perfect home for him/her and made every room a bathroom!

Overall view of interior.  Bottom level will get wood floors.
Stairs are to be two-toned: stained treads and handrails, white painted risers and spindles.
The rest of the interior will be primed and sealed.

Spider webs hang from the ceilings . . .

Mouse must have been French Revolutionary time era:
s/he used the corners for bathrooms.

Water damage is in various places throughout the right side of the house.

My dentist would probably freak if he knew what I do with those free sample toothbrushes he gives me after a dental cleaning . . .



 

Cleaning the stairs: bottom six steps are cleaned.

The shingles are stained and drying (it's a five day process to dry them so it takes a while) and primer is in most of the house now.

In the evenings, after work, I am assembling a contemporary ranch dollhouse kit for a customer.  It's a straightforward job so no photos of that, unless something wildly funny happens while I'm assembling it (like if I nail it to the table again or glue some part of myself or my clothing to it).

Another two weeks or so and I'll be on to the next house (a colonial style house getting an alteration) . . . .

My Happy Helpers

One common complaint of motherhood is that you are never left alone: can't even use the bathroom without a kid knocking on the door needing something.  So my hobby is no different!  I started to chip out the Leaky Cauldron pub floor and it attracted the attention of my girls. 

Luckily two of my girls are old enough now to actually help!  I was not surprised by my eldest offering to help me; she likes to help with everything I do, from laundry to miniatures.

It was appropriate that my middle daughter also wanted to help; I was pregnant with her 10 years ago when I took the class and first made the structure.  How appropriate then that she help me finish it up!  She is not into miniatures, but she is a Harry Potter fan so she was eager to assist.  Plus, she is great at deconstruction!

So, slowly but surely, the old plaster floor is getting chipped out!

Getting Personal . . .

I was so certain that I would struggle on a customer's dollhouse recently and when I encountered no difficulties with the job, I felt empowered and ready to tackle the world. Well, my tiny corner of it anyway.
 I know that I should be working on my Mansion.  It sits right here behind me as I type; a figurative elephant in the room. (Okay, it's not really as big as an elephant but to hear my spouse complain about it still sitting in our family room corner you'd think it was larger than a pachyderm).  Yet I went and brought a different project up out of the basement . . . .


My unfinished but still respectable structure



A local lady is trying to coordinate a Bill Lankford class here in Loudoun County.  It's his Leaky Cauldron/Diagon Alley class. On the pamphlet I made and posted at work, I used a photo of my own (unfinished but still presentable) Leaky Cauldron/Diagon Alley that I made in a Bill Lankford class 10 years ago. I never completed this project for a very stupid reason: The pub floor.



My Leaky Cauldron Pub Floor



I had never used wall spackle to create flooring so I wanted to make sure I had completed this part in class that way Mr. Lankford was right there if I ran into problems.  Unfortunately we were rushing at the end of class and I hastily created this stone floor in the last 1/2 hour before leaving.  And I hate it.  And I know I need to destroy it, chip it out, sand it, do whatever it takes to remove it!  Because I really want a wood floor in there.  So for 10 years I have avoided completing this project because I know I have a messy and labor intensive job ahead of me to undo my poorly done floor.

There are some minor other issues, but they are either quick fixes or decorating issues.  A window needs to be repaired and installed:

This window needed to be installed . . .

. . . but it broke before I got to install it.  So I have to fix it first.

Stones under the moving part of the structure need to be glued down with a special formula of soap and water (a special formula that is written on a tiny scrap of paper that may never be found in the "safe spot" I put it somewhere in my basement):

This collection of aquarium pebbles need to be glued down -- it's
amazing I haven't lost any of them over the years
as they just rattle around down there under the pub.

And, the part I am really looking forward to: various shop windows in Diagon Alley need to be filled.

I have cauldrons and owls for these two shops, but the shop just out of frame on the right
is a robe shop.  Not too thrilled about filling that shop, and am debating about changing it to a different shop all together.

There is also an exterior shop window that needs to be filled with some merchandise.  It is a muggle shop.  There is already one other exterior shop window that has Harry Potter books in it for sale.  Any ideas of what should be for sale in the other muggle shop's window?

Hinged!

Both hinges cooperated and turned out great!

Dollhouse Before: minor work needed on right side of house to reattach
 the addition front panel and the second story porch door back in place.

Dollhouse After: Cleaned, reattached additon front panel, put porch door on hinge,
reglued porch railing in place and interior stairs were given a coat of paint and reglued in place (not shown).

Customer was happy to have the childhood dollhouse swinging parts back in working order.  Addition panel was put on a new hinge and the porch door was reglued together and fit back on to the hinge.



Porch door opens and closes again!



I was happy that there were no issues with the job: hinges went on without a hitch!  Riding on a wave of euphoria over my hinge success, I decided to tackle a personal project I have been avoiding for 10 years: my Leaky Cauldron/Diagon Alley! It is now up out of the basement and ready to be completed!

Back!

So my sister is married! Yay!
Now it is time to focus on work again . . .
Customer brought in her childhood dollhouse that needs some minor repairs: fix porch access door, repair molding above front door and re-glue porch railings back on, and reattach front dollhouse piece which was on hinges but fell off. So two separate hinge issues (smaller porch door and large dollhouse panel). Not gonna be fun as hinges are my nemesis!