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Dollhouse Progress & Using Fabric Hinges

I’ve been making more progress than this on the dollhouse, but a lot of that has been spackling, sanding and painting, all of which don’t make for the best of progress pics. I did however finish my first window finally. Because I really don’t like those tiny brass hinges, and I can’t use pins because of the way the house has been constructed, I decided I would try out using fabric hinges. I had read about fabric hinges online while looking for dollhouse related tips while building my last dollhouse, but there wasn’t much in depth information about how to create/use them. Anyway I’ll go ahead and share my experiences here, if anyone else is interested in trying out fabric hinges to see if they work for them. Just keep in mind I’m doing this on a 1:12 scale dollhouse, not playscale, and I’m not sure how it would work with playscale.

Read on behind the cut

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My Little Brownie Arrived! :D

Yay, she’s finally here! Today I made sure to be awake for the postman, and then much to my dismay, she was not delivered! So I carted off to the post office with my pick-up ticket from yesterday, and thankfully she was there. 😀 I didn’t have much time to take pics since I had to run off and get my hair cut, but I did manage to snap off a few box opening pics.

Check out the box opening

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Dollhouse Rehab, Missed Dolly and etc…

So my big news of the day is that the postman attempted to deliver my Brownie today, but sadly nobody was home and I was asleep at the time so my package was taken back to the post office. 🙁 Since my car’s battery is currently dead and charging, I begged my brother to take me to the post office in the late afternoon to see if I could pick it up yet, but sadly our mail carrier was still out on their route and so I couldn’t even pick up my little Brownie. It’s really very frustrating to know that the object you want is so darned close, but you can’t get it yet. XP

I’ve also been feeling a little lackluster today. My stomach is a little crampy, and I’m so very tired since I didn’t sleep well last night. So the progress on my dollhouse was slow. I did get most of the window frames painted though and I’ve begun assembling my first window. I ran into a few “technical difficulties” while planning my casement windows, mainly because of the design of the original window boxes on this thing which disallowed my casements to swing out. Of course I want to keep as much of the original as possible because my grandfather made it, so I had to figure out a way around that and some other problem areas. I think I’m on the right track now, but I can foresee a long slow process ahead of me since I decided to make nearly all of my windows casement windows. I know it will all be worth it in the end, but right now I have those “ugh” feelings about the whole thing. I just hope I don’t run into too many problems with the window sashing next since I’m having to use some very thin pieces of wood on it.

So, I guess my goals for tomorrow will be to complete at least one of my windows, paint the attic white, and since it should be simple, go ahead and get the attic window attached which will be non casement. Well that, and get my doll of course! Going to get to bed earlier tonight so I am sure to be up in time to get her, but I’ve also told my family to keep an eye out too. Hopefully we’ve got this covered!

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Dollhouse Rehab – Day 3

I got all of my spackling and sanding done today, and currently as I type this, the first coat of paint is drying on the exterior of the house. I thought I would share a spackling tool tip though. It is something I kind of took for granted in having being as I am an artist, but the artist palette knives you can get at any art supply are really excellent spackling tools for those hard to reach spaces. You can see my palette knife on the right in the above pic, resting next to the red handled spackling knife. You can get palette knives in varying sizes and they are also inexpensive. I got my palette knife for a couple bucks or less. Of course some art supply stores have better prices than others.

I also decided to start sanding down all of the exterior window trimmings and I wanted to start planning to put them together, which brings me to my next tip. When dealing with custom windows and you have no plans to go by, you can always take a sheet of copy paper, and using a firm back board, hold the paper up to your window hole and trace your window in pencil. This makes a great guide for you to sit at your table and put your windows together. Of course for this house I think I will have to do each window separately seeing as there seems to be subtle differences between each hole my grandfather cut.

You may also notice in the picture that a bit of the old decal is showing through from the bad paint-over I did a long time ago….The yellow color you see is actually how badly the clear part of the decal yellowed, so yeah, it was not a pretty sight. I plan however to at least attempt to re-create those designs using my acrylic paints. We’ll see how that goes. I did manage to find a picture of this dollhouse from the planbook online, so I will use that as my guide for the detailing.

And here is a full progress shot with the dollhouse all taped up and ready to be repainted. I bought a warm beige color from Lowes the other day. I think it will be a tick darker than the last color on there, but when I looked at it in the store it provided nice contrast for both the white and dark brown trim. Well, I can see from here that my paint is dry enough to take a second coat, so I shall be heading off to do that now. I’m note sure what tomorrow’s goal will be, but I imagine it will be window related. 😉

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Dollhouse Rehab, Day 2

The above pic is what one of the window cuts looked like before I reframed it. I think the before and after shots I will show you will convince you to properly frame out your custom windows and doors! Anyway as you can see, the cut is not straight, and there are a couple chips out of the wood on the side.

And here is an exterior shot of the same window all nicely framed out. It is now a beautiful, clean square! Hehe….anyhow I spent today reframing all of the windows like this and then I started spackling and sanding the outside of the house to prep it for paint. I want to make sure everything is as baby bottom smooth as possible so painting will be a breeze, and also so it looks good. I am hoping that I will be able to finish all of the exterior spackling and sanding tommorrow so I can begin laying down a coat of fresh new beige paint. Then I will be able to focus more on the inside and start papering/painting the interior rooms and eventually add some nice interior window trim.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I have a more in depth sorta tutorial on framing out your windows from when I made the 1:6 scale house. You can find it in the dollhouses category. 😉