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About this blog

Six different views on building the Westville Dollhouse

Entries in this blog

The Westville Dollhouse Kit Construction Blog

The Westville Dollhouse Kit is a country favorite around Greenleaf. You will find this blog useful for tips a decorating ideas as build your Westville Dollhouse. The Best way to navigate this blog is to select a members name from the category are to the left. That will sort all the blog entries so that you will be looking at one persons progress as the move through their construction of the Westville Dollhouse. Please Keep in mind that blogs are in reverse chronological order, so you we re

Mini Man

Mini Man

Final Pictures

I am so in love with this house! My customer is a Dream. She is so easy to please and she has been so kind the entire ride. I posted pictures every night and she always told me how much she likes it. I was so worried at first about if I would be finished in time and would she like.....Well as of today, she still has not seen the completed pictures but I found out that this is a gift from her AND her sisters! This will be a gift for there mother's 80th Birthday and they promised to send me pi

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

The last Day

Today, I woke up with butterflies in my stomach! I can't beleive this house is almost completed! I have to add clay to the base, flowers, and grass & trees and have it done TODAY!! :angry: I am so worried about accomplishing this. This house MUST ship Monday which means it has to be at the Pack N Mail place Tomorrow! Well I started with the grass lawn and added it in some places. I then added paper clay because it takes a while to dry. I sculpted stone in the back foundation and fed t

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day 11 The finishing touch & Base started

Well today is a challenge! I still have the base to do. She want it to have the appearance of a lawn and I am thinking a a good way to create this effect using paper clay. Mean while, I did touch up paint, checked all lights again and stained the shingles! I have to have this house at the Pack N Mail place on Friday! I could sit and stare in the house all night! Lights make the house look so real! I even started playing with my dolls just to see what it would look like with "

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day 10 Calling All Shingles

I added all of the shingles today and added clay to the foundation of the house (Three sides) I fed all of the wires to the bottom of the house so that a Power strip could be used OR you could add a strip of tape wire and solder the hardwire to the tape wire (I will show this on my next house). This house I used a power strip because of the time constraints :angry: I am loving it though! I also added the Chimney! Complements of Minis on the edge

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day eight & nine and I have a Owie!

My hobby knief decided to bite me hard today on my right thumb!!! Sheesh, why does these things happen when I cannot afford a delay? :angry: I also spent a while the other day in the doctors office with Rachel because she has strep throat again! The doctor treated me for it too so we are both on meds . Moving right along anyway, I took a day off and waited a day to start working back on the house. I added window seats, the stair rail and more trim (to make the wallpapered rooms look more m

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day 7 fireplace done!

Well today I painted the fireplace and I also added burning embers to it so that there will be a nice warm glow! To see how I do this, click HERE to see my other technique on doing this click HERE. Here is one of it lit up I also added the roof parts today! I am a little busy bee I don't like the gaps showing up in between the roof line and the siding. Though it is glued down correctly, it just don't look clean :angry: I can't have that! So I added some wood strips. Yo

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day 6 Houston, we have a problem

Well, I talked to my customer on the phone and she did not picture the trim to be Hunter green around the windows. She wants it white. I am so worried because too many coats of paint can make an item look sloppy and because the green IS dark, I will have multiple layers on painted to prime and cover the dark color . She only wants the shutters Hunter Green :angry: Well, I guess I missed that detail so today I started doing that. I also decided to add the shutters to the house (Thats right

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day 5 So much to do, so little time!

Well, I cme up with an idea for those boring bays!! I took out my spackle and found my brass stencils and decided to add some details to the rectangles that are in the bays. I also started painting the house. As I started doing this, I decided that the Bays were still too plain and I decided to add some wood rope trim to the top parts of the house. Complements of Minis on the edge

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day Four

The bays are looking a bit too plain to me! I keep looking at thhis house and trying to figure out what I want to do with it. My customer does not want paper clay on the bay :angry: . I gotta put on my OTHER creative hat to figure out something. Meanwhile, I decided to add all of tthe siding on the house now. It is easier to do this now instead of waiting till the roof is on. I also tape down all of the lose wires now and cover them with siding. Complements of Minis on the edge

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day 3

Today I added the window sills & Trim to this beautiful house. I love the style of this house! This was all l did today. It seems like just a little bit but you gotta remember that each one had to be punched out and sanded then painted :angry: Will I be finished in time? I also decided to add the siding to the porch so that I could add the door trim. I had a problem with the window & siding. I did not like how it was butting up and decided I have to do more cutting tahn I

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day 2

Today I selected the wall paper. My customer says her mother has flower wallpaper. She has blue flowers in one, forest green and she also has a yellow colored wallpaper in here house. So I looked through my big stash and came up with these I add my wallpaper as I build. To me this is the easiest way and the neatest way to add the wallpaper. I sure wish Linda lived closer to me! I added the bay windows today too and there sure are a lot of gaps here. I took out my handy dandy spackle

