May 2015: I started the Arthur as part of a Greenleaf community build in 2005, and at the time we blogged our progress on the Greenleaf forum. After a few site upgrades the old community blog has become hard to link to and I’m redoing my website anyway, so I decided to move those posts over here and backdate them. Sorry for any weirdness that results!

I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who loves starting a project and hates to finish it. That’s become the problem with the Arthur. I really haven’t done anything on it since my last blog entry… and I’m embarrassed to check and see how long ago that was.

Well, I gave myself an ultimatum… I can NOT start on the Westville until the Arthur is finished. The Westville will be for me and I’m brimming with ideas for it… and, just by virtue of it being a new project, it feels a whole lot more exciting right now than slapping the rest of the shingles on my Arthur and painting more trim. But tonight I bit the bullet and got the bulk of the remaining work done.

About a week ago I glued the back roof onto the Arthur. Let me back up a bit though… a few weeks ago (after my last blog entry) I had another tantrum, akin to the siding incident from earlier in this project. This time it was with the wallpaper. I was just having a terrible time with it. I loved the colors I’d picked out but the scrapbook paper was too stiff to get it onto the irregularly-shaped ceiling easily. Plus, I’m apparently the only person in the universe who doesn’t like Yes glue. Even when I was super careful, I wound up with glue on my wallpaper. And it showed… badly.

Finally, after spending several hours futzing with the wallpaper and getting more and more frustrated, I stopped myself. Why was I spending all this time decorating a house I’m not planning to keep? The new owner will have her own ideas for how it should look, anyway… I know if it were me receiving the dollhouse I’d be thrilled to have the outside finished but would want to put my own touches on the inside. So, I ripped all the paper out.

That may be one reason I haven’t blogged lately… the inside of the Arthur looks really ugly and… well… plain, now. But I am trying to ignore that and focus on the outside. I am not planning to give the house away immediately, so I can always change my mind about this (and very well may!) But for now, it was holding me up!

Anyway, here’s the house with its back roof glued on.

It took me about 3 hours to do the shingles, but I’m SO glad to have them done. I was surprised by how few shingles I had left when I finished… only about 3/4 of a sheet. I expected to have a lot more since I didn’t do the porch roof. I might have run out if I had.

And I put one more coat of paint on a few of my trim pieces. Calamari only used one set of the trim that goes under the peak of the roof on either side of the house, and graciously sent me the extra when I asked. I am planning to use this on the front of the house, instead of the longer (more gingerbready) trim that’s supposed to be used. I’m also leaving off the trim from the peak of the roof. My roof doesn’t meet perfectly at the peak, so I’m going to have to get some corner trim from the mini shop to cover up the gap.

You can see the porch fence is getting a little more paint… I have not found a good way to secure it to the porch and it keeps coming off. I wanted to try sticking a mini nail up through the porch and into the post, but the blocks of wood I used to keep the foundation square when I glued it are in the way. I may just have to settle with glue and the knowledge that the fence is really fragile.

May 2015: I started the Arthur as part of a Greenleaf community build in 2005, and at the time we blogged our progress on the Greenleaf forum. After a few site upgrades the old community blog has become hard to link to and I’m redoing my website anyway, so I decided to move those posts over here and backdate them. Sorry for any weirdness that results!

I am finally getting a chance now to upload the pictures of the work I did on Saturday.

Geoff and I made another trip to the hangar. My main objective for the day was to get the door finished. Doors in die-cut houses are notorious for not fitting right, especially after you’ve painted on the edges. With my Orchid, I must have spent half a day trying to sand down the inside of the doorway to get the door to fit… very frustrating! It didn’t occur to me at the time that I could use the electric sander to sand around the edge of the door instead. Since the sander lives at the hangar, I wanted to get the door assembled so I could sand it to fit in the doorway.

But first I started my day by staining the rest of the shingles. (I had only stained about half of them initially. There isn’t really a well-ventilated place in my house to do it so it’s better to do staining at the hangar.)

(Notice the torn wallpaper inside the house… I had a mishap with Yes glue. Fixing that and finishing the papering is next on my “to do” list.)

Next came the door pieces. Some of the outer layer of wood came off the back of one of the door pieces when I punched it out. It’s not terribly noticeable, but you can see it if you look closely at where the two pieces meet (where the window fits in). I just have to console myself by thinking that most people won’t be staring at the house from an inch away the way I usually do!

Another great reason to visit the hangar — to borrow Geoff’s C clamps!

Continue reading