Working my way through the Tomy Smaller Homes revamp, the next room I tackled was the kitchen. I bought the kitchen furniture second-hand off eBay and it was kind of grimy, so I started by washing the pieces with soap and water and putting them out in the sun to dry. I had thought about […]
Category: Dollhouses (Page 14 of 27)
I just put together the second half of the Victorianna and have to do something with myself while the glue dries, so here are pictures I never posted of the practically finished bathroom. The tub, toilet, and laundry basket are 3D printed pieces from Shapeways. I scratch built the linen closet, vanity, and plantation-style louvered […]
After a brief hiatus I’m back at work on the Victorianna. The last big thing to do before attaching the back wall is finish the second story staircase and nearby trim. I started by gluing on the third floor. Then I glued in the staircase, with the top step butting up to the underside of […]
It’s been years since I did anything with the Fairfield. It sits on a table at the top of the stairs and I stop and look at it now and then, but besides adding new accessories on occasion, it doesn’t change much. I (more or less) finished the Fairfield in 2010, and all this time, […]
Continuing with the Tomy dollhouse renovation, the first room I put back together was the living room, starting with the wrinkled wallpaper. Third time’s a charm? First I removed the offending wallpaper. The glue had dried by this point but I got the remnants off with Goo Gone and a razor blade, like before. The […]
When Geoff and I cleaned up the base of the Tomy dollhouse, we pulled up the grass. I didn’t want to but it was getting ratty, and he wanted to hose off the whole base after scraping off all the old flooring paper, so the grass had to go. Just like sprucing up a real […]
Last summer I discovered a mouse had been squatting in my Tomy Smaller Homes dollhouse. I didn’t catch it in action (thankfully!), but my first clue was the chewed-up rug. Then I noticed this suspicious stain. Mouse pee? It seems too symmetrical for that, but this is right against a seam where two carpet pieces […]
I completed not one, but two half scale shower surrounds today — one for the Victorianna and one for the long-dormant Queen Anne Rowhouse. (Besides shingles, the bathroom is the last big thing I need to finish in the Rowhouse…) For reference, here’s what I started with in the Victorianna: And in the Rowhouse: I […]
Once the laundry closet was glued in, finishing the Victorianna’s bathroom wasn’t something I needed to do before gluing on the back wall, but once I got started on it I didn’t want to stop. I tend to save bathrooms for last — in fact, the Rowhouse’s has been sitting unfinished for two years, and […]
Continuing with the Victorianna bathroom: I made a false wall to enclose the tub, so it can be a tub/shower combo. I glued some basswood scraps together to make it the right width. My initial thought had been to add a second layer of basswood with a recessed shelf for shampoo etc, but I realized […]
Feeling like the 3D printed sink I bought for the Victorianna is too small, I decided to build a vanity instead. This was one of those projects where I did no advance planning and made it up as I went along. I started by building a cabinet out of scrap wood. The front and back […]
Because the Victorianna is fairly deep, I’m adding a closet to the bathroom so the room won’t be quite so massive. A couple of months ago I made a set of louvered closet doors using a 1:24 French door and a pair of 1:12 shutters. I’m getting close to gluing in the third floor and […]
This is a long post. If floors bore you but you’re dying to see appliances and accessorized kitchens, scroll down! Pleased with how well my micro veneer floors turned out, I decided to try a variation in the Victorianna’s kitchen using a blue/gray color of veneer that doesn’t really look like natural wood. I thought […]
I’m still working on parts of the Victorianna that will be inaccessible once the back goes on. This week’s project: the fireplace and the wall that encloses it. I love closets in dollhouses and wanted to create one under the stairs, but it would be nearly impossible to access once the house is put together. […]
I decided to “save myself some work” by using Houseworks staircases in the Victorianna, instead of building the kit stairs. I don’t know if it really saved me any work, but the first floor stairs are finally finished and they look good! I started by gluing strip wood to the side of the staircase, to […]
I’m almost done with the Victorianna stairs (the first floor, anyway) but here’s a quick post in the meantime. Besides finishing the stairs, another task that needs to get done on the Victorianna before I can move forward with assembly is laying down the hardwood floors in areas that will be inaccessible once the back […]
If I’m moving at a snail’s pace with the back-to-back Victorianna, it’s only because this house requires so much thinking! Once it’s put together, some spaces (like the staircase) are inaccessible, so I have to do everything I want to do there before I put the back on. But, some spaces (like the hallways that […]
Before I can start assembling the back-to-back Victorianna, I had to figure out where I wanted to cut holes for additional windows, hallways, etc. I scrutinized the dry fit from every angle and drew in the holes I wanted. The first one I tackled is the first floor passthrough from one side of the house […]
I’ve been messing around with my Victorianna dry fit to figure out where holes need to be cut before I start gluing anything. While doing this I discovered that the Victorianna is twice as deep as its 1:12 cousin, the McKinley. (Actually, it’s roughly the same depth, but since the Victorianna is half scale, the […]
Eons ago, I saw this picture in a Nutshell News from the 80s or 90s, of two McKinley dollhouses built back to back.* It always stuck with me as a really cool bash and I wanted to try it, but with the Victorianna — the half scale version of the McKinley, which has been out […]
Emily is a freelance writer, miniaturist, and adventure game enthusiast.
If you have comments about this site or would like to get in touch regarding a freelance opportunity, please write to hello -at- emilymorganti.com.
