The Preliminaries

Now that I've gotten the box put together and test fit the furnishings, it's time to get started for real.

I'll be using scrapbooking paper to cover the walls, so I don't know how much the dark (and, more importantly, differently-colored) plywood walls might show through. Therefore, I've slapped a coat of white paint on all the walls.

As you can see, the paint didn't take to the plywood evenly, although it did do a bit better than I expected (yay, Ceramcoat!). I'll need to put at least one more coat on it before I start papering. I made a bit of a mess on the floor but that's fine, since I have separate flooring to install. I like the color of the plywood; the stain I'm going to use on the floor should make it about that color.

I've also been busy painting the window and door so that I can pop them right into place once the paper's up.

Onward and Upward

So now that the 2010 show is done and over, it's time to start thinking about next year's show.

Next year's club project is a scene inside of a wreath. I've decided to use a papier mache hatbox and a grapevine wreath, and I've actually started to do a sketch or two. That's for later, though, as I'm still in the very early planning stages and am not entirely certain how to proceed. I do know that stucco, "wrought iron" and lots of miniature plants will be involved. Gotta get rid of all that leftover dimensional paint, lol.

The other project, which is already in progress, is a room box that I'm turning into a bakery/gift shop. I need to start now because I plan to make all the food myself (yes, I shall be plumbing the depths of FIMO hell; pray for me).

Fun Part the First was putting the stupid room box together. First off, there was the hole issue. The kit came with pre-cut door and window openings, which was great! The window I'd bought didn't quite fit the opening, but a little grinding with my handy-dandy Dremel sorted things out. However, the door was a HUGE problem; the opening was only slightly too narrow for the door I had (grind, grind, grind), but it was nowhere near tall enough.

Really? REALLY? Okay, doors do come in a variety of widths, but the height is pretty much standard. This door opening was a full 1/4" too short. I love my Dremel; I'm not going to make it do that much grinding. I unpacked the jigsaw I got on sale about a month ago, but had no way to hold the piece stable enough to use it (and frankly, I'm kinda scared of that thing; I think I'm going to give it to my cousin or something). The plywood was too hard to cut with my X-Acto knives. I finally wound up using my Dremel to drill a series of pilot holes into the panel and then followed up with some elbow grease and a hacksaw.

Also, the kit contained no helpful tabs, slots and grooves and the box is too big to fit inside my 10"x10" gluing jig, so getting it glued together with corners that are somewhere in the vicinity of "square" was something of a challenge. I wound up assembling it in the master bathroom, using the counter and the backsplash for support and holding it together with about a half a roll of masking tape. Voila!

I went to my favorite mini supplier and was talking to them about the project. One of them pointed out that if I'm planning to display it, I needed to light it. She's right; there was an exhibit at the show that was unlit and it was rather difficult to see inside. But I didn't want to deal with wiring because the box's final destination will be a shelf in my office/hobby room and I don't want to go through all that trouble for nothing. I figured an LED spotlight would be a good compromise.

Well, I popped into Lowe's and found a battery-operated light bar with 3 LED elements. It attaches with either sticky tape or Velcro and is less than 1.5" deep, so I'm going to slap it up on the the underside of the box top and either fashion a bit of a drop ceiling, or just glue an extra bit of trim on the front of the box.

Next step, finding a nice wallpaper. I'm planning to put posters of baked goods on the walls, so it'll need to be something subtle. Guess I'm going to be hitting the scrapbook paper section of Joann's tomorrow.

Happy Easter, everyone!

And so it begins...

I ordered my Newport from miniatures.com on Sept. 15th. I figured it would take 4-6 weeks for delivery, which would be perfect since I planned to start work in November. Real Good Toys, however, is a very prompt order filler and when I got home from work on Friday, UPS had left a notice on my door.

Oh.

I called them up and made arrangements to pick the house up at the service center. They told me that was fine, and then followed up by trying to deliver it again. Sigh. I called them again and managed to convince them that I was absolutely sincere in my desire to not have the house delivered to me, as I would not be home. I picked it up two days later. The very nice guy behind the counter carried it out to the car for me, as this house weighs at least 60 lbs.

I am trying to stick to my resolve to not start the house until November but, hey... a little prep work never hurt, right? I drove out to the local (23 miles away) dollhouse emporium yesterday and spent an hour or so talking to the very friendly and extremely helpful ladies who worked there. It's nice to have a real dollhouse store a reasonable distance away; what little the area craft stores have to offer are things that are intended for play... i.e. cheap, poorly-constructed and deeply unattractive stuff meant to be banged around by kids. Also, there's no one there who really knows the hobby and can help and support you. I left with some glue, a short-handled brass hammer, a parlor stove and a lot of very useful advice.

I think I'm going to like this. No, I think I'm going to love it.