Half scale dollhouses often need to be decorated as they’re built, or else you end up with spaces where it’s too hard to reach your hands in. I give you Exhibit A: the Victorianna’s upstairs hallway.

Because of how I’m bashing the house, this is a long skinny hallway that takes up the whole luan plywood half of the house and extends into the birch plywood half. The space is 2″ wide and about 9″ deep. The wall on the right is part of the structure, but I put off adding the one on the left until after I’d finished the hardwood floors and wallpapered the right wall.

Next I glued in the wardrobe that’s forming part of the left wall, and the wall itself. The ceiling isn’t glued in, it’s just there to hold them in place while the glue dries.

Here’s the hallway with both walls glued in. It’s starting to be a tight squeeze!

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Moving on to the second half of the Victorianna, here’s the back side of the part I built first, ready to get the back wall glued on.

The back wall was a bit warped so I used lots of clamps. I had previously glued together the back walls from the two Victorianna kits, so this piece is double thickness. I had to be careful not to get too much glue in the slots that would dry into glops and interfere with the tabs for the remaining walls and floors.

Here’s the half I’ve been working on, with the back attached.

Before gluing in walls and floors on the other side, I added a piece of wallpaper to the living room wall that wraps around above the fake closet door. I wanted to deal with this before the other walls were glued in, so I wouldn’t have to reach my hands in.

The wall the closet door is on isn’t quite flush with the walls perpendicular to it. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be this way but by the time I realized it, it was kind of too late to fix. I added a piece of basswood to add enough depth for the crown molding to attach. Then I cut and painted the crown, but didn’t glue it on yet since the ceiling paper from the other side of the house will overlap here.

Next I glued in the walls and first and second floor. During gluing I put the third floor in for stability, but didn’t glue it yet to make wallpapering the hallway and bedrooms easier.

Ta da – a double-wide house!

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