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Day One

I received a order for a Beacon Hill on September 18th. The house is to be for my customers Mother who was brought up during the Depression and always wanted a dollhouse. This will be a surprise gift for her. My customer needed the house completed and delivered by October 6th. Could I do it. Well I said of Course I can :angry: . But after finding out the size of of her mother's house, she decided that she wanted me to build the Westville house instead. And then the fun began!! I ran downstai

Minis On The Edge

Minis On The Edge

Addendum: 10/13/05

I decided to take interior pictures for my friend to get some ideas for finishing the house. Because of the privacy wall I had to figure a different treatment for the balustrade. Then I decided to "lend" some little people & furnishings for The Tour: In the kitchen we have the family daughter at the utility closet door. The white wire table & chairs are from a $ store, the teapot is off the top of a spoon I found at Wal Mart, the basket of apples is a mini "housewa

Guest

Guest

11.) A bit further along

I would like to blame the slow progress on my weird life, but … some of the problem is due to being overly ambitious in what I wanted to do here and underestimating the amount of work involved. Well, what else is new, Judith?Progress since the last posting.-- The porch and balcony flooring is down and stained. The balcony railings are glued into position (this took more time than I thought it would). I still need to ‘gussy’ them up a bit. The porch just has two square columns supporting the balc

Guest

Guest

Finished

I have actually been "finished" with the Westville for more than a week, but I have been waiting for some good natural daylight to photograph it. That hasn't happened yet, so I went ahead and photographed it today. Unfortunately, the actual colors of the house are not showing up because of the lack of sunlight, so I will re-photograph it at another date, perhaps when I do the actual "tour" of the house, since this is one that I will keep.I still have some exterior and interior trim to put on (as

Guest

Guest

October 3, 2005

I completed construction of the kit yesterday, but today I finished the last item of decoration, the stove. I marked on the back piece where the oven box would go and glued on the sides. When they were dry I painted the back between the sides & the adjacent sides ultramarine blue. I mixed black with the ultramarine and painted the rest of the foamboard stove parts with it. I had cut down some of the half-shingles to make a top and glued them to the back, and just below it I glued a

Guest

Guest

October 2, 2005

I finished the roof with a last row of half-shingles at the apex. Once everything was good & dry I pounced a gray wash over the chimney bricks followed by swiping a damp wad of tissue over them. I mixed the gray ten parts white to one part gray and diluted it 300% with water. After I did the chimney I added a miniscule touch of ultramarine blue and cut the wash with another hefty bit of water and washed the shingles with it. It gives a silvery gray overlay of the cherry stain, which help

Guest

Guest

October 1, 2005

I have been shingling today. All that cherry stain is overwhelming, I shall have to calm it down with a gray wash & some sponging, which I'll do along with the chimney. Speaking of the chimney, I went back & popped off the shingles covering where the chimney went and installed it. The shingling is going so smoothly on this house I got into a "zone" <_< I cut out a piece of foamboard for the stove back and used some of the scrap ends of shingles for the top trim. I'

Guest

Guest

SEptember 30, 2005

I had to perform a partial amputation on the verge over the porch balcony, it wouldn't fit like in the picture.This morning I bricked the chimney. It needs drybrushing, which I'll do later.I stained the scalloped shingles with the cherry stain & laid down a course of them, and so far I really like the color. Something I'm trying different this time is to run a strip of aluminum foil "flashing" down the roof seam under the shingles.I also rehung the front bay shingles nearest the porch, the

Guest

Guest

Day 26 09-28-05

Today I've been working on painting the shutters. As I mentioned elsewhere, I really like the design of the shutters. I am using a combination of colors, and I have used the teal for the outside colors, and an olive-ish green for the interior colors.I'm also just about ready to install the interior window trim, so I went ahead and put the window panes into the interior window trim. Of course, I did it backwards, LOL! But that's OK. Compliments of LPCullen

Guest

Guest

Day 25 09-27-05

Well, I'm still doing trim. I want to put most of the shutters on the house, except for the bay windows--I plan to leave them off there. Jimmy has taken them out, and I have sanded their edges and gotten my standard coat of "primer" on them.Jimmy has also taken out some of the balcony railings for me, and I have sanded those as well. Now, for the porch railings, I wanted to have that mostly put together before I painted it. So, Jimmy took out all my pieces and I sanded them down and he then glue

Guest

Guest

September 29, 2005

I installed the "faucet" & "taps" on the bathtub first thing. Then I dry-fit the roof and newspapered the attic portion. I also painted the bathroom portion over the left wall, but painted the corner where the other side of the left attic roof joins the front of the roof over the porch in situ . I'm going to leave the bedroom portion white & call it part of the ceiling. I assembled & painted the chimney, and will begin to brick it later. I cut down the Gill

Guest

Guest

September 28, 2005

Today I finished the interior trim. The red trim really looks good in the kitchen and the bedroom colors seem to go together. The bathroom is sort of monochromatic, but once I get the fixtures in there it may look better. I have one more complaint about the assembly. If, when I was originally building & installing the stairs I had known how the banister posts/ newels went I would have done them first thing in case there were cosmetic problems that could be corrected with spackle/ wood put

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