When my Van Buren arrived and I opened the box, it didn't take long to realize that it was missing the instructions. I panicked! The only other person I knew of who had done this house was Linda. I quickly wrote her and although she didn't have the instructions at the time she was willing to put up her photos so I was able to have some idea where to begin. Btw, thanks so much, Linda.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with this house, still don't but I'm plodding along. One thing I wanted was to leave out some walls, add a curved staircase and change the second floor stairs as well. So this is what I've come up with. This is the staircase I chose and I printed the runner onto fabric and used my ceiling paper for the underside.

The shell is together and I've put the staircase in its place (not permanently yet) just to see if that's exactly what I want.

Now onto the wiring. I know it isn't the proper way to wire a dollhouse but for me it's definitely the easiest. I used one continual spool of tapewire as I had done with the Jefferson but since I would be requiring more lights than I had anticipated, a second roll of tape wire was needed. Keep in mind, throughout this dollhouse there is only ONE spot where they are joined. :angry: If I don't have to use those tiny brads, all the better.

A while ago I had made the flooring. I did the usual with the coffee stirrers and did some darker for the inset design. Sanded and polished until I was sick of doing that and then urethaned them and glued them in place. I can't believe I had forgotten to take pictures of them before I installed them so I have a few pictures showing the wiring as well as the flooring.

Shopping at Home Depot, I picked up some of those vinyl tiles for the kitchen that everyone is doing so beautifully and try my hand at it. It didn't take very long at all and I was surprised at the ease the top lifted up when it was cut. I enjoyed doing that very much. Now I'm not sure if I will keep it or go with the wood flooring. But now I have a choice.

I needed to decide what I was going to do with the outside of the house. I'm going to go with siding. That's my most favorite of all things to do when building dollhouses. Off I went shopping for supplies online and picked out my roofing material and my siding. Yesterday I picked out my paint and decided on a delft-like blue color with white trim. At first, I thought why blue, I had already done the Beacon Hill blue with white trim but justified it by telling myself it was a different color blue.

There was a piece of wood about an inch or so high that ran along the floor of the attic, I cut that off. Now I have a bit more floor room.

All of the baseboards and other wood trim will be stained in Red Oak as the stairs are.

Today, since I couldn't work on the outside of this house, I decided to do some little things to the inside. So I put up all the ceiling papers.

Oh, if this picture looks strange, it's only because it's actually upside down.

In the attic, there is this little room that I can envision tons of clothes hanging on two racks on each side of the room. I'm going to have to get busy and make some dresses on hangers. Thanks to Melissa for teaching us.

Now I've done the attic stairs. I'm going to leave off the back to them so you can see through and get more of a view of the room.

It's time to pick out some wallpapers, which I'm looking forward to and once the wallpapering is done, then I can attach the staircases permanently. These are the last of todays work.