I am, in fact, not dead

Life has gotten quite a bit less... interesting, so I have finally been able to return my focus to my hobby. I did not, in fact, enter the HBS contest this year, although I did buy the kit. And since my local mini club is having a show in the spring, I've set my sights on that instead... and have actually gotten some work done!

The base of this project is Houseworks' Garden Party Gazebo, which looks like this out of the box:

When I unpacked the gazebo, I was pleased. I loved the pre-assembled roof and the eight graceful columns, all of which are made of solid wood. However, I was less impressed with the platform, which is made of MDF. Clearly, I would need flooring.

My idea was to create an elegant outdoor room in a somewhat weather-beaten structure; this required a wooden slat floor. The smart thing to do would have been to buy some store-bought flooring, then stain and sand it to create a distressed look. Me, I'm more of an idiot, so I bought several pieces of 1/32" basswood and proceeded to cut individual floorboards with an X-Acto knife, carving out the post holes as I glued the planks down. Not the most fun thing ever, but I liked how it turned out.

The next step was to stain the floor. Since I was planning to rough it up anyway, I didn't bother with silly things like reading directions; I just grabbed a can of MinWax and a foam brush and started slopping stain. The resulting train-wreck was actually the look I was going for, so I added a layer of varnish to it and called it a day.

I gave the roof a similar treatment. It didn't turn out quite as badly as the platform, but it was close enough.

That left me with a minor problem: what to do with the columns. I felt that staining them might be overkill (or at least show a distinct lack of creativity). Marble would be too fancy, paint would be too... meh. Brick? I already had plans involving brick, so I didn't want brick on the gazebo, too.

Lucky for me, there's DecoArt.

DecoArt makes a wide variety of craft paints, including a line of textured paints. The "Terra Cotta" paint, applied with a palette knife, results in a very nice stucco texture. Once they dried, I stained and varnished the bases, then antiqued the columns themselves using a bit of brown acrylic paint mixed with antiquing medium. And here's the finished product, all glued together except for the roof.

More to follow (soon, this time!)...

OMG... It's an update!

These are my two latest acquisitions, which will be used in this year's HBS Creatin' Contest. I completely lucked out on the tea set, as it's not listed on the store's website and was the very last one they had in the actual shop. The tea set is sitting on the $4 Pier 1 napkin I intend to use to upholster a sofa.

After the contest deadline, I will bombard you with more pictures of this project than you'd ever want to see. In the meantime, I will be updating you with detail shots of various things I make or buy, both for this project and for the house.

An apology to my followers

Life has been... interesting lately. I think about my Newport every day (with a great bit of guilt, I might add), but I simply haven't had the time or energy to get to it yet (not to mention that I haven't yet purchased a worktable sturdy enough to handle its bulk).

So I'm terribly sorry that I haven't had anything to post yet but I will be getting on with things eventually.

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.

First Post

Hello!

I am about to enter the wild, fun and infinitely expensive world of dollhouse ownership. This blog will chronicle that journey.

I have two projects lined up:

• The building/finishing/furnishing of the Real Good Toys house I just bought; the Batrie Newport (with 2-story addition).
• The creation of a couple of fantasy room boxes.

It may seem that I have these projects in the wrong order, but the room boxes will actually be the more difficult as I intend to design and create all the furniture (and as many accessories as possible) myself.

Anyway, this is the start of my newest obsession. Wish me luck!