Tag: Spanish Revival Artist’s Cottage

While I was working on the Artist’s Cottage sleeping loft, I came across a MiniEtchers microwave kit that I’d put aside for the cottage years ago. The MiniEtchers site isn’t taking new orders right now, but you can see the microwave kit here. I can’t remember when I bought this kit, but it must have […]

The last time I posted about the Spanish Revival Artist’s Cottage, in September 2016, my post ended with “the only thing left to do is the sleeping loft.” That was a true statement! I just didn’t intend for it to take five years. I bought this one-room 1:24 scale cottage as a $2 gatorboard shell […]

With the Artist’s Cottage addition assembled, it was time to stucco the outside. For years I have been using watered down Elmer’s wood filler as dollhouse stucco (here it is on the Rosedale, and on the Artist’s Cottage itself). I recently ran out of wood filler and when I went to buy more, Home Depot […]

In between rounds of stucco and paint on the Artist’s Cottage addition I finished the window and door trim. I almost didn’t add any trim to these — I liked the simplicity of the stained frames sticking in through the stucco. But some of the holes weren’t cut straight (for example, the top and right […]

Last week I bought this gorgeous Braxton Payne fireplace on eBay. It’s a limited edition from a 2007 convention in Fresno and the auction said it was half scale. I love Braxon’s fireplaces and own a few — including the Southwestern beehive fireplace in my quirky Spanish Revival artist’s cottage — but I’d never seen […]

In one week (gasp!) I will be moving back to San Francisco and leaving the suburbs behind. The past six weeks have been busy with packing and de-cluttering and moving things to the (considerably smaller) new house, including everything that once lived in my beloved dollhouse workshop. The new house doesn’t have a dedicated dollhouse […]

I have been working on the gatorboard house’s barrel tile roof for two weeks, which is about one week and five days longer than I thought it would take. It hasn’t exactly been fun. I started by painting the tile sheets with gesso, thinking this would help the paint stick to the styrene. These are […]

Following the not-so-great roof experience, I made a chimney for the Artist’s Cottage and it turned out pretty well. I feel like I’ve redeemed myself. :)

The reason for the chimney is that the Braxton Payne fireplace I bought extends past the roof line. Originally I thought about cutting the top of the fireplace down, but decided that cutting a hole in the roof and enclosing the visible top part with a chimney would be less likely to result in disaster. (Not to mention more realistic!)

I recently added email alerts to the blog. If you want to get a brief, non-spammy email when I post a new blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. I knew when I bought the scratch built gatorboard house sans roof that figuring out the roof would be the most complicated part of the […]

In the Artist’s Cottage, I’m planning to use a funky kitchen set I got at last year’s CHAMPS show for cheap (along with an Acme fridge). This kitchen lacks an oven, but in keeping with the funky “off the grid” vibe I don’t have a problem with that. I’ll add a microwave and a grill […]

Last summer I bought this scratch built half scale house shell at a mini flea market for $2. I’m trying to finish off some smaller projects before I dig in on the Little Belle, so after a year of it sitting on the shelf I pulled it out this week. The woman who sold it […]