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

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!

Finally, painting all those little trim pieces is starting to pay off!

I love this phase of building a dollhouse… well, love it and hate it. I hate all the tedious trim painting. But when you start to glue that trim in place and step back to see how pretty everything looks – I wouldn’t trade that feeling for anything!First of all, I finished my porch railings. I’m so glad I decided to “bash” this, even if it’s a small change. I really like the colors, and the newel posts are surprisingly easy to paint (with a tiny brush!)

I glued a newel post to each piece of fencing. When that dried, I glued the fencing together at right angles.I haven’t glued them on to the porch or the side of the house yet, but here they are assembled.

Also, I painted the window trim for the five curved windows, and assembled the windows. (I’d already cut the wallpaper for inside the house and marked where the windows are, and painted the inside of the window frames to match the trim color, so it was safe to glue the windows in now.) I started by gluing the windows to the house. I had to cut them down so the plastic part wouldn’t stick out past the trim (this was especially a problem on the bottom).

This can be hard to do without making a mess. I was careful to wipe any glue that showed off the plastic while it was still wet.

Some of the trim looks a little crooked because the vertical pieces were thinner than the ends of the curved piece. That’s okay, though, because the shutters will be glued on top of the vertical pieces, hiding the crookedness. I have my shutters all painted but there’s one last thing I want to try on them before I glue them in place.I haven’t painted the trim for the rectangular windows yet, or for the interior. With all those little pieces, working in small batches helps me stay sane! (Okay, relatively.)

Oh, I also stained and assembled the porch step. That was so easy. It’s not fair how much faster it is to stain pieces than paint them… I wish stain came in the same colors paint does!

Do you see the “stripe” running across the middle of the house? It’s where the two pieces of the front wall came together. Even with wood filler, it’s obvious. I guess the porch roof is there to cover up that crack! My plan is to cover it with some fancy trim, but the dollhouse store was closed this weekend for the holiday so I haven’t been able to buy any yet. I think it’ll look cute when it’s done. (I love trim for covering up mistakes!) Stay tuned.