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!
Build an Arthur in two weeks? Ha, easy! Err, yeah.
I am starting a few days later than everyone else because I had a busy week. My Arthur kit arrived on Tuesday but I wasn’t able to start until today (Saturday). This will be the third die-cut house I have put together (I’m also redoing one I bought already assembled). I have put the others together at my boyfriend’s hangar, where he’s building an airplane, because there’s a lot of space and all his tools are there. But because of the deadline to get this Arthur done, I decided to build it at home. We have a sunroom with a table where I can build, and I have most of the things I need right here at home (or so I thought). The hangar is a 30 minute drive away over a toll bridge, so going out there to get something I need isn’t exactly a good option.
Anyway, at about 10:00 this morning I opened the box and got started. First thing I did was go through all the wood pieces and check them off on the schematic. The numbering was a little confusing on some of them. 9A is labeled on the schematic and not on the wood, and 11A is labeled on the wood but called “second floor” on the schematic. Also I’m confused about “Sheet #1-3”. I have one sheet that matches up with this (with trim on it) and it doesn’t have a number. There is a separate sheet #2. Does this mean I’m supposed to have another sheet of trim, and this would be sheet #3? (And why isn’t it called sheet #2?!) If so, I guess I’m missing a sheet. This happened with my Fairfield kit and Greenleaf was very good about replacing it promptly.
Now, on to the building! I see the first step is preparing the window trim… I’m skipping right over that one. :p When I built my first die-cut house (an Orchid by Corona Concepts) I followed the directions to the letter, including putting the trim on early. I learned it’s better to keep the trim until the end, though, because it’s much easier to wallpaper and paint before the trim goes up. In the past I have painted and papered before assembly, but I find it’s much easier to do this afterwards. When the house goes together there are often cracks at the corners that need to be sealed, and if the walls are already papered these cracks are going to show. Also if you paint first, the pieces don’t always fit together as well because the paint makes the tabs thicker and mucks up the insides of the slots. So with the Arthur, I will be assembling first and decorating later.
The first thing I did, though, was stain the first floor. I might wind up covering it instead, but it looks nice stained and it’s easiest to do this first before any glue gets on it (stain won’t go on over glue). I am not going to put the stairs in this house. I used to be a real stickler for stairs in dollhouses (how else can the little people get to the second floor?!) but the Arthur is pretty small and the stairs take up a lot of precious space in what will be the living room. So, I’m not going to punch the stair hole out of the second floor.
Continue reading
Emily is a freelance writer, miniaturist, and adventure game enthusiast.